Did your parents try to take away your special interests?

[SchrodingersMeerkat]

My mom told me stories she read on the internet or heard from psychologists about how some people with a Asperger's child took away anything to do with a special interest and/or forbade a child to talk about it. If they tried that with me, I would have committed suicide. My mom tried to limit how much time I talked about meerkats or Lion King and that in itself was hurtful. She once even told me she wasn't sorry...possibly making me have a grudge against her for life. But the worst thing she ever did was tell me how I couldn't be a veterinarian because of my dysclaculia. Although my mom never technically took away my special interests, she did try to knock me down about them if she didn't agree with them for some reason.

I was never diagnosed as a child because I went to a **** school with an even shitier special education program. I was diagnosed as an adult, by my own efforts.


Anyway, my mom would tell me I couldn't be a veterinarian because I wasn't good in math. So no, not all autistic people are good at math. I believed my mom and was like this:

And just gave up trying in school. If I couldn't be a veterinarian, then what was the point? Being a veterinary technician/veterinary nurse wasn't the same thing. A lot of people think people who go to school to be veterinary technicians do so because they couldn't get into DVM school. No, most of them just want to be veterinary technicians. Just like how not all nurses aren't failed doctors.

A few years later, I realized my mom had never even tried to go to veterinary school herself so how could she know if the classes in vet school were all math based? I've also talked to several actual vets and ALL of them have said it's mostly science based and if I want to focus on math I should major in engineering. Also, how could my mom wasn't me, so how could she know if something she's personally never tried would be too hard for me? I tried to tell her this but she would just come up with other excuses.

"You're too old!"
Nope. I got this ALL THE TIME from people who just didn't know what they were talking about and were just bullies who wanted to give me a hard time. Just like there is no age limit for college/university, there isn't one for veterinary or medical school. If you have the right university prerequisites and animal experience, your age isn't a limiting factor. I've heard of people in their 60's applying to veterinary school and getting in. Most places even prefer potential students that are in their 30's and 40's over the typical 20 somethings because a 30-40 year old is usually more mature and committed. Pretty much every excuse my mom gave me, I looked into and found out it wasn't true and was actually a pretty stupid excuse too. Anyhow, it sucked to have my biggest critic be my own mother and my biggest ally be myself but that's the way it was. But anyway, I NEVER let my mother take my special interests away from me even if I basically went through Hell for it.

My mom isn't as opposed to me being a vet as much as she used to be, but I think that's because she knows that that she can't stop me.

 

[Bolletje]

They didn't take away my interests, but they encouraged me to branch out and find new interests. Specifically, they told me to find hobbies that involved other people, as i spent all my time in my room and had just one friend. They limited my computer time though. I thought this a horrible injustice at the time, but looking back I can see they just wanted me to succeed in life and have loads of friends.

 

[Bella Pines]

I'm in my 40s and retraining to be a children's book author. It's very competitive. It won't pay the bills and I work during the week so only get a few hours a week to study. So failure and rejection is likely. After which I will learn more and try again. And again. And again. And if it takes me the rest of my life then so be it.

So you're never too old to follow your dreams.

Being a mom myself I would suggest giving her the benefit of the doubt. I've only ever wanted to protect my children and so every time I have discouraged them, it has been for what I see to be their own good. So maybe listen to her concerns and think up alternatives?

 

[SchrodingersMeerkat]

I'm in my 40s and retraining to be a children's book author. It's very competitive. It won't pay the bills and I work during the week so only get a few hours a week to study. So failure and rejection is likely. After which I will learn more and try again. And again. And again. And if it takes me the rest of my life then so be it.

So you're never too old to follow your dreams.

Being a mom myself I would suggest giving her the benefit of the doubt. I've only ever wanted to protect my children and so every time I have discouraged them, it has been for what I see to be their own good. So maybe listen to her concerns and think up alternatives?

