Autistic teen having a depressive episode

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. 

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. 

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