Hello. I'm reaching out as the mum of a newly diagnosed daughter who is 20.
Never really had an inklling that she was Autistic through childhood, although she did (and still does) struggle with making and maintaining friendships.
My memories of her childhood are that she was a happy, smiley child who hated doing anything wrong and always tried her best at everything she did.
GCSE exams were scuppered by Covid so she did not sit them but did well in her assessed grades.
Then came A levels, where her MH really took a turn for the worst; crying all the time and just so low. She quit her A Levels after one year to do an NVQ3 in Public Services for which she achieved excellent results intersperced with numerous GP appointments and trialling numerous anti-depressants with mixed and limited success.
She constantly and almost manically flits from one thing to another, from wanting to join the army to being a HGV driver. She always does well in a job and gains promotion but as soon as she has any responsiblity, she can't cope and frantically looks for something else whilst being very impatient and upset.
She is currwntly working as a TA in a special school but is struggling with the responsibility that comes with this, which results in frequent breakdowns culminating ih her self-harming (fortunately only superficially) in May
Fortunately we are incredibly close so she explained how she was feeling and she said that she was having thoughts that she wasn't good enough and felt compelled to hurt herself.
At this point (and probably much later than I should have done), I realised there waa more to it than just MH so we made an appt at the GP and through our private medical insurance (thanks to husband's work), we received an appointment with a psychiatrist within a few weeks.
Within 20 mins of meeting my daughter, the psychiatrist asked if she'd ever been assessed for ASD (no) and recommendes that she was.
In comes my lovely 80 year old mum to the rescue, who couldn't bear to see her granddaughter so distressed, so offered to pay privately for the assessment so she did not have to wait and struggle. I know that we are in a very fortunate position to have been able to do this and it's not right, but when someone you love is so desparate, you'll take every opportunity available to you.
Fast foward to today and we are 2 days in from receiving a formal diagnosis. I addition to this my daughter was prescribed Certraline and Rispiridone by the psychiatrist and and is receiving DBT counselling. It's early days but hopefully she'll learn some coping mechanisms. Again I appreciate how fortunate we are as this was covered under my husband's PMI policy.
My daughter lives with her partner of 2 years and his mum nearby and partner seems to be pretty understanding as i appreciate her wild mood swings and frequent emotional ourbursts must be very challenging for him at times.
When she is not with her boyfriend, if he goes away for the weekend for example, she comes back home. When she's home, she wants to spend all of her time with me, which is almost like she has regressed and she is very emotional all the time which can be exhausting. She has no friends and she doesn't like to be alone at the moment so when she's not working she's always either with her bf or with me.
This situation has been ok up to now as i have been off work since May when all the self harm started so I could be there to support her whilst also trying to manage a decline in my own MH. I am worried however that I have enabled her to be less independent and resillient as a result and that she will really struggle without me being available whenever she needs me when I have to return to (shift) work in November.
I feel like I'm walking on egg shells around her as I don't want to upset her or have an opinion on someyhing she won't necessarily like. She says when she's at home she feels it's her 'safe space' which is great, I'm glad she feels like that but am I enabling her behaviour???
Sorry for the long thead but this is all so new for me, I feel like a rabbit caught in headlights and I'm always on edge, waiting for the next crisis to hit.
Thanks for reading x
