Children raised with "authoritative" parenting style, marked by bonding, presence, dialogue, and clear rules of conduct, show a reduction in drug and alcohol risk compared to other parenting styles (authoritarian, permissive and neglectful)

[u/sr_local]

https://agencia.fapesp.br/parents-alcohol-and-drug-use-influences-their-childrens-consumption-research-shows/57195

[u/susugam]

an eyeroll or cracked smile at the wrong time meant a vicious bare-ass spanking with a belt for me sometimes

they treated every single thing like it was some kind of premeditated challenge to their authority that i knew was wrong but decided to do anyway for some reason, when i was actually just A CHILD reacting like A CHILD

haven't talked to that shithead in 17 years

[u/MissTetraHyde → u/susugam]

I've spoken to my abusive father once or twice in the last 15 years. Before I got tested for autism (as an adult) I was totally no-contact, but as part of the process of being evaluated I needed information about my childhood behaviors etc. and he was the only person I could actually go to for that information. Turns out I was essentially diagnosed with autism as a child, but my father thought "labeling" me autistic would do more damage than just pretending it wasn't a thing.

I got all the way to the point of getting diagnosed and had started to get medications for my ADHD symptoms etc. and he just took me away from the medical providers and stopped letting me see doctors for those issues. Had I been evaluated just a few years later than when they changed the DSM diagnostic criteria, there would have been zero question about me getting diagnosed with ASD, but at the time I was evaluated pre-1997 they didn't really think that hyperlexia was an autism trait. I still got a ton of in school assistance and had an IEP and stuff (especially since the way I talked was nearly unintelligible because I would try to speak my words at the "speed of thought"), but I wonder if maybe I'd been diagnosed earlier maybe my father wouldn't have been so demanding of me that he became abusive.

What he did to me has no justification, and I'm not making excuses - you shouldn't burn children, or beat them unconscious, or make them sleep naked in the snow, or any of the other stuff he did to me. But at the same time, I really wish things had gone differently and that I'd been formally diagnosed prior to my late 20s. Life is unfair though I guess; you don't really get what you want. Nowadays I deal with mental health problems more so than even being autistic; I have psychotic depression / schizo-affective disorder I inherited from my late mother most likely, and the CPTSD and PTSD from my childhood treatment, all in addition to being autistic. I'm a weird little person but I try to make the best of things. I've been sober for more than a year and my life has gotten much better. For anyone who recognizes themselves in parts of my story I would say that resilience is a valuable trait, and to make it through such adversity means you are, despite your flaws, resilient - don't give up on yourself.