Off My Chest: I just had a very long talk with my father
That ended with me finally explaining to him how the way he and my mother treated me as a child, with undiagnosed (and really not even conceptually understood at the time) ADHD caused me lasting trauma that persists to this day. I’m a 45 year old man, and I cried.
I've just had to explain to the 80yo grandmother that you can't yell at my 19yo son because his anxiety ticks are annoying you.
She went full send on telling him that no woman or friends would ever want to be around him unless he stopped.. She got even angrier because she yelled at him to stop, and the ticking got louder and more frequent.. (duh..)
The only way I managed to get even a glimpse of consideration out of her was to leverage her pride in being a "baby whisperer" as a grandmother, and explained that yelling at an anxious ND about their ticks is like yelling at a baby to make them stop crying...
Only then did she stop for even a moment and actually have a thought about what was happening...
She still yells at him, but at least now we have a way to puller her back a little, as this description makes her feel terrible enough about it, that she leaves him alone for a bit out of feeling guilty...
There are likely factors we don't know about. Not every situation is perfect, but we can only hope to make it better for today or tomorrow. Thank you for your concern.