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Re: telling our daughter

NAS95518

Hi all, brand new here and really trying to find my feet. We have an 11 year old daughter who had an ASD assessment a couple of months back and we feel now is the time to tell her. She starts secondary school in a few weeks, the private clinic that did the assessment has let us down a bit to be honest as we were hoping for their support in telling her at the start of the summer holidays but they have been totally out of touch with us. Just hoping for some advice or reassurance or anything really in avoid place to start even with explaining things to her. I’m very much of the opinion that it should be all looked at positively. My worry is she will shut down, not talk, stop us talking about it then keep it all in. I’d love to find a way of speaking to her where she doesn’t feel that way about it, but also if she does, a way to keep dealing with everything and not make it a negative thing. Any help hugely appreciated. Thank you all!

  • NAS95518 said:
    My worry is she will shut down, not talk, stop us talking about it then keep it all in.

    A difference in communication is specific to Autism. From everything I've read I've come to understand that we access language in a different way than Non Autistics. And while we share certain traits like Monotropism with ADHD and executive difference/dysfunction with Dyslexia, it is this Language difference that is specific to Autism. 

    So, unless you are also Divergent,  you should expect some differences and difficulty with verbal and non-verbal communication. I believe better access to art, such as music, theatre and visual arts are better for exchanging human ideas and emotions. Humans only started reading and writing at large may be 200ish years ago. The printing press was invented earlier, but education with these became more accessible to the less privileged in the Victorian era for certain countries.  

    Non autistic social collectives (which is the majority) use a great deal of social linguistics which Autistics aren't as "hard wired" for. We access vocabulary as a utility and some are better than others. But vocabulary is often used symbolically with an organic nature which we might not always pick up on. So, we 'appear' more pragmatic, but deeply desire to connect and understand. However, when words aren't used to mean what they're supposed to, it can take weeks, months or even years to recognise what another was saying. Have a look at the Double Empathy Problem on this.

    This plays a role in awareness of what, actually, might be good to communicate and how to identify feelings. I have Alexithymia and cannot ever really tell you what I'm feeling. But being much older, I've now learned it's in one of a few categories: Confused or in a process of problem-solving (which can lead to frustration or a desire to learn), A sense of deep injustice which is often at the root of anger, Contentment or Anxious (excited or stressed). 

    But feelings are not my go-to if you ask how I am. It's better to ask how the day is, because I can better identify what's happening around me which a mess of 'feelings' might be a consequence or result of. It took me a long time to realise strangers weren't actually asking how are you, which is none of their business! LOL but the other part of all of this is we tend to be a bit more right-brained and taped into the moment / eternal time stream rather than the left hemisphere's linear time-stream. This affects organisation of thought, which complicates putting a sentance together for me quite often!