I’m looking for some guidance on how to help my 18 year old daughter. She has just been diagnosed as having ASD and is going through a depressive episode. I feel really helpless when she is having a melt down telling me she can’t cope any more with the thoughts she has. I’m not sure what the right thing to do is. I’m scared to leave her on her own but worried she is too dependant on me. Any advice or guidance would be very much appreciated. Thank you
Hi,
I'm so sorry you're both going through that. I can only tell you that I wish I had had psychotherapy when I was 18 instead of waiting til I was 40 something. For some reason, even though my mum was a superb mum, telling a stranger about it lifted it off my shoulders in a whole new way. For my son, who was suicidal a couple of years ago, I found a psychotherapist with experience of ASD and made sure they 'gelled'. He opened up about whatever it was and has been a different boy ever since - still with his challenges but not with the low mood.
If she has recently been diagnosed she may be thinking that her life is in some way limited, or worried that she will always feel that way because autism is permanent. It may well help her to find a couple of autistic female adults to role model that for her.
If she can tell you her thoughts on a day when she is that bit more removed from them, you can both examine them in the cold light of day and see if they are genuine fears, things that could be changed, or simply feeling low because of something bad that happened (like a breakup). If it's changeable, you can show her how to change it. If it's fear, you can take her through how to avoid it (like changing the college course) or face it with support. If she is feeling low for a good reason, then she may need you around but not 'on top of' her. If she's feeling consistently low for no real reason, then a doc and/or therapist is what you need because you cannot do it all yourself.
I will always remember how my mum helped me through my autistic teen years. She airlifted me out of school when they were unreasonable, she was always there for me and we are very close as a result. Your daughter will get through it with a mum who is switched on to what she needs, and I wish you both all the best.
How can you help her identify those feelings? Also as an aid for you both to move forward. This is about empowering her to be more independent. She's not helpless and you're not a control freak. You have a common goal so you both need to figure out how to get there. You both need to want that and then work out how to achieve it. It's totally achievable if you both agree on the outcome. Forget how that may look for other people. This is about what you both want and what is a reasonable goal. That may look like you being a bad parent or her being a bad child from the outside. Or you may "fail". Consider what success actually means because in our society that's a narrow concept. If you can both find a way to function and be ok, then that's a major achievement. You're not responsible for all the wrongs in society.
A mentor sounds like a good idea. Both of us have so much to learn around her diagnosis but at the moment it’s taken a back seat as I feel I’m fighting to keep her safe and here. I know it all fits in it’s just figuring out how
She just says she feels so low. She feels numb and tells me she doesn’t want to live like this any more
This sounds hard. My son went through a time where he had situations which were daunting so I understand how it feels to be a mum in this situation.
I'd like to suggest a possibility. That she may simply need a mentor and a library to start unpacking everything going through her head. She may need permission to write everything down - holding nothing back. If she's arrived at 18 and is just diagnosed, chances are she's collected all kinds of information but has missed out on a great deal of understanding, which for autistics would be bottom up learning rather than top down. So she may have an overwhelming sense of things which should connect but no idea how she's reaching these understandings. She may have pieces of other things and feel incredibly frustrated and confused, which can appear like depression. Especially with all the signals we're literally being told in society and no recourse to understand how to fight them or what they're implying.
Around 18 I was reading Franny & Zoë (JD Salinger), Dorothy Parker, Ulysses, Thomas Merton, Checkov and others. I found a theologian, Dr Greg Boyd and also looked at Alan Watts and others. But I also started a journey of The Artists Way, which I've only recently discovered suggests a formula which resembles Freuds method for analysing dreams and is surprisingly helpful. Knowing this now and knowing that part of being autistic meant I had literally been mis-communicating in ways I could've never understood, I was working with pieces of information that needed a formula for analysis & this book helped provide a structure to evaluate what was happening around me.
It can take a long time to catch up to and navigate our social environment. So the world should feel overwhelming - like being dropped into a jungle without a map and without tools or an instruction booklet on how to survive. We traditionally need practical step-by-step instructions on how to make sense of things. Tools like learning a little logic can help. Philosophy and psychology can help. Even just understanding how the economic structure of modern society words and what that means, while it's slightly horrifying, so long as I can name it and identify it, I have some idea of what I'm actually working with, which can simply be grounding. But it can take a long time to recognise what is NT psychology and what might not apply to autistic-thinking vs what is simply human and we all struggle with. Even our motives can be incredibly different. The more understanding I found, and the tools to create boundaries, integrate into my self, learning to communicate, and so on, the more grounded I felt.
Can you or her say what the feelings are?
Thank you so much for replying. Lots of good hints and tips. I like your suggestion about saying we could work out a plan together and the idea of an emergency kit. I have just bought her some fidget spinners so that could be a start. She is seeing a psychologist at the minute and they have diagnosed a depressive episode and she’s spent just under a month in hospital. She’s tried some of the grounding techniques but she just keeps saying she can’t cope with the feelings. That’s when I feel helpless
I know how scary it can feel to hear that from your child but it's actually a good thing she can say this to you. It doesn't necessarily mean that she will harm herself but I agree that you should be concerned that she feels so distressed and maybe learn the signs that someone is feeling suicidal if you feel that's a possibility. Also, autistic shutdown looks a lot like depression from the outside but feels different to depression when you are experiencing it. It's important to know if she really is depressed because treating someone for depression when they are in fact experiencing shutdown won't work.
If she's having frequent meltdowns it shows how much stress she is feeling. Is she able to tell you her stressors? Maybe she could write them down if it's too difficult to say. I'm just saying this from personal experience - it really helps to be able to express what is leading to a meltdown if the person you are communicating with is non-judgemental. I've been called "emotionally unstable", "overreacting" and other unhelpful things when I've shown distress about a situation. I've felt a lot of shame and guilt for my nervous system reacting this way. A meltdown is an uncontrollable reaction to overwhelm. You don't need to "fix" this for her. If she is able to work out what is going on and find strategies to manage her anxiety her meltdowns will decrease. When someone is feeling that way they are in defense mode. Wait until the meltdown is over then you could say something like "I don't know exactly how to help yet. Maybe we could work out a plan together about how to manage this." On a practical level I have found having an emergency kit for feeling overwhelmed helps. Mine is in a pretty makeup bag and contains a fidget ring (because I pick my cuticles if I'm nervous), a sweet or square of chocolate because feeling strong emotions is exhausting and that gives me energy fast, and a small bottle of aromatherapy oil that I can put on my wrist and sniff, which also slows my breathing down. Some people also find grounding exercises help, like the 5-4-3-2-1 technique (easy to find on the internet). There are also guides for meltdowns on the internet.
It is a lot to learn about when your child is first diagnosed. You don't have to get it right straight away. My son was diagnosed at 3 and he's 19 now and I'm still learning, especially as the understanding about neurodivergency has changed so much in that time. I've found the BBC podcast 1800 Seconds on Autism helpful recently. I don't feel like I have the energy to focus on books at the moment, but with this on I can also be doing chores and sometimes my son comes in the room and listens too and it helps him understand himself better. Squarepeg is also an excellent podcast and is focused purely on the experience of autistic women and non-binary people.
You're only able to do so much in a day and it is exhausting to try to help someone that is very upset frequently. Knowing that someone is there for you and will try their best to help is good enough in an emergency situation. The preventative and management will take time and self awareness skills. Sorry there's no quick solution.
To an extent she has but I think it’s more to do with her autism. To be honest it’s all very new and I’m trying to learn as I go. She has routines etc she does and gets upset if something disrupts them
telling me she canโt cope any more with the thoughts she has.
Does she have OCD too?
