Thread: Autism
View Single Post
 
Old Oct 25, 2017, 06:31 AM
Rose76's Avatar
Rose76 Rose76 is offline
Legendary
 
Member Since: Mar 2011
Location: USA
Posts: 12,859
I see the potential for you to cause yourself a lot of frustration. So, if you find behaviors that are abnormal, you feel you ought not to "indulge" them . . . because the person would be happier, if they learned to be normal. So, as a caring, responsible person, you have set youself the task of helping your family members work on themselves. How receptive are they to these efforts on your part? Do they not find you a teensy, weensy bit on the controlling side?

Let me explain a bias on my part that may be affecting my take on your situation. For the first 12 years that we were together, my boyfriend was a problem drinker. He was a problem to me and to just about anyone he was around. He was dangerous to boot, if you agree that driving drunk is pretty dangerous. So I set out to reform him. I started going to Al-Anon and reading their literature. What I eventually got out of the principles of Al-Anon was that I was just driving myself nuts. I was trying to manage my boyfriend's behavior - for his own good and the good of everyone around him. Al-Anon preaches that my job in life is to manage my own behavior. Eventually, that message sunk in. When it did, the quality of my life improved.

It sounds to me like you may be a little over-invested in trying to refashion other people's behavior.