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
  • Don’t despair. Your son has already achieved getting through school and into Uni all without knowing he had Asc. That has to be a good basis on which to go to the next step. There are all sorts of routes and opportunities to get the the job you want; it isn’t always straight sailing but they usually get there in the end. Interviews are like exams you have to be prepared and practice. I usually interviewed well but then struggled in the job. Your son and daughter are young yet and hopefully this new information about themselves will help them in their future even if it’s looking at things from a different perspective. It’s possibly likely that other relatives have Asc either knowingly or not ... how are they doing? 

  • Thank you everyone for your thoughtful replies.

  • Has it helped...you’re probably still a bundle of worry, I expect x

  • maybe I am so like my son and daughter that to me they were typical in our household.

    Too true - someones normal is often someone else's "weird" - but life wouldn't work if we were identical.  Thinking on the positive elements of ASC is good (see these as strengths)...but just be mindful of the challenges as well!

Reply
  • maybe I am so like my son and daughter that to me they were typical in our household.

    Too true - someones normal is often someone else's "weird" - but life wouldn't work if we were identical.  Thinking on the positive elements of ASC is good (see these as strengths)...but just be mindful of the challenges as well!

Children
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