I feel stuck in a life not of my choosing, advice please?

I guess your only hope is to do what you want and “show them” that you can be successful. They might not like it at first, but they can’t argue with success. As far as your problem with conflict – you are either going to have to endure a conflict or cave and be ruled by your parents your whole life. Some conflicts can’t be avoided, as unpleasant as they are.

“Life is the only school where you take the test before you learn the lesson”.

That being said, the learning experience, character growth, all of that rich, worthwhile wisdom comes from these dilemmas. If you let regrets remain regrets, instead of recognizing them in lessons, then alas you will have a tougher, longer haul. I hope that’s not the case for you.

You’ve got to ask yourself what sets you apart from those who would (or already have) quit in the face of adversity. Keep going, remember what’s REALLY important.

If you’re a Christian (might I be so bold), then this helps:

Be anxious for nothing, but in everthing by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:6, 7

If that’s not your bag, I’ve always also relied on Metallica:

“Life is ours, we live it our way. Forever trust in who we are…...and nothing else matters.”

You are of age, right? What you need to do is save up money and plan to move away.

You will work the year that you take off, right?

Simply tell your parents that you are not going to live at home. Don’t be defensive. Don’t raise your voice.

Practice a lot.
Be prepared for screaming or whatever reaction they usually have.

Then simply say, “I know that you care about me, but it is my life, and I am making the decisions.”

“I am letting you know my plans, not asking your permission.”

Then do not listen to them. Do not give in. Just move forward with your plans.

Do you have a relative from extended family who would be on your side? You might want to bring them in on it.

Nothing is stopping you from moving out except making the plans and following through. Good luck.

If you feel very confidently that you can make it on your own, then assertively let your parents know what your plans are, and then carry them out. Eventually, when they see you are doing well, they may come around. GA @marinelife

Who is paying the bills?
You say ignore financial concerns, but you can’t so I won’t.
It all depends on who is paying the bills.
If it is you, then get moving in any direction you choose.
If it is them, then your choices are limited. By them.

Here’s something to say that will help to remind you of who’s in control, and it may give them pause. Say, “Thank you for your suggestions. I will carefully consider them, and keep them under advisement.” No need to say anything more.

Saying this can help remind you (and them) who is ultimately in control. I used to shut down (and thus give in) when I got yelled at like that. The result was that others controlled my life.

You must learn to deal with people of all sorts who would manipulate you, and in the future, success in this area will give you a leg up on handling other bullies who would manipulate you.

Also, if you do find yourself shutting down, you can keep a piece of paper in your pocket that you can pull out to read (if necessary). Say, “I am not talking to you anymore until you stop yelling. Now I need to leave the area.” Then GO!

I have had to do both of these (and found other strategies as well). My efforts were very successful. Here’s something else that I have found very helpful. You treat other people how to treat you. This means that in the past, if they have treated you badly, even if you told them you did not like it, you still allowed it. The lesson they learned that it’s OK to do it. It’s up to you (and you alone) to teach them differently. They won’t like it, but they will learn, and will respect you for it in the end.

Please let us know how it goes. PM me if I can be of further help.

@josie That never made sense to me. Can you explain?

Be firm in your decisions, you shouldn’t have to pay for what is the past. Look to the future, you’re an adult, you must live your life the way you want to and not the way anyone else wants you. If you have confidence in yourself and you present these news to your parents as non-negotiables, that’s how (hopefully) they’ll take it.

Tell them it’s time for you as an adult to move on this and they can no longer cushion you and try to protect you from something that happened 5yrs ago. Tell them you know they have done so much to try and make sure that never happens but enough time has passed and skills gained for you to go out on your own again. Tell them the dynamic of their protection and your inexperience and fears shouldn’t halt progress :)

@snowberry Great advice! I mean really great – double lurve to you. I tend to go with the more confrontational approach, which is not really the best, but effective. Your answer shows that you have great people skills as well as being firm.

@Facade, if you are dependent on your parents money to feed, clothe, house and educate yourself and are over the age of 18, what they are giving you is essentially a gift. They don’t have to do that for you; most parents do it willingly because they love their children. They do have some say as to what you do with the money, and they can choose to stop giving it to you. In which case, if you know your parents are not going to be happy with your choice, you have to be prepared to be able to financially make your choice a reality on your own, as your parents are under no obligation to finance something they cannot agree to.

An example would be if your parents have offered to pay tuition to the local public university, and have you live at home. You want to go out-of-state. The difference between paying $8,000 a year to educate you vs. $50,000 a year to educate you makes the choice of where you go not your decision unless you’re prepared to take on $200,000 in debt to make that possible. You are in no position to demand that your parents pay $200,000 for your education when they are prepared to spend $32,000.

Likewise, if your parents are paying your rent for an apartment on campus, they may not be willing to pay for rent on an apartment while you take a year off, especially if that rent may be in an expensive area. My daughter had this plan to move to NYC with four friends that required parents pledging $200,000 in assets to secure a lease on an apartment in Manhattan for a year. I said no, that if she wanted to move to NYC, she had to find another way to do it – live with other people, live in a diffferent area, etc. All the other people ended up dropping out of the plan, and had I agreed, I would have been on the hook for $3500 a month rent for an apartment, plus the rent for the remainder of the year for the apartment was currently living in near her college.

You can make all the plans you want, but if they involve financial expenditures to turn them into a reality, the funding source determines if it becomes an actuality.

@Facade
See @BarnacleBill above me. That’s what I was trying to say in too few words.

@BarnacleBill That makes sense, much more so than the general attitude of “My house; my rules; no explanations!” parents tend to have.

