Help

Hello petergreenhow2025

Thank you for sharing your current feelings, and I am sorry things are not so great at the moment.

In addition to Bunny's excellent resources, including the self-help book about loving someone with Asperger's syndrome, here are some additional NAS webpages that you might find useful:

NAS - Family relationships - this page has guides on how one can navigate family dynamics and support their autistic family member (e.g., autistic daughters and spouses).

NAS - Family support - this page has support and advice for parents-carers of autistic children including how to accurately understand their needs and how to best identify and access the best support systems for them.

I hope your home life and family relationships improve over time.

Kind regards,

Good_Vibes365

70326 said:

My home life isn’t great at the minute mostly self inflicted. My relationship with my daughter hasn’t been great for a while or my wife.

On this point, I recommend this book. It focuses on helping autistic + neurotypical couples to work on their relationships through improved mutual understanding and communication, complete with exercises that you can both complete and discuss, if you wish:

Loving Someone with Asperger's Syndrome: Understanding and Connecting with your Partner

In my opinion, much of the advice in the book (with some obvious exceptions) might also be helpful for improving your relationship with your daughter. 

Note: the book was written when Asperger's syndrome was still an official diagnostic term, whereas this now simply falls under Autism Spectrum Disorder / Condition (ie autism). 

Caveat: when moving from discussion of one issue / scenario to the next, the author often switches which of the partners is neurodivergent (him / her), which can make it a little confusing until you've worked out who's who each time. But that inconvenience felt well worth the effort to me.

You and your wife might also find this NAS resource helpful:

NAS - Family relationships - a guide for partners of autistic people

And, finally, might you might - when you're ready - like to consider couples counselling, ideally with a counsellor who is experienced in dealing with neurodivergent people. You could look for providers in the NAS directory, and/or the BACP or Psychology Today websites:

NAS - Autism Services Directory

Hi Peter - congratulations on your diagnosis and welcome to the community.

I'm going to reply in two parts, because the forum spam filter doesn't like too many links at once.

During the period following a diagnosis, it can be common for us  to experience a lot of emotional dysregulation. Besides potentially feeling relief about getting our diagnosis, this can also include working through a phase where we experience confusion and/or (backward-focused) anger, frustration, grieving and more. So please don't worry - this is normal. 

The NAS has a great set of articles focused on "after diagnosis", including one covering how you might feel during the subsequent days / weeks / months. You might find them of interest and/or helpful:

NAS - How you might feel after a diagnosis

NAS - Other advice covering post-diagnosis including:

• Talking about and disclosing your autism diagnosis
• Emotional support for family members after a diagnosis
• Formal support following an autism diagnosis
• What can I do if formal support is not offered or is not enough

In terms of what to do next, my advice at this point (ie soon after your diagnosis) would be to try and give yourself some time and breathing space to process and absorb everything that you've been through, and let your feelings settle down.

For me, as for many others here, my diagnosis turned out to be much more of the start of a new journey, rather than a conclusion full of ready-made solutions for my various difficulties.  

Therapy is often recommended after a diagnosis as a follow up action for your GP to arrange. You might find it helpful to borrow or buy this book, which includes discussion of various types of therapy and counselling, together with advice on choosing the right therapist or counsellor - all from an autistic person's viewpoint. Several of us here have found it very helpful, myself included:

The Autistic Survival Guide to Therapy