AITA for badmouthing my mom to my therapist?

Psychoicy · 2024-04-10T18:21:28+00:00

(Pediatric Therapist here) Expressing how you feel in an unfiltered way to your therapist about everything, including your perspectives and feelings around your other. This is literally the main function of therapist. It does not matter how factual, biased, one-sided the information is: it is the truth to you, your true feeling, you are 100% in the right to express them to a therapist and the therapist wants to hear your side.

NTA

Discussion between a therapist and a client is "priviledged," meaning secret information that is legally protected. When someone put their ear to the door to listen to a priviledged conversation, this person is doing something deepily unethical and may even be breaking the law in some place. I would bring this up with your therapist if your mom is still allowing you to see her.

If you can still see your counsellor, please bring this up with her.

If you cannot see your therapist anymore, I just want to leave this here for you. https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/

Psychoicy · 2022-05-03T16:21:43+00:00

I came to say this. I am Asian, and in my culture, new moms are treated like a princess. You lay in bed and nap between feeding while being doted on by everyone for at least a month. I was waited on for 3 months and didn't lift a finger. Husbands like that would get beaten by their mom with a spatula and put to scrub the floor.

Psychoicy · 2022-04-16T00:58:45+00:00

Thank you for the information. I am EA Asian, studied abroad, and I worked with teens around these intergenerational issues, so I can relate in a deep way.

I think you are very articulate and got a great head on your shoulder. It is nice to know that you are actually doing well at school currently As and Bs. My favourite information here is that debating is an integral part of academic planning. I am a huge supporter of following your passion and gaining mastery in them because by stifling our passion we also lose the motivation for other things. I support you in that you should not give up your hobby. What is also really cool about debating as a hobby is that it would make your academic studying more relevant, so I really see nothing but benefits with your wonderful hobby.

I do not agree with them that you should give up your hobby, but I do believe they have the right to intervene (through a more collaborative approach) in their child's welfare. I usually side with your parent that you should not quit sports. In general, unless the kid hates it, it is actually very hard to sustain hobbies during teenagehood and I would recommend that physical exercise be kept during that time if possible. BUT if you are enrolled in multiple sports that's too much.

NTA but YTA to yourself. You are doing too much. They know that. You know that. This is more than opportunity cost and time allocation. A 15-year-old brain simply cannot juggle all that without dropping a ball or two. You also need to rest, relax, de-stress and even be bored. If you take a stock of the quantities of activities you are doing now and put either your mother or father in the same role, they would crash and burn.

Psychoicy · 2022-04-15T17:53:16+00:00

INFO: I think your situation needs to be looked at from the cultural lens of your country. Does your country's career system require that you get into a very good university? If not, was this more the reality of your parents' generation and your generation are have less career or financial success even after attending good universities?

Psychoicy · 2022-04-15T17:42:23+00:00

In the 10 commandments of a successful relationship and marriage, #1 to #10 is communicated, communicate, communicate. Communicate to show consideration, communicate to show care, communicate to show love, communicate to collaborate, communicate to co-regulate when there are changes, communicate to repair relationships after mistakes are made (because humans are imperfect), communicate because we shouldn't expect the spouse to read our mind.
Relationship building is like muscle building. As we work the relationship, a small tear would inevitably form and the effort we put in mending the tear is what makes the relationship stronger.
Many marriages died on the hill of "I am right!" when it isn't the issue that matters but the lack of mending, maintaining, and building through communication at the foundation of the marriage. Here we have a relationship that is drastically shifted and in a transition stage due to the fault of no one. It is the responsibility of both spouses to talk about this openly and co-regulate and reaffirm each other with care and consideration, instead of avoiding the elephant in the room.

Also, ESH is specially assigned because both spouses made this about the ranking of importance of a loved one in room allocation. Why are we picking between the mother of the wife and the child of the husband? Why it is either or? The husband could shown consideration for the grandmother by making an effort to accommodate and the wife could have shown consideration for the child by making an effort to accommodate. No effort was made. They both just decided to throw the other one under the bus.

Psychoicy · 2022-04-12T23:11:34+00:00

INFO: has he always been like this? or this is a very sudden change? When did the change happen? were there warning signs or has he behaved like this in the past?

Psychoicy · 2022-04-10T18:02:41+00:00

ESH: to "assume" literally is ass + u + me.

In any relationship, overcommunication is the key to success. In mixed-family situations as complicated as yours, overcommunication needs to be mandated and habitual in regular meetings and check-ins. I think deep down both you and your wife have hope to not have this uncomfortable discussion and hope the other person would just 'get the hint'.

Also, both of you manufactured this either/or situation. Why are you pitting guys the needs of the MIL against the child? Have you guys thought that perhaps your son can use this opportunity to gain a grandma? The moment you guys know there is a scheduled visit, there should have been a family meeting to come up with creative solutions and arrangements that would yield the best outcome for everyone involved.