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Why was my mom still going at it when she KNEW it was causing such a problem? I even told her if I couldn't be a vet, I wanted to die...and I meant it. All I got was "If you talk like that, I'm taking you the hospital or calling 911." Couldn't she at least let me explore my options of being a vet and help me (maybe find a local animal hospital I could volunteer at. She had connections at a few and most won't let you volunteer unless you have connections.)

 

[Momo]

My parents tried to force special interests upon me, such as cycling, so that I could win them races and fulfil their dreams like I was their race horse or something. In the end all those hours of training and being told I was "gutless" or "not good enough" had the opposite affect. All because they thought my interests were pointless. When I was younger it was physics and classical literature, now they are linguistics, history, martial arts, international politics and so on. I honestly think my interests could be worse...

 

[Ambi]

My parents weren't even aware of my special interests. Even if you ask my surviving parent now, he couldn't tell you anything about me. Only all the ways I've failed in his eyes and all the things he thinks I should be doing instead.

 

[Tyrantus1212]

I remember exhibiting my special interest in construction sites during my childhood by looking out the window at the residential site across the street and then just mimicking everything they did through a model construction site I've made right on the edge of my parents' bed. Oftentimes in the night, they would move their legs and something would fall on the floor and make a loud noise, waking everyone. So one day while I was at school, my mother took all that stuff off the edge of the bed and just set it on the floor next to the bed. When I came home and found out, I just...cried. And screamed. Probably due to my inability to handle sudden changes. It was all still there, but I really wanted it to be ON the bed, not NEXT to it. The model site itself was a mess too, no matter where it was situated. I did get over it later on and just kept on playing with it. My parents still weren't big fans of this mess, but at least it wasn't in the way anymore (there was a lot of room to move around on that floor).

 

[The Penguin]

My parents didn't have concerns any special interest during my childhood.

However, when I was an adult, they had concerns of me having interest in dolls being an adult and male. I didn't have interest in dolls when I was a child with the exception of action figures. Their options mean nothing since I live on my own, have my own job and paying my own rent.

To me, if the person interest is not causing harm to the person body, not causing harm to people or the environment, then the parent should't have much concern. The most stupidest thing a parent makes a fuss because they don't like something.

 

[Suzanne]

No, because she did not care enough; I was just left to my own devices, which, yes, to most children that is a dream, but in fact, it was a nightmare.

My obsession was book reading. I was also obsessed with America and girl guides and so badly wanted to be a brownie, but due to repulsive family life, never got that choice and so, just wore every thing brown and again, the only protest to exist was: too bad, get over it.

I had such huge mixed messages, it has caused me untold misery growing up and as an adult, every day, I discover revelations.

The thing with parents is that children are a reflection of them and so, when strange behavour occurs, the parent, in effect, rebels and tries to remove the article from child and sorry, why should they be sorry, when that was the purpose?

 

[Bolletje]

My obsession was book reading. I was also obsessed with America and girl guides and so badly wanted to be a brownie, but due to repulsive family life, never got that choice and so, just wore every thing brown and again, the only protest to exist was: too bad, get over it.

You wanted to be a brownie? The only two meanings of that word I know are
1. delicious baked goods with chocolate
2. mythical creature of the faerie persuasion

I'm guessing you don't mean either of those, but I could be wrong?

 

[The Penguin]

You wanted to be a brownie? The only two meanings of that word I know are
1. delicious baked goods with chocolate
2. mythical creature of the faerie persuasion

I'm guessing you don't mean either of those, but I could be wrong?

It relating to Girl Guides which is common for USA and Canada.

Brownies

 

[Grandmother B]

I'm in my 40s and retraining to be a children's book author. It's very competitive. It won't pay the bills and I work during the week so only get a few hours a week to study. So failure and rejection is likely. After which I will learn more and try again. And again. And again. And if it takes me the rest of my life then so be it.

So you're never too old to follow your dreams.

Being a mom myself I would suggest giving her the benefit of the doubt. I've only ever wanted to protect my children and so every time I have discouraged them, it has been for what I see to be their own good. So maybe listen to her concerns and think up alternatives?

