Published on 12, July, 2020
hello everyone first off how do I edit my profile I keep following links to new community and can't find the menu that is supposedly at the top of the page!?
I am the parent of four children (all grown up) my older son has autism, bipolar and learning difficulties and I am now coming to terms with the likelihood that my older daughter is somewhere on the spectrum. This has been a much more painful realisation as she seemed so 'normal' (for want of a better word) as a child - such a happy little girl always smiling and though quiet at school she made good friends and had a good social life as a teenager.
Fast forward to her 20's and after graduating from uni she gradually became more and more withdrawn to the point now where in her early 30's (apart from going to work) she is a total recluse and spends her life locked away in her room . (She lives with me and my husband and has done for the past 3 years) She suffers from depression and has been on anti depressants for several years. She was also referred to a counsellor by her GP and had a few weeks of CBT which she says didn't help her at all. She has always been a shy girl and awkward in social situations but because of her increasing isolation she seems to have become more and more out of touch with reality. When I try and talk to her she is either asleep or watching something on her ipad, she seems to resent the intrusion and all her responses are angry and quite aggressive. I try to stay calm and supportive but it is really hard. I always seem to wind up feeling exasperated. She seems to blame me for all her troubles and yet I am one of the few people left that she tolerates. She has already fallen out with her dad and her sister and though she sees her grandmother quite regularly even that relationship seems to be breaking down.
I could go on for hours ( she is always on my mind) but that's probably enough ... I would really welcome your thoughts,
Hi Anna,
I'm 59 now, and was finally diagnosed in May 2015. I have to say that your daughter sounds very much like I was in my 20s and 30s. I suppose it must have appeared to my parents that I was quite active socially in my late teens and early twenties. The truth of it, though, was very much that I was going out (to night clubs, etc) principally because I felt the need, as most young people probably do, to be involved with others, to look for friends and potential relationships, etc. Otherwise, I used to spend hours locked away in my room, engrossed in my own interests, and deeply resenting either intrusions or demands on my time - such as to do chores, to do overtime at work, or to go out and visit relatives. Looking back, I can see that I led my parents - and my mother in particular - a difficult life. I used to take out a lot of my anger and frustration on her, whereas none of it was her fault. I didn't go to university until I was 28. I became more reclusive there... and have been pretty much the same ever since. I was 35 by the time I left home, at which point I was being treated for depression and anxiety - conditions which never seemed to improve, in spite of medication and counselling. I found CBT to be a waste of time, and anti-pressants didn't do anything for me except make me feel doped and give me unwanted side effects. Both are designed for a neurological template that I now know I don't have.
Following a breakdown in my late 40s, I finally got hooked up with a psychotherapist. It was she who, after several months of sessions, first suggested that the root of my issues throughout life might be connected to undiagnosed ASC. She described the onset of my depressions in my 30s as the tidal wave of my past life finally catching up with me and washing over me: my failures at friendships and relationships, my increasing inability to understand both myself and other people, my growing sense of being somehow inadequate and deficient (in spite of a degree and a high IQ).
I don't really know what to say that can offer you any help or comfort. Only that I can understand, to some extent, what you must be going through. I think I, too, became... not exactly out of touch with reality, but detached from it. It made no real sense to me - the things that people did, the way they seemed to find easy the things that I always found difficult. In some ways, I look back on my life as part of a very natural progression with my then unknown condition. I engage with 'reality' only as much as is necessary nowadays. Work, shopping, running my home. Other than that, my own 'reality' is more appealing to me: more the place where I come alive and feel connected.
My diagnosis helped me no end. It enabled me to make sense of things at last. And to feel a strong sense of validation and vindication.
I don't know what 'normal' is. Nor, really, do I think I particularly want to now. I'm happy with my world the way that it is. I do the things I need to do to get by with life, and my spare time is largely spent alone doing the things that really make life worth living for me. I'm sure plenty of people must look at me and see a withdrawn, isolated, introverted individual. That is, though, relative to how humans are usually expected to be - out there, social, doing things with others, etc. I accept I'm in a minority in that way. But I'm neurodiverse, so I'm in a minority anyway. As I said - I'm happy now with how I am. Other people can think and do what they like. I won't interfere with them if they don't interfere with me.
Has ASC been suggested to your daughter as something worth investigating, or is it all just supposition at the moment? Is she resistant to taking the matter further? If so, then that's her choice. Does she seem to be happy with her life otherwise - and could the depression be largely about feeling she needs to change to suit others' perceptions of what she should be? Does she simply want to be left alone, do you think? Does she really want the help that you think she needs? It's perfectly natural to look at someone who doesn't follow the norms and expectations of wider society and think they need help. Many of them possibly do. Others, though, get all the help they need by being left to do their own thing.
Hi Anna
Girls are better at hiding ASD. Don't beat yourself up over it.
I'm Aspergers and I know that all I want from life is peace and order.
The fact your daughter works is great - at least she's interfacing with the world. The fact she lives with you means she probably considers home to be her sanctuary.
How do you interface to her? You may be accidentally trying to talk to her in the periods that she's winding down from the day or at times her brain just isn't in the game. If she's internally stressed, you might just be the extra 1% that pushes her over the edge - and you get the full blast of what she can't vent through the day at work.
Do you e-mail her at all? It can be a much lower stress way of talking to her - she doesn't have to reply straight away and she can formulate a correct answer without getting tongue-tied and stressed. It can be a good way of taking the face-to-face stress out of the equation.
Does she talk to on-line friends? (again, they are at arms length so it's on her terms).