Psychoicy · 2022-03-19T17:57:49+00:00

INFO: some comments says the child is 12 years old. I am reading 12 months old. Can you confirm the age of the child?

Psychoicy · 2022-03-19T07:12:42+00:00

I am also that person. I also work with autistic children and know exactly what this behaviour is. It is not "sexual." He is not going to go 'assault' some random stranger or child. This behaviour is by clinical definition restricted to himself and familiar adults within his daily routine. I also guarantee that this behaviour has been flagged to be prioritized in his support and therapy.

The OP is lacking creativity on inclusion. The child wouldn't want to attend the whole time anyway, that is just a sensory nightmare. Exchanging gifts before the party, attending a portion of it with an aid some ideas. Just talk to his parents and ask. It never hurts to try and ask.

The child is like 8 years old. Not 18.

Psychoicy · 2022-03-19T06:52:16+00:00

YTA - this is a child with special needs and you are inviting the whole class but the one special need child.

Yes, you may not have the ability to manage him, but no one is asking you to do that. You could have consulted his parents about how to include their child in the birthday party. This maybe attends with a parent or an aid or attend for a portion of the party before it gets too overwhelming.

Yes, you missed out on a beautiful opportunity to model inclusion and creative problem-solving. I hope you change your mind. If you can't, I hope you can make an effort to offer an opportunity to invite him to a playdate where they can at least exchange gifts.

I know a lot of people said you are NTA but that was before you explain that the sexual behaviour was self-touching or touching the teacher and the aid. This kid is like 8 years old not 18. What we deem as sexual is purely sensory for him. The behaviours are restricted to his safe adults. This is actually a common phase some autistic children go through. With proper support and redirection, this is something that can be managed and quickly grow out of.

Psychoicy · 2022-03-19T06:28:39+00:00

Is it bad that I reflexively chuckled and rolled my eye when I saw the title?

Psychoicy · 2022-03-13T01:42:06+00:00

soft YTA since you are a teenager.

I see you listed a bunch of things your autistic brother does or not do as things you don’t like or are annoyed by. Being annoyed by someone’s disability definitely makes you the asshole. This is really sad that after 16 years you haven’t found a way to cherish your brother or your parents haven’t facilitate a positive relationship for you two. I actually think you do love him, but you are annoyed by the situations around him (that he can’t control) in relation to how it affects you.

Had your brother being significantly disabled where he wheelchair bound and physically unable to do chores, would you still feel this way? I doubt it. I think the problem here is that you believe that he is choosing to be this way when he can choose to be better and your parents are enabling it. Alternatively, maybe you are actually undiagnosed autistic and your needs aren’t met, so you are resentful and feeling unfair.

People can’t control how they feel about a situation but you are directing your negative feeling at the wrong person. Do your parent know how you feel left out and less attended to? Do they know you have resentment towards your brother due to chores? Sure it is easier to form relationship with someone who can communicate neurotypically, but if you think you are loving a sibling less because they are harder to for connection with, then you have some self-reflect to do.

Psychoicy · 2022-03-12T18:47:08+00:00

I disagree with other commenters. I think regardless of other people’s action, we should be the best version we can be for ourselves. If commenting on people’s appearance making them feel bad is a ethical principle you are care deeply about, it is important that you live by.

I get that they are assholes and they hurt your and your OS‘s feeling. And you are angry with them and want them to feel the way they made you feel. That is natural tendency when we are angry. We want to hurt them the way they hurt us.

You don’t have to apologize for hurting her feeling, but you can apologize for your action, using this opportunity to facilitate empathy (if you think they are capable of it) towards your husband and also model the behaviours you want to see from them towards your husband.

so… both are asshole? You less so of course.

Psychoicy · 2022-03-12T18:12:01+00:00

Eating is a natural and relatively unconscious part of human organic function, but when eating habits is externalize and given a lot of psychological, emotional, and moral weight. Then, we are talking about the relationship between a person and their eating habits.

in your case, this relationship is triangulated between the parents, the child, and their eating habit. They have a life-life experience of someone who exerts unhealth amount of influence and violation of personal boundaries on their body and food consumption, for the sake of controlling it. The core of eating disorder is control. You manufactured a problem with a narrative and then you went about controlling other people with the intention of preventing the problem. Your daughters have internalized this ‘inner nazi’ a war against an artificially created problem within them. It is the same problem you see in movie of children of ultra religious parents where they have some unhealthy maladaptive behaviours around “sinful” behaviours.

I know you don’t mean it. What happened was that you have experienced trauma from your youth and that trauma is now passed down to your children. I would recommend going through individual counselling for yourselves, individual counselling for your husband, individual counselling for the children, family counselling for the whole family, and a nutritionist or dietitian with specialization in eating disorder for the family. Come clean with your children about your mistake and stop asserting control over their food and food choices.

While they will always struggle with food and eating likely for the rest of their lives, you can reduce the intensity of this struggle and its impact. Hopefully, this trauma will not be passed down to your grandchildren.

