Published on 12, July, 2020
I just can't. I wish she wasn't autistic, she is 9 and was diagnosed a couple of months ago. I read some of the posts on here in tears because all you parents are so wonderful...I must be a terrible mother if I can't love her, but she is no good at being a daughter.
I have 3 other children who are all beautiful and neurotypical and don't cause me any trouble, and I look at them with such pride, yet I can't look at my autistic daughter with pride at all. I try and do my best for her but it wears me down, I spend most of my life in tears over her behaviour and I just don't know what to do. Children are meant to bring you joy and she does not bring me joy.
This is ruining my life, my husband wants me to see a doctor and discuss going onto antidepressants or to seek counselling, but neither