Published on 12, July, 2020
Good afternoon. I will introduce myself properly later but I am at my wits end. My husband is autistic and suffers from anxiety and depression. He was attending therapy but obviously that has been stopped. While all this uncertainty is going on, his anxiety and depression is getting out of control. I have experience as a care worker for autistic adults but I am out of ideas. Has anyone got any advice? Thankyou in advance. X
Hello NAS66614, I'm sorry to hear about that your husband is so stressed right now. We have a page on our website directed at partners of autistic people: https://www.autism.org.uk/about/family-life/partners.aspx . I hope that you find it helpful. All the best, Karin Mod.
Is he self-aware enough to understand his own behaviours? We often feel alone in our heads because we find it difficult to judge other's feeling and emotions - it means we talk about things over and over because it's like we're waiting for others to chime in to fill in our missing data.
Is he able to reason out and list all the different things that are stressing him and then are both of you able to work through the list finding solutions to all the easy stuff first - hack the list into something more manageable and then come up with a plan to deal with all of the difficult things - it may be stress over food supplies, job security, health worries etc. and if you can both work through the list, it will give him assurance that he's not on his own and the people around him acknowledge his fears and that you can come up with your rational survival plan together.
Things like this can be a real eye-opener to think about what's really important to you and possibly think about your life plan - what are you both aiming towards? Retirement by the sea? Travelling the world on a yacht? Opening a B&B? Try to point him towards some useful planning like where will your next holiday be - will it be cheaper after the WuFlu.
We were planning on Florida Disney next year - if the middle-classes in the US are financially stuffed by the WuFlu, will Disney be cheaper to try to get bums on seats & cash-flow or be more expensive to recoup their losses faster?
After everyone has been house-bound for a couple of months, where does he want to go and visit when it's all clear? Any cities? Museums? Direct his processing onto nice challenges.
His lack of normal routine, the lockdown, having my daughter home until September and not being able to attend his therapy group. I am working on using the coping tools but it seems to stress him more. My daughter is higher functional autism and therefore they both clash!
He loves warhammer and he is immersing in that but said he can't be bothered at the moment. I played some card games as he loves them and it did lift him for a while. I also try to give him problems that I can't solve, like drawing a plan for our garden or utility room because he likes planning
Hi - do you know what's causing his anxiety? Is it over real stuff or imaginary/unlikely potential disasters?
We often get diagnosed as depressed because a lot of NTs misjudge our rock-hard logic and realism and talking honestly about negative facts as depression - they project how *they* would feel in the same circumstances.
Hi I’m Kevin I’m autistic myself. If he has a special interest maybe something like morning you can go on line with him in order one. And maybe ask him to remember his coping tools he may of been given by the therapist/counsellor. Kevin