Published on 12, July, 2020
I am here today as I am struggling a lot myself. I feel I have no one to talk to. It’s not easy to say what I need to say to people who are not in my situation. I’m scared for the future of my daughter and I love her very much but I really dislike her behaviour and the effect she is having on our family, she is breaking us. I also feel she's purposefully pushing all the buttons to hurt me and I don’t like how I am feeling towards her at the moment, I feel like a terrible mum but all I do is try and care and fight her corner. She just treats me like dirt. I hate the way she makes me feel, I didn’t set about to have a family to feel like this about my own child.
Yesterday she was so bad I stayed in my bedroom all afternoon, I’ve been to the doctor as I am struggling with sleep myself now, last week I didn’t want to get in my car because I was scared I would crash it into a wall. I really don’t like the feelings I have about her, it’s either going well (when she’s out of her comfort zone) or just a horrendous negative situation fuelled by her nastiness to everyone around her
I know I need to be managing this and taking control and being the strong grown up but I cannot cope with it at the minute and i need some support but don’t know where to get it ? I really need some help.
I am so very sorry to hear how badly this is affecting you and your family. I can see a lot of my own behaviour in what you describe at your daughter's age, and your relationship with her sounds eerily familiar.
She's only being this cruel to you because you are the centre of her universe—as my mum was for me—and she's beyond frustrated with the world and with herself, and has no way to understand or express it. For all my intelligence, I had neither the emotional vocabulary nor self-awareness, and your daughter is probably in a similar situation.
I think the combo of moving up from primary to secondary school (with massively increased social interaction and sensory bombardment) together with hormones at that age make it really toxic for undiagnosed young people with autism and their families. With so much chaos around her all day at school, and so much internal chaos too, she will be feeling constantly overloaded with zero means of escape. (At least you were able to stay in your bedroom all afternoon for some respite; she has nowhere to go to escape herself.) I know it's unbearably challenging, but please take some small comfort in the fact that you are on the medical radar.
My older brother is neurotypical, exceptionally intelligent, healthy and outgoing; and I was the problem child, always "overreacting", "flying off the handle", "exaggerating", "being too clingy" or "ruining it for everyone". Honestly, my poor parents, and brother. I monopolised everything and still it was never enough. (My Asperger's wasn't diagnosed until I was 30, with my endometriosis diagnosed aged 25.) I see now that it left my brother without much parental support throughout his childhood and teens, and quashed all intimacy between my parents, although they somehow stayed together. It's taken my brother having kids of his own for us to really bond again as a family.
As an adult, I can honestly say the thing that makes the biggest difference to my mood and behaviour is sugar (although avoiding gluten and dairy has eliminated all the stomach problems, and recurrent ENT/sinus infections). Since cutting out all forms of sugar and almost all carbohydrates, I'm on a much more even keel emotionally. It's not fool-proof, but I'd say it reduces my volatility by around 80%. When I do 'cheat' and have something sweet/carbs-based, I recognise that I am going to feel really irritable and be prone to lashing out at the people I love and/or more susceptible to sensory overload and meltdowns, and as such I have to make a concerted effort to mask that, or take myself away from everyone until the sugar-crash is over.
As others have said here, if you are able to identify some patterns in your daughter's behaviour and start spotting the triggers, you may be able to prevent some of the nastiness, or at least know that it is coming and distance yourself emotionally from it. Remember, it is the autism that's doing this, not her. I know it's hard to separate the two, especially in the heat of the moment, but she won't be able to separate the two in her mind so it's especially important that you do and, in time, help her to as well.
Really good luck to you all. You will always find empathy and support on these forums, whether you have specific questions or just need to have a completely justified rant. Take good care. Xx