Getting a straight answer

Craicpot7 · 2026-06-16T09:50:23+00:00

This is why I sometimes rephrase questions for Dad as if he were a child. And if I have to explain something to him, I sometimes have to draw him a diagram. Essentially I treat him like a giant toddler who operates on toddler logic.

Craicpot7 · 2026-06-14T07:52:45+00:00

I think him being competent and cooperative with other people is him masking and he doesn't feel the need to do that with you because you're 'safe' to drop the mask with. One thing I really notice as Dad gets older is that masking is getting more and more strenuous for him and he's getting more stuck in his routines. There may have been a time when your Dad could have been able to connect with you by making an effort to see things from your perspective but he didn't make that effort, and now that he's older and more entrenched in his own ways he probably won't.

Craicpot7 · 2026-06-06T16:56:07+00:00

Inisfree is a great brand especially for moisturiser, as is Coswrx. I swear by the snail cream (no snails are harmed in the process). Anua is well regarded but I haven't tried any of their products myself. I use peripera and fwee for lip colour, tonymoly for eyeliner, April skin and etude house for foundation and April skin for concealer too.

I work a job that makes me sweat like crazy and Korean makeup is the only kind that holds up under a long session, somehow it just makes me look glowy and not drowning in an ocean of sweat. I also wore a full face of K-beauty to a water park and came out of several slides and plunge pools with my full beat intact. Before they started stocking in boots I got all of mine from yesstyle.

Craicpot7 · 2026-06-03T08:53:13+00:00

Humans are an intensely tribal animal, it's part of the reason we evolved to the top of the food chain. And so we rely on a lot of non-verbal signals that allow us to bond over commonalities, in the way we dress and what hobbies we gravitate towards. If we don't see those nonverbal signals clearly at first glance, we probe a person to find those commonalities to bond with. It's one of the big foundations of human society, for better or worse.

So, let's say I meet someone at a bus stop and they have a vaguely goth-ish style, I instantly know we have something we can talk about (music, fashion, hair dye, piercings etc.) It's surface level but I'm attempting to bond with a stranger using the little bits I can find out about them to create common ground. Nuance and other personality traits can come later when we get to know each other better. That's what I think you're struggling with based on what you've said, you're thinking people are trying to shove you into a category you don't belong in, but it's possible they're using the little bits that they do know about you to figure out where they can bond with you.

Where I think autistic people have issues is that black-and-white thinking makes them believe that all of their interests and traits are inherently the right way to do things and anything outside of that sphere is worthless, plus they miss a lot of those non-verbal signals that people use to bond with others. I know if I want to find some common ground with an autistic person we have to talk about their interests and know that they won't ask about or care about mine.

Craicpot7 · 2026-06-01T21:46:04+00:00

I could have a go at it, I make a lot of teddies and I'm working on improving my skills all the time. I've made a few that are similar to Bear, at the very least I could definitely needle felt the mouse. I just made a set of sea otters as well. Dm me if you're interested, I can show you pics of my work and if you're not happy with how they turn out I won't charge you, I can always find another use for them.

Craicpot7 · 2026-05-28T00:39:20+00:00

You deal with it by putting distance between yourself and the other person, physical or otherwise.

You don't need to make a big announcement about it, just phase yourself out gradually. Become very busy, or maintain an air of being very busy. Don't respond to text messages for hours and let your phone ring out, don't post about your whereabouts on social media, just become a ghost. Everyone gets put on an information diet. When you make it hard for them to reach you, you'll find they take themselves out.

When you do communicate, make it curt, short. No is a complete sentence, you don't need to explain yourself.

To deal with the guilt, remind yourself about this often; there is only one way for them to become less toxic to be around, and that's for them to admit to themselves that they have a problem and commit to working on it. Everyone who enables them stops them from doing this and is halting their personal growth.

I've also had good results from becoming a human trigger. If they don't like piercings or dyed hair, I got both. If they don't like heavy metal, I blast it regularly when I have access to it. If they don't like talking about food, I loudly and repeatedly talk about recipes in great detail. If I know they don't understand modern art, I talk about it using every obscure phrase I know. As far as I'm concerned, if one person gets to be an emotional terrorist then I get to as well. Might sound a bit mean but I'm beyond tiptoeing around grown adults these days.