Amazon has a company where you can publish your own books. It is fairly user friendly and walks you through the process. And it is free. www.createspace.com.

 

[Reedstorm17]

Mine did, mainly bevause orher people weren't interested. So in my book, I wrote about each one and why it ended. It was a long list.

 

[ImAnAspie]

No. My Special Interest was (and still is) Astronomy and my Mum used to support my interest by buying books and magazines about Astronomy. And even though we never had much money, when I was around 10 years old, she even bought me a 4½" reflector telescope. I'm 50 now and still have it.

 

[MWS30]

I had a big obsession with firearms and war for a long time, so of course, as a child my parents tried to steer me in other directions. Freaked out my teachers too.

 

[Kevin L.]

Your mother was emotionally abusive to you.

I get it, I really do.

My mother used to tell me that I chose to have Asperger's...because if I made "being normal" my special interest, then I would be normal. Since I choose not to make"being normal" my special interest...well...that means I choose to have Asperger's.

Speaking from experience, you should cut your loses. The situation is analagous to a homosexual man from a deeply religious family that believes their son "chooses to be gay" because "God doesn't make mistakes" and so forth.

Your parents will try everything to "fix" your autism, as opposed to helping you develop ways to cope with it. I'm not slamming your mother, but trying to fix your special interest tells me that she doesn't accept your autism.

Speaking from experience, this situation can only create long standing bitterness. Try to create financial independence so that you can make a break if you haven't already, and join a support group of people who understand autism so that you can get the emotional validation that you need to keep from doubting yourself.

I hope this was at least a little helpful.

Good luck.

---Kevin L.

 

[Brony714]

When I was a kid, my special interests were KISS and Star Wars, which my mom had no problems with(she even took me to see KISS once)... However, my dad and stepmonster (and no, that's not a typo, I really didn't get along with her at the time) had a problem with it, they took both interests away from me... Of course, this was years before anyone knew what aspergers was... Lucky I wasn't diagnosed as a child, my stepmonster would have convinced my dad the only way to "cure" my aspergers would be to beat it out of me...

 

[Darius]

If mmo amd rpg would be my special interests (not sure how to treat that) then yes, my family tried to stop me from that. Still try to nag me out from this. Having no financial advantage over me (now) doesn't stop this.

 

[oregano]

My mom (and to an extent my dad) tolerated my interests because they figured that they weren't as bad as they could be and that I could be going to parties and getting trashed on liquor like some of the other kids at my high school. My mom would take me to antique stores and she would buy me radios when I was interested in tube radios and she would pay to have them fixed if one blew a capacitor or something because I really had no way of learning electronics since the internet really didn't exist yet. When I was younger my mom would buy me license plates for my collection. I had a whole bunch of plates on the walls of my room. By the time I was in my mid-teens I figured out that I could hide in my closet and read or listen to music when my dad got into one of his rages and by and large he wouldn't try to beat me. He really didn't like that I was a "weird retard" although I did go to school dances in HS and that seems to have blunted some of the "retard" talk that he did when I was in junior high. My mom was just glad that I wasn't addicted to drugs.

 

[Ronin82]

I've been obsessed with martial arts since I was 6 years old and had watched The Karate Kid for the first time. However, my mother wanted me to be a minister and the religious atmosphere I grew up in did not allow any martial arts practice because that was "Eastern Religion, and demonic". When I was 23, I finally got to take martial arts and have not stopped since. What really bothered me, though, is my brother got to take MA long before I did, he's a natural at it, but its because of all the pestering I did that my parents let HIM take martial arts first.

Also had the typical animal obsessions, dogs and horses specifically, but we were poor and dad had bad allergies, so no pets allowed. We finally got a dog about 11 years ago, and now I have 2 dogs!

So yeah, growing up I was NOT encouraged in my real special interests, but had other interests forced on me. Now I'm in my mid-30's and am pursuing my own real interests, but having to deal with the emotional damage from having those interests beat out of me.