The thing that’s fucking with me today is the childhood memory of a meltdown at home that was escalated to the point where my dad cut the cable on my favourite keyboard and mouse in front of me.

I don’t remember much around that, but neither side did a great job of de-escalating, and I ended up being banned from all but the simplest of electronics for a year from that point. Back then, a fate worse than grounding.

They didn’t fucking budge on that, either.

@maddy wow that’s fucked up. 🫂

@maddy I am glad you are no longer subject to that tyranny, Maddy

May you rule your own life as you please for ever more

The thing that really gets me is that the vast majority of all fights at home revolved around school.

I wasn’t performing. I was ‘disruptive’. I was told that I was “better than this”. I just needed to try harder.

I didn’t get along with school. We had the answer to the reason why a few years in, but they didn’t bother to gain the context needed to fully understand the reason and work with it.

I was diagnosed ASD and ADHD back when I was about 10 years old. I was on Ritalin for ADHD, and that’s as far as we went with either of my diagnoses. They pretended the Autism diagnosis wasn’t right, so it was practically kept from me, never ever mentioned until I eventually figured it out on my own.

If they ever did any research or made efforts to find supports that would help me, given my disabilities, maybe school would have been different. Maybe home life would have been different. Maybe we would have gotten along rather than me being hypervigilant, concerned that they’d heard about my latest failing in school, bracing for the next yelling match, meltdown, and/or punishment.

But no, school was always a source of conflict, as well as my escape. I wasn’t motivated to do schoolwork, especially not at home. I always had late and incomplete assignments. I was mercy passed in a few subjects. I barely graduated. The little relief I had came in the form of the friends I made, but the time I was in school were some of the most unpleasant years of my life.

@maddy christ I'm so sorry. that's fucked up to do to any kid, but especially a kid with ADHD & Autism.

I’ve basically been rawdogging my disabilities, my trauma, my shit all this time, only recently picking up the pieces as I try to figure out what the fuck, why the fuck, and how to cope.

Talking about it helps, but it also re-opens old wounds at the same time.

@foone Back when it happened, I was extremely distraught and upset about it, but deep down I thought I deserved it as punishment for being so bad.

Nowadays I know better, and it fucking hurts.

@maddy yeah no kid deserves that, that's abusive, doubly so for someone with audhd

@maddy @foone fuckin hell, mine did the same shit to me

@freya @foone I’m sorry, that’s fucking awful. :/

@maddy relatable. 😖

@pawv I’m sorry

[hugs if wanted] 🫂

@maddy Always. ☺️🫂

@maddy all of this is so fucked up. I truly wish you the best in healing

@gavi Thank you. 💜

@maddy I’m so sorry, that sounds horrible.

I react very badly to retributive punishments like that and will just stop caring about any consequences (or anything else really) and spiral into getting more and more upset while repeatedly doing whatever makes it even worse and wishing that none of it ever happened.

When my parents attempted or threatened similar things (but still nowhere near as bad, or for such a long duration) it was bad enough. If they had done that, I’m not sure that I’d still be alive.

@noisytoot your description of reacting very badly to retributive punishments sounds exactly like how I was back then. It certainly never helped things.

The fact that I keep hearing something along the lines of, “wow, that’s really fucked up” when I speak of memories like this is actually really helpful, affirming in that I’m justified in feeling upset about this sorta thing.

Anyway, thank you for listening, if nothing else. 💜

@maddy holy shit that's so fucked up... when I read things like this, I always wonder why some parents can make children if it's not to love them... sending lots of hugs your way

@Charlotte Thank you. 💜 🫂

@maddy <sits nearby for company>

@Willow Thank you

@maddy I'm glad it helps, I always try to call this out when I see it. otherwise it's too easy to think that it's just normal, and there's no reason for you to have trauma from it.

@foone It’s much appreciated.