Bemused by Diagnoses

I'm sat here wondering after bringing up OUR two children for 19 years (daughter 17, son 19) how in the last 10 months they have both been diagnosed with ASC.  If it hadn't been for my daughter developing anorexia we would never have known they had ASD.  The diagnosis of my son yesterday has left me wondering in his case whether the diagnosis will cause problems for him where without the diagnosis he had none.   For example he is currently at Uni and obviously has to get a job at some point.  He is incredibly bright but he will struggle with interviews.   Had he not known abouthis ASC he may have put a bad interview behind him and moved on to the next (afterall we don't all get the first job we're interviewed for) but I can't help wondering if now he knows he has ASC he will blame every interview failure on this and send him on a downward spiral in terms of his mental health.   I'm feeling bad now about suggesting he had an ADOS assessment but it was suggested to us by my daughter's paychologist.

Parents
  • I've had some utterly terrible interviews in the past. I mean, several I've either cried in or come out of and immediately started to cry, they were that awful. Usually it was that I was hit with a question I wasn't at all expecting (and therefore wasn't prepared for-even though I often spent hours and hours preparing for interviews trying to come up with every possible thing I thought would happen) or something I could not quite figure out the meaning for despite attempts to clarify (and it would usually end up that the answer they were looking for was really simple and something I did know, making me look like an idiot), or something where it was clear they were looking for a 'right' answer, but I couldn't figure out what that might be. I would end up frozen and unable to get any answer out and it was so humiliating. And I didn't know why I kept having these experiences, despite doing far more preparation than most people I knew. I can tell you I definitely didn't feel like 'well, that was a bad interview, I'll just move on' because it kept happening but I couldn't understand why.

    I've just started the process to get diagnosed and I wished I had had an insight into the things I'm beginning to be aware of now, back when I was having a hard time getting through interviews. I wish I had realised my trouble understanding what I was being asked, and not being able to get at what they were implying in those situations where the interviewer is obviously trying to help you get the 'right answer', wasn't just me being utterly stupid. So in my opinion, I think knowing he has an ASD might help your son identify better what he's having a hard time with, and how he can improve. That sounds better to me than constantly having difficult interviews but only having a limited insight as to why. Also, worth remembering that not every interview he doesn't get a job for will be because he has 'failed' the interview (not everyone can get the job after all, even if they all interview equally well) and even if an interview does go badly you can spin it positively as good practice.

Reply
  • I've had some utterly terrible interviews in the past. I mean, several I've either cried in or come out of and immediately started to cry, they were that awful. Usually it was that I was hit with a question I wasn't at all expecting (and therefore wasn't prepared for-even though I often spent hours and hours preparing for interviews trying to come up with every possible thing I thought would happen) or something I could not quite figure out the meaning for despite attempts to clarify (and it would usually end up that the answer they were looking for was really simple and something I did know, making me look like an idiot), or something where it was clear they were looking for a 'right' answer, but I couldn't figure out what that might be. I would end up frozen and unable to get any answer out and it was so humiliating. And I didn't know why I kept having these experiences, despite doing far more preparation than most people I knew. I can tell you I definitely didn't feel like 'well, that was a bad interview, I'll just move on' because it kept happening but I couldn't understand why.

    I've just started the process to get diagnosed and I wished I had had an insight into the things I'm beginning to be aware of now, back when I was having a hard time getting through interviews. I wish I had realised my trouble understanding what I was being asked, and not being able to get at what they were implying in those situations where the interviewer is obviously trying to help you get the 'right answer', wasn't just me being utterly stupid. So in my opinion, I think knowing he has an ASD might help your son identify better what he's having a hard time with, and how he can improve. That sounds better to me than constantly having difficult interviews but only having a limited insight as to why. Also, worth remembering that not every interview he doesn't get a job for will be because he has 'failed' the interview (not everyone can get the job after all, even if they all interview equally well) and even if an interview does go badly you can spin it positively as good practice.

Children