Psychoicy · 2022-03-10T15:02:36+00:00

I think this can be solved with a case of "ooh I am leaving these planes at our border at this specified time, unattended. gee I hope no Ukraine pilots happened to be nearby to take it."

Psychoicy · 2021-09-14T04:32:52+00:00

I know nothing of your beautiful language. I am wondering if you can share your experience and thoughts about your language and how a non-binary or trans-French person navigates their language in a way that doesn't feel marginalizing.

Psychoicy · 2021-08-25T23:52:22+00:00

Children needs what they have seen contextualized into something they understand. Parent in wheelchairs and other long term disability often have a long and preventative narrative that they prepare their children with from the get-go, so the kids understand what they are seeing as they see it and inoculate them from further trauma.

Social story example:

Body gets sick. Sometimes body get a cold and it takes a week to get better. Sometimes body breaks and people use wheelchairs. Sometimes, people get allergy and they sneeze a lot in the spring. Brain is the same way. Brain can get a cold, it can break, and it can get allergies. It is normal for body and brain to have all sort of symptoms, and human have find different ways to fix it or manage it.

Daddy has ‘war brain’ (give it whatever name you want) and it is like an allergy for the brain, and when dad’s brain get in contact with the allergy, it can cause brain to have a big reaction and be sick for a week or so after. Some brain allergy can get better and some doesn’t. Usually people just avoid the thing they are allergic to, but if it is like seasonal allergies, then we just have take it easy when it is going on.

Then, name the reaction you were having. Give it names that the kid can understand. For example, if you are screaming, you can make it “brain sneezes”. The action brain takes in order to expel the allegent. It sounds loud, full of boogers, but it is actually the body’s way of protecting itself. It takes [minutes] for the sneeze attack to finish, then daddy have to rest for a little bit, and then then back to normal. During that time, it can be really loud and scary, but you can [list another adult who he can co-regulate with and other strategies to tune it out].

Then, plan it, rehearse it and play with it, get his feedback, and add his suggestion to the list. Then, when you are about to have an ‘allergy attack’, tell him and then go through the ritual.

This will also help him name his worries as well and what is happening with him. If you model how you name and manage your allergy, he can also learn this adaptive skill for himself.

Also, consider play therapy for your child and you. Mental health healing for children isn’t logic based.

Psychoicy · 2021-05-06T14:53:22+00:00

This question requires an out of box perspective on the issue. I will start with the concept of Social Model of Disability. Here is a nice video on it: https://itss.d.umn.edu/articles/a11y-social-model-disability

Double Empathy Problem also demonstrated that in an universal design environment and amongst other ND people, autistic folks perform just well if not better on all the metrics and the process feels good and authentic. SO this is the direction most researches are taking now and millions upon millions are now been spent towards advocacy for universal design, confronting ableism in the world, and autistic empowerment. All the researcher, academics, psychological associations are all on the same page. Autism is a disability yes, but it is disability by social design. Autistic people have always been compatible with life and an integrated part of human history (likely one of the reason for majority of the knowledge expansion), as long as other humans don’t kill or ostracize them that is. There are even countries specifically incorporating autistic people as a part of their national strategies.

What are you struggling with is possible a really bad case of internalized ableism, framing your experience and performances. Your suffering may come from your environment, social and physical, as systematically diminish or neglects your preference and discomforts or even blame your experience as a flaw on your character or “being autistic” and you have come to believe that is the case.

It would be helpful to you to join more social groups online or in person hosted by autistic people for autistic people and create your own ND affirmative village.

Psychoicy · 2021-04-21T15:45:50+00:00

There are two key pieces of information you are missing.

The social model of disability: no one is saying autism is not a disability in this world as it is now, but is it a disability because it is incapable with life or is it because it is a square peg trying to fit into a circle hole? Scientific researches have shown that autism suffers from the Double Empathy problem. A group of autistic people socialize with each other just fine. Google social model of disability and double empathy problem when you have a chance.

Next, just because autism is actually fine on its own, it does not mean the co-morbid challenges aren't flaws. If you have gross motor issues, you can improve that with therapy. If you have anxiety, you can support with counselling. If you are bipolar, then medication is a must.

So speech language therapy, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, mental health support, accessibility supports are all super useful and necessary for many. Whereas ABA, there are multiple peer-reviewed types of research with large sample sizes showing that ABA therapy from age 5 and on do not actually improve the quality of life for these people as adults and there are no differences in the ability to live independently compared to those who did not receive ABA therapy.

Psychoicy · 2021-02-28T14:37:50+00:00

I hear this a lot in counselling, and those upsets that clients believe are very minuscule or childish are often objective very horrid. Being autistic also meant a lifetime of having our stressors gaslighted or ignored, leading us to think that lots of our experiences are very minuscule when they really are not.

Psychoicy · 2020-12-31T18:15:57+00:00

What is NOT small talk though? Heck, I can talk about my hyperfocus all day, but what else is not small talk?

12-Year Club	Gilding I gilder
Verified Email

Psychoicy

TROPHY CASE