Feeling guilty

Happy Birthday too ! (whenever it is)

 that reminds me of the awful scenario in a place I used to work, an Aspie's nightmare.  When it was your birthday, there was a tradition that the other staff used to club together to get you "a little something" and they would crowd around your chair standing in a circle so there was no escape, whilst you opened your gift and then had to express NT-style platitudes to massage their egos. Arrrgghhhh!  The most awkward and embarrassing situation ever with no means of escape.  And you couldn't just not tell them when your birthday was because the supervisor would keep track and tell them anyway no matter how quiet you were.

Award accepted with a non-plussed and deadpan Aspie face, tinged with a little embarrassment and eyes to the ground.  I thank you. 

Pink68,

I am glad you posted your let it out comment,,because I see a couple of things here, Guilt is expressed as result of loss of ego(self identity) by environment pressure, so we as humans seek to repair this loss by empathy (being nice) to repair the ego. So you only wished too help your daughter, your intention was totally right.

Also the behaviour from your daughter has no clear rational explanation in your mind, so hence you post for a rational explanation because without it, your conscious mind will store it as a conflict in your sub-conscious mind, you will get a stress and anxiety disorder or even PTSD long-term if not resolved understanding of the event and probably lots of other daughter autism events, hence learning about the autistic condition protects your mind as a carer.

Sorry this is the apsie analysis coming out of me. So solution, 1.) intense has already explained why, but I would suggest ask you daughter why she screamed at you, so at least you have a rational explanation,(which will probably be irrational), but it is an explanation, the behaviour was hers, not your behaviour. YOU HAVE DONE NOTHING WRONG. !

You are a lovely mother, concerned for your daughter. We support you.

Keep posting

quote "Perhaps the only thing you can do, is rather than ask her if she wants to talk about it or offer hugs, is to tell her that if there is an issue you will try to find the solution and perhaps you might have an idea of how to solve it that hasn't occurred to her. That might appeal to her.  "

My STAR AWARD goes to Intense this month.  

That was me with my Aspie hat on.  This is me with my parent of children with autism hat now.  Sometimes you do also need to push to get an Aspie talking, I've noticed with my eldest she will get in a strop and make out she really doesn't want to talk but if I persist she will sometimes let it all out and have a rare moment of needing a hug.  (as much as we have issues with socialising it doesn't mean we want to feel isolated either) It depends on how explosive she is being at the time as to whether I push it or not.  I explained to her that sometimes you just need to have a cry every so often to let things out as they build up, you don't even know why you are crying it is just that existential difficulty thing.  The least confrontational you can be the better, so I know it's really hard not to be fed-up with it and difficult to stay cool sometimes, but if you approach it softly, trying to judge the moment as to whether she is too angry to listen then it might work.

That gives me such a good insight into the Aspie mind, thank you Intense. 

It's hard sometimes to see things from her point of view, but it is really just logical thinking (to her anyway!)

Offering a way of trying to find a solution to the problem is a great way to try to reach her.  It will help me to not feel so useless and frustrated and hopefully, more importantly, help her to not get upset and feel she has to deal with these things on her own.

She is probably just externalising her anxiety.  It could be just existential anxiety as an Aspie and how that makes her relate to the world.  People on the spectrum tend to either meltdown or shutdown and her wanting to be left alone could be a form of shutting down.  If she cannot identify why she is upset herself then logically, to her, she will not see how you could help her.  Many people on the spectrum have a problem with hugs so that wouldn't necessarily comfort her.

Also, talking about emotions is hard for us because sometimes we are unable to identify what is wrong due to alexithymia.  She may also be struggling with knowing she is different and hating herself or feeling it's so unfair and doesn't acknowledge that and therefore cannot talk about it.  We are often very uncomfortable discussing emotions.  To an Aspie, unless you can offer a practical solution there is nothing more you can do.  And if she has analysed the problem in her head and cannot see a practical solution (even if as a child, she is incorrect in that view) then she will not want to go to you to discuss it as she will have already made up her mind you cannot solve the issue.

Perhaps the only thing you can do, is rather than ask her if she wants to talk about it or offer hugs, is to tell her that if there is an issue you will try to find the solution and perhaps you might have an idea of how to solve it that hasn't occurred to her.  That might appeal to her.  However, if it is what I said in the first paragraph above, then it's unlikely that will help.