@Facade, I have a problem with that type of parenting. I don’t know why authoritativeness strikes people as effective, especially with teens and young adults. My parents were authoritative, and it didn’t work too well for me. Sometimes, in the course of explaining my reasoning to my children, they have changed my perspective on certain things. In the case with my younger daughter, her choice at school is living at home or living in the dorm. That’s what I will pay for. She wanted to live with a group of people, and she is paying her own rent this year. I am still paying for her education, cell phone, health insurance, and occasionally clothing for work. She pays her own food and rent. Next fall, she’s decided to go into a dorm.

If she decided to take a year off, and move to another city, I might help out with rent if she could show me an exact plan as to what she was going to do in another city that she couldn’t be doing at home. An internship, paid or unpaid, that she couldn’t get here, would probably make me consider it, as long as I could afford the rent, and there was a time limit on it. I would probably make her find a situation on Craigslist as a roommate, rather than getting her own place.

I view my responsibility as a parent to turn out a functioning, self-reliant adult. That means that they have to be able to have chances to succeed or fail on their own. Working to pay her rent is not hurting my daughter; I would have to work to pay her rent.

I can’t believe how incredibly similar this sounds to my current situation. I keep telling myself that once I move away from home I won’t have to worry about pleasing my parents so much and making compromises to avoid conflict. Will this actually work? Only one way to find out.

@BarnacleBill You sound like a great parent =)

It’s your life, you have figured out what you want to do and you are old enough, now you just have to make it happen. Easier said than done I know, but don’t let parental pressure (or fear) stand in your way. Tell them what you are planning – and what your major was, and repeat it as often and as calmly as necessary to get them to listen. If they don’t, don’t waste valuable energy; do what you need to do.

We learn as young children that our comfort and even survival depends on parental approval. That takes a while to unlearn even when it’s no longer true. The moment when you see that it’s no longer true can be a great enlightenment. As soon as you’re there, you can make your own choices, and the only thing they can do if they don’t like it is make noise.

If what they want for you is that you should become independent and able to care for yourself, they will ultimately be pleased with this development. If they want to keep you dependent, that is a different problem.

One big step in showing that you’ve matured is to quit hiding the decisions you’ve already made.

I have a husband with AS and a son with AS. We believe my husband’s dad also has AS.

Here are my NT mom thoughts on all of this:
*You dropped out. My husband & his dad both did the same. Decades later both have immense regrets for not following through. As you age, you will realize how important it is to follow through.

*You’ve decided to lie by omission to your parents (most likely they are the ones footing your bills and are your biggest allies) about changing your major. This needs to be rectified, as they will again see it as immaturity on your part for hiding it and for not being open.

*You want to reside on your own, without their intervention. Have you proven you can do this? Who will pay the bills? If you choose to do this, who will help you if it doesn’t work out?

*You say you “feel like you are still paying for a mistake”. This could just be your perspective on this. It could be that they are considering what is best for your finances and theirs. Your living on your own will cost significantly more money than if you resided with family.

*You are unhappy in your current situation with your parents. Has all of this been discussed with your psychologist/therapist? Have you been mature in your conversations with your parents?
*Having AS allows negative thoughts to prevail. Is it possible, you are just negativising this picture?

Because of how my husband & his dad both “quit” college, my husband and I have decided to be “enforcers” when it comes to our son. We have already discussed getting him an aide or assistant to help him transition to college. We are already looking into colleges that are more “Autism friendly” and more local. We have discussed buying a duplex when he gets closer to age, so that he can transition to adult life with a safety net.

If we aren’t able to afford these^^^^^^then we will most likely insist he lives at home until college is completed, unless he decides to/is able to pay his own way.

Whether you had the diagnosis recently or not, my best guess is that you have always displayed symptoms. Those symptoms have most likely caused your parents to be on alert.

Unfortunately, having AS sets you up for life patterns. If you continue to “quit”, flip-flop majors and lack follow through, these patterns will not suddenly or magically leave you.

I think all of these people have made good suggestions.

As for myself, I can tell you that I learned my “people skills” in the crucible of a truly dysfunctional family. I did not have to leave to learn this stuff (but I DID have outside help). The truth is, I learned it all the better because I had to do it at home.

It IS possible to deal with all these issues at home, and succeed. Ask your therapist to teach you how to take the drama out of your life, and to teach you how to teach your family how to treat you. Ask him to teach you the difference between reacting to a situation and responding to one. There really is a difference, and only one gives you the control over your life that you desire to have.

Let me clarify. You cannot prevent drama from happening, but you don’t have to participate in it, or inadvertently encourage it.

@hug_of_war, to get back to your specific problem, which is probably not as much of a problem as it feels like. I went back and re-read your question. You went to college, you changed your major several times, but you have found something you like, and are going to graduate with a degree in audiology. And you’re planning on going to grad school. These are all good things. Something like 84% of college students change their majors at least once. The recovery is more important than doing it right the first time.

One way to approach this is to go ahead and apply to graduate school, and then defer matriculation for a year. Move to the community where the school is, find a job that is related to your studies, and move to the new community where you will be attending grad school. This way, you can establish residency, lower tuition, and get a feel for the community before starting school.

not of your own choosing ?? you chose the steps to where you are, in particular changing majors, then lying about that for years. Maybe you feel like right now you wouldn’t chose the situation you are in but take responsibility for how you got to this predicament. Come clean about the whole thing with your parents and tell them about your thoughts for the future. They obviously know you have had trouble dealing with life, what they don’t know is that you have been afraid of them. Make an effort to trust them as much as you’d like them to trust you, and go ahead and say so to them, you both need that step.
After the initial shock of your revelations they will appreciate that you are confiding in them now and going forward will be able to be more supportive than they can now (since they don’t know what you’re doing now!). Your present path will continue to increase your alienation and I can tell you really would rather be close to your parents—good for you!! They will love you for your courage if you let them.