ASD Daughter doesn't like me talking to anyone

Hey, I don't know if this helps at all, but this sounds like the same emotional response I used to get as a child. I don't recall lashing out, but I remember how it felt when Mum would "abandon" me like that. For me, it was made worse by knowing that I shouldn't be upset about it.

I was fine if I was included in the conversation, but otherwise, even in conversations that were just between my parents, I'd feel utterly helpless, and genuinely betrayed whenever I got left behind. I knew that I missed things when she wasn't helping me. It felt as if, just at random, she'd get tired of me, and flip a switch at the back of my head that made me deaf, blind, and mute. For convenience, or, even worse, in yet another unfathomable effort towards Not Being Rude.

It honestly felt as if I was diabetic, and being taught how to "share" by having a string of strangers casually come up and rip my insulin pump out of my flesh, without warning, and the goal was to "learn" how to... not be upset about it?

Fair warning though, this didn't stop when school started. Every home time, I'd launch into a dissection of everything I'd done that day and not stop until I was satisfied that I'd got it "right". Even in the lessons, I'd always buddy up with the person next to me and essentially train them to be my assistant! (I never got a real one.)

That was the crux of it for me, I think. Mum was the only person I could trust to understand me, and therefore she was also the only person who could be trusted to accurately interpret whatever the heck was going on around me. Even more infuriating was the knowledge that she actually couldn't be trusted 100% of the time. Because, fallible human is fallible.

Gosh, this is actually getting a bit lengthy, and a bit more cross than I was expecting!

For me, what really helped was badgering my mum into admitting that she didn't know the rules either. I still needed her for emotional reassurance, but knowing that she could get it wrong meant that, maybe, sometimes, I could get it right without her watching over me. I really can't emphasise enough how vital it was for me to have it confirmed that no-one really knew, and that I was allowed to simply follow my instincts and do whatever felt right to me, instead of perpetually feeling like I was being left out of a conversation that I didn't even want to be in.

Thanks so much for sharing such a detailed account of your experience and how it felt for you. Can I just ask ask how old you are and when/if it started to get easier to deal with?

I completely get how this relates to my daughter also.

Many thanks

Thanks so much for sharing such a detailed account of your experience and how it felt for you. Can I just ask ask how old you are and when/if it started to get easier to deal with?

I completely get how this relates to my daughter also.

Many thanks

Hi, glad it did relate. I'm 22 now. It did start to get easier, but I'm not quite sure how to describe it. I certainly became a lot less reliant on my mother around ages 4-5, when I started school, but school was a horror (Hell) in its own right, which only increased the need for control when I was at home. 

The best time for me was when Mum home-schooled me for a term when I was 10. That might seem counter-productive - but it wasn't about having her all to myself. This was at the same time she started to reconnect with old friends, and meet up with them. Of course, due to my situation, I was always present.

And I absolutely loved it. 

It didn't take long at all for me to settle into the idea that my voice was not only being heard, but was thought to be worth hearing. Most of the time, I didn't even choose to participate, but I was never actually excluded. I always sat at the same table, unless I chose to be somewhere else. I always did the same activity, unless I chose to do something else. I was always free to join or decline or change my mind. This absolute godsend of a friendship group understood the concept of parallel play, and were just as happy as I was to explicitly verbalise wants, needs and boundaries. 

I will add, though, that I actually did achieve this earlier, around the age of 7, with a friend I had outside of school. We played together once a week when she visited family, and we learned early on that one or both of us would have a meltdown if we got too hungry/thirsty/tired. I think it was the fact that we were both so fine with the meltdowns; we recognised something in each other, and after the second time we met up again and got straight to business with a conversation about scheduling naptime for ourselves. Then we both ran off to inform the adults, and from that day on, we had in our timetables an hour's break for dinner and a rest, managed by our respective caretakers. 

Another long one, sorry. It was actually longer when I tried to do bullet points!

To sum up: at any age, I found that I needed the ability to turn to the person next to me and say, "you do your thing, I'll be over here, doing my thing. Let me know if anything about your situation changes, so we both know what we're doing." In other words, don't make me have to mask. 

Hope you don't mind, just some links I've personally found very helpful recently: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.