Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello everyone!
I've joined today because I want to understand and support my daughter and her boyfriend.
My daughter is training to be a doctor and works in a nightclub at weekends. She met a young man (22) and last month they got a flat together.
He is absolutely lovely. He is polite, kind, a good conversationalist, kind to animals. So I was shocked to learn yesterday that he is on the spectrum.He receives PIP to support his daily living.
I wouldn't have thought it in a thousand years!
The only things that indicate any unusual behaviours (certainly not social or communication) are that he he dislikes most foods and is reluctant to try anything else - even pizza. He also seems to tolerate pain as he will not take any kind of medication including headache tablets. 'I've never taken drugs' he said to me. I thought he meant cocaine!
Surely if he is received benefits (and he does work full time) there are other issues? My daughter says she doesn't understand autism and I have done some 'training days' as I am a teacher - but I don't know how I can support them or what I should expect/do.
Feel completely lost and out of my depth here. Just looking for some advice or just to talk really.
Japen said:He is absolutely lovely. He is polite, kind, a good conversationalist, kind to animals. So I was shocked to learn yesterday that he is on the spectrum
Sorry if I'm reading this wrong but what you've said here kind of implies that you think that someone on the spectrum couldn't be lovely, polite and kind or a good conversationalist. Is that what you mean?
Sort of. I understood it that autism meant that social skills such as conversation didn't come easy to those on the spectrum, and often they come across as rude because of the lack of conventional social skills. The couple of children I taught at school never spoke.
Ah :-) I understand now. Thanks so much for clarifying and not reacting badly to my question (which I was quite anxious about asking tbh but felt that I had to).
That's the thing about the spectrum - it's a spectrum :-).
If you hang around here, you'll learn an awful lot about it.
One thing that some (most?) of us have is called black and white thinking - in my case it has helped me in my career as I can analyse anything logical with the precision of a scalpel, but also - as I think just happened - take things literally. If you want to understand why I interpreted your meaning the way I did, imagine saying "He's lovely, a great conversationalist, so imagine my surprise to find out that he's gay (or black, or white, or Christian or ... or ...)"
Wow - these are brilliant! I have a better grasp now, thank you so much.
Thank you xx
You're welcome. There's a couple of good articles here that might help:
https://theaspergian.com/2019/05/04/its-a-spectrum-doesnt-mean-what-you-think/
and
https://the-art-of-autism.com/understanding-the-spectrum-a-comic-strip-explanation/