I’m so sick of my mother showing no understanding of me and trying to control every detail. I’m so tired of my mother not understanding me and trying to control every detail.

I’m so tired of my mother not understanding me.

I don’t know what I’m looking for, just support I guess. Maybe advice? I’m feeling very down today. So I (F28) am autistic and struggle a lot with changes in my routine or schedule on work days. It stresses me out and leaves me stressed for the rest of the day, so I try and avoid that. My mother and I got into a fight this morning because she asked me to bring something I’d borrowed to her house before work tomorrow morning “on the way” in. To be clear, she lives out of the way. I told her I could bring it over after work (which is only three hours, I work very short shifts) because I don’t like changing around my whole morning routine to leave much earlier.

She got so angry with me, holding over my head all the things she’s done for me. I’m appreciative of how my mom has helped. I know she never had to do all the things she’s done for me in my adult life. But I don’t like that it gets thrown in my face every time I don’t just rearrange everything to appease her. She knows that I struggle with changes in routine and schedules and she just… Doesn’t care. Whenever I get upset with it, she tells me to “just get over it” and “roll with the punches.” I’ve told her that, like many people on the spectrum, changes in routine and schedule make me very stressed and upset. She doesn’t even try to understand that.

And yet, here we are, fighting over me bringing this thing over three hours earlier or later and she’s calling me rigid and self centered. It hurts. I know I’m not self centered. I care very much about the people in my life and do everything I can for them. But how is me saying “Can I just bring it three hours later so I don’t have to rearrange my whole morning and feel stressed out?” being self centered? I don’t get it. I feel hurt. I’m tired of her not even trying to understand me and just telling me to deal with it and toughen up and do whatever because of “all she’s done for me.” I feel drained and like I need some space for a while.

tl;dr My mom is very controlling and does not understand how it affects me as I am autistic. She does not try to understand the ways in which I’m different from her.