Hi all my first post here. Our daughter doesn’t have a diagnosis of autism but we are pretty certain that she does have autism and struggles with anxiety. We have other family members with confirmed diagnoses so we are familiar with the issues that this brings. She was bullied at school and her anxiety has been quite acute for the last year (she barely went into school for her final year of A levels). She has struggled socially all the way through school and the experiences of the last year have made things worse for her confidence.
She started at Uni last week (she didn’t want to go but felt she needs a degree) and is really struggling with the whole friendship thing. She was doing well and had met a few people but has suddenly decided they aren’t like her and she doesn’t really like them. Not liking people is quite a big issue for her. Anyway, she seems to be managing her anxiety ok but has now seemingly made a whole load of assumptions about the people around her that means she’s come to the conclusion that she won’t make any friends, that she will be lonely for her entire degree and will not have anyone to live with: whilst this is very early on, I’m struggling to convince her otherwise and, now that she has decided this will be the case, I’m concerned that her outward demeanour will be quite hostile and this will then be essentially a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I just don’t know what to do. Does anyone have any wise words please? It’s such a struggle to know what on Earth to do for the best.
thank you.