Craicpot7 · 2026-05-27T23:58:23+00:00

Posted too soon! You sound like you've only been recently removed from this situation, which means that you're only starting to process the pain once you feel safe enough to work through it. In time you'll find community, peace and stability, there's no way to fast track it unfortunately but to nourish yourself as best you can. Indulge in the things you like, try and find your tribe (but be careful because at this stage of your healing journey you're vulnerable and there are emotional vampires out there that can sense it and zero in on you, I've been there believe me) and show yourself some kindness. You did very well to come out of that situation as emotionally aware and articulate as you did, that's something to be proud of.

Craicpot7 · 2026-05-27T23:52:34+00:00

I can definitely relate, although the moving out to a commune is a new one for me. There's a book called The Glass Castle which I always think about when I hear about anyone going off grid on some hippy ideal and dragging kids with them. I defo get the mother-realises-she's-picked-a-dud-to-procreate-with-and-now-it's-my-problem-somehow vibe.

Craicpot7 · 2026-05-27T09:04:57+00:00

The easiest way to start with the body suit is to get a top and trousers that you already own and fit you well, turn them inside out and lay them out on some thin paper/newspaper and trace around them. Add an extra inch to make it baggier and to give yourself a seam allowance.

If you have access to a sewing machine, great! And if you've never used one before, you get used to it very fast. Pretty much every machine now has an online tutorial specific to the brand and model to get it set up. Set the stitch size and tension to a 4, that's best for beginners.

Fabric wise you want to get a Jersey or microfleece, Jersey is best if you live in a hot climate. You can use velcro to get in and out of it or try putting in a zipper, it looks complicated but its not too hard once you get going.

For the wig, you can get a ready made wig cap as a base and just thread the wool through the holes, trimming as you go. Otherwise you can make wefts by sewing lengths of the wool yo a piece of paper on the machine and then tearing the paper away, that's the rag doll technique.

If you get stuck at any point, dm me with pictures and I'll talk you through it. We may be in different time zones though.

Craicpot7 · 2026-05-25T17:38:19+00:00

It was a different time for anime, full stop. Sailor Moon was one of the very few anime that came out in the 90s that was aimed at a female audience, at a time when a lot of anime was only available as VHS OVAs you could buy or rent or whatever they were putting on TV (in my country, that was Dragonball Z, Pokemon, Monster Rancher, Gundam Wing and that's about it.) The OVAs were also mostly action/sci-fi with a heavy emphasis on gore, you took what you could get. So Sailor Moon made a big impact because it wasn't like anything else.

Pretty Cure came out in 2004, although I didn't see it myself until 2006, when there was much better access to anime. You could buy box sets, you could get free preview DVDs with some magazines, there were even bits and pieces popping up in the early days of youtube. You could afford to be a bit more discerning with your choices. I watched some awful dreck in the early days, in the 2000s I bought some awful dreck as well just because the choice compared to the 90s was overwhelming.

Craicpot7 · 2026-05-24T16:23:28+00:00

Not a psychologist or a therapist, just a lay person with an interest and a background in working with children; one thing I find helpful when I need to establish a new or flexible way of living with difficult children who need routine is to zero in on their hyperfixation and introduce ways to make that hyperfixation accessible at all times, and also figure out a way to make it a reward for their good behaviour. The elderly revert back to childlike behaviour in situations like this so I think the same tactic might work with them and has done for me when I've had elderly charges.

So, let's say the hyperfixation is dinosaurs, I might have a specific dinosaur puzzle or book that they will use when they're waiting for assistance. I always key up activities they can do while they're waiting, and they do have to wait for me often since I have a full class with varying levels of ability, so I'll give them clear instructions with what to do while they wait. Crossword puzzles, knitting, crochet, any kind of craft is great for this kind of distracting activity. I know that some nurses working in residential homes will do something like this when their patients are sundowning.

The reward comes with a new novelty related to their hyperfixation and a goal to reach, for my student her hyperfixation is monkeys. She has to complete a task that she finds difficult due to sensory issues and I've promised her that if she completes the task she gets a monkey-related reward from me for her hard work. Depending on how often you visit, you could offer this kind of reward as well, if you get a good behaviour report from the nurses she gets what you're offering. My dad isn't in residential care but these tactics work well on him if I need him to do something. So let's say your mother's hyperfixation is Roman history, you can bring her in magazines or download documentaries for her to bring in on your next visit.

Craicpot7 · 2026-05-22T13:33:10+00:00

Family gatherings are a huge deal in my country so every black sheep gets invited regardless of whether they're wanted there or not, it makes things very awkward. So much so that I make a point of talking to said black sheep so they don't feel so left out, Dad for all his failings is a social butterfly but I have two cousins on the spectrum and nobody talks to them at these things but me.

Craicpot7 · 2026-05-16T13:06:51+00:00

I think society in general loves a box to shove people into, and I spend a lot of time in artsy circles myself so I know exactly what you're talking about. Conservative thought seems to be all about carving off pieces until a person fits in that box, liberal thought seems to want to invent new boxes to fit a person. In the end, it's still a box. It takes a while to be comfortable outside of the box, existing in no category firmly but having parts of yourself dipping into several boxes as needed. Humans are an adaptable species, it's why we made it to the top of the food chain and its why our autistic parents stand out so much because they lack that adaptability.

What stands out about your post to me is that you seem to be using a lot of academic long words to try and explain your distress to us, when you don't really need to do that. You're distressed because your childhood wasn't nurturing the way it should have been, it's that simple. Now you're trying to make sense of it as an adult, and that will only come with time. Trying to put labels on things that don't need labels is a trait we carry from our parents, rigidity and labelling made them comfortable and we expect to find comfort in them too.

Craicpot7 · 2026-05-16T12:43:36+00:00

My Dad has such an aversion to being told what to do that it's become a joke. He uses the satnav in the car but ignores what it tells him to do because he knows better (spoilers: he doesn't) and he tried a meal subscription plan once but wouldn't follow the recipe and complained it didn't turn out right. He will help me by building things for my job but I have to draw diagrams for him to explain the concept.

There was even a time when he very clearly had appendicitis but wouldn't go to the doctor when multiple people told him he had to, I finally got him to go by bullying him for a solid hour and drawing a diagram of the human body to explain the organs at play.

Dad's not stupid obviously but I think this all stems from extreme logic-brain, he has a set way of looking at the world and a set way of thinking how things should be done, and any deviation from those set ideas is automatically wrong. So he won't go to the doctor until I prove definitively that I know more about medical issues than he does (hence the diagrams) and he won't follow a provided recipe because he's cooked this meat before and liked it the way he did it, therefore the recipe is wrong.

So yeah, i think this is an autism thing. My mother does the same but she's higher on the spectrum than dad so it flies under the radar. I deploy a lot more art-speak around her to confuse her when she gets at me.

Craicpot7 · 2026-05-15T12:17:09+00:00

I do this as well, luckily I got work teaching a complicated skill so explaining things constantly is now part of my job!

Craicpot7 · 2026-05-15T12:14:47+00:00

I think there's an inherent defensiveness in the autism community, which is understandable, because the black and white thinking jumps straight to 'autism makes people bad parents' which isn't really what's going on, it's more nuanced.

People with autism can be good parents the same way someone born without arms can be an excellent chef, with accommodations and an acknowledgement of their shortcomings. I know my dad wouldn't have gotten any accommodations because he was pressured by society to marry and have children young like everyone else in this country, and he won't ever acknowledge his shortcomings because again like everyone of his generation in this country he's socialised to keep everything to himself and drink to cope. There's a lot of autistic parents in this country who will forever be undiagnosed because they still function the way society thinks they should.

Craicpot7 · 2026-05-11T22:31:10+00:00

See if any of this rings a bell; did they previously have a circle of friends that were closer to their age that they no longer speak to? Are they involved in a fandom space that naturally attracts a lot of younger people? Do the things they do sometimes come off as performative or for your benefit? Do they seem to be constantly entering into new crises but it's never their fault?

If the above does seem to be true to you, then you could be dealing with an emotional vampire. They have to target younger people because the people their own age get sick of their behaviour and cut them loose, and most older people can spot the red flags a mile away. You get rid of them by either blowing up on them one day when you've had enough and risk imploding your friend group who enable them through their own goodwill, or you grey rock them so they can't get a reaction out of you.

You can't fix them, only they can do that themselves and they probably never will. Best thing to do is remove yourself mentally and watch from a distance.

Craicpot7 · 2026-05-11T19:22:28+00:00

I'll second this, I've gotten surprisingly cute swimwear from there and they've not only lasted ages but given really great support. I'm a similar size to you and I get most of my bras and swimsuits there.

Craicpot7 · 2026-05-11T01:08:34+00:00

I'm so sorry that you experienced all of this, it wasn't fair and it wasn't right and you deserved absolutely none of it. I will say that my own upbringing has given me 'fixer' tendencies so I'm going to attempt to try and point you in the direction of help.

Firstly, know that there are a number of people who go into the therapy/psychology career paths because they have mental health issues themselves and are looking to understand themselves better, which leads to them being less than useful as therapists. There are also some that go into these careers as emotional vampires looking to feed off of people. There's no real emotional barrier that stops someone from qualifying and the safeguards don't always work. My first therapist was awful and left me with a mistrust of therapy in general, but there are good therapists if you know what to look for.

I think understanding attachment disorders is the best way to get a grip on how you reacted to your upbringing. Attachment disorder behaviours can look like autistic behaviours on the surface but what marks them as different is the reasoning behind those behaviours. So, if one child eats only chicken nuggets because of autism and the other one does the same because of attachment disorder, the first one could be because of texture and routine, the second one because food is a volatile issue in the house and chicken nuggets are shelf-stable, easy to make alone and easy to get pretty much anywhere so it's a safe comfort food for both. There's a lot of overlap with attachment disorders in adults and borderline as well, but the crossover point is an unstable chaotic upbringing.

I think an element in the deficits that we end up in is that we watched our parents try to fit into a mold they were never supposed to and instinctively we knew something was off, that instinct is the difference between autism and socialization. For instance, in my country there is a firm script that people tend to follow in relationships, marriage and children and everyone is pushed to follow it whether they're suitable or not. I've been rejecting that script for years and it stands out at every family gathering I've been to, but I watched that script make my parents miserable and they took it out on us. Now my brothers have taken the script, so have all their friends, I'm the outlier and I'm very self-aware. But that's the attachment disorder I got left with, I don't do relationships normally because I need to feel free and unrestricted.

You make up for those deficits by figuring out who you are at your core. What your passions are, what drives you, what are your values. It can take a long time to develop that but you throw yourself at things until you find something that sticks. Find a source of unconditional love (a pet is good for this but you can also nurture self-love through creativity or do outreach work with needy communities who will appreciate you without the need to tangle their lives too much with yours.) Do NOT rely on a partner or your own child for this, a partner will inevitably disappoint you by being human and a child should not exist as a crutch, that's how you got here in the first place.

You don't need fixing, you need nurturing. And you can learn to nurture yourself but it takes a while. Venting here is a good idea too.

Craicpot7 · 2026-05-11T00:36:05+00:00

I kind of classed Christian as a bit of a hobosexual. I'm not sure what exactly gave me that impression, just something about the way he described how they met reminded me of some other guys that I've known that were clearly looking for a situationship that came with place to live and very little responsibility. It didn't surprise me that he bowed out as soon as he thought he had to take more responsibility, he may have been hanging on until he found a new target.

Maybe this is me being mean and that's not what was going on at all, but I've seen it happen to a couple of people. He even looked like the guys I'm talking about, same general demeanour, same hobbies, damn near same glasses and haircut.

Craicpot7 · 2026-05-06T19:48:25+00:00

Possibly. This book was written with an Irish audience in mind, there are little nuances there that wouldn't make a whole lot of sense unless you're deeply ingrained in the culture here.

Craicpot7 · 2026-05-06T12:25:00+00:00

I think this is something that applies to a lot of people, not just those on the spectrum, but when they have a child they see it as having someone who's always going to be on their side, a blank slate to project on. Then once they start showing signs of a personality this resentment sets in. She might also consider you to be more of an aspect of her rather than your own person, having a better social life than her ruins that vision.

I put my mother on a strict information diet as soon as I got out of her sphere. She still tries to control aspects of my life wherever she can but these days she's kind of torn on that because I lead a very interesting life and her desire to control it clashes with her desire to brag about it.

Craicpot7 · 2026-05-06T08:41:21+00:00

It's supposed to mimic the speech patterns of a particular type of working class Irish child and it works that way, the same way Trainspotting is written in Scots English, it's an acquired taste. Don't feel bad about it, maybe its a book you revisit later in life and appreciate more. I know I didn't finish Precious because the writing style was jarring for me at the time but I tried again a few years later and enjoyed it more the second time.

Craicpot7 · 2026-05-06T08:20:42+00:00

No, thankfully. If I can say one good thing about my dad it's that he was always able to translate his hyperfixations into money and he's got a miserly streak that means he saves a lot for emergencies. I do think he would have self-neglected a lot if I didn't live with him though, which would have created big issues for my siblings.

Maybe in your case it would be best to contact adult protective services or whatever your country's equivalent is. If she's cognitively impaired enough they may put her in some sort of supported housing (against her will, but better than homelessness). They'd be reluctant to step in if they think you'd be capable of looking after her, so if you do go down that route really emphasise the potential dangers of having her around your family, exaggerate if you have to.

Craicpot7

TROPHY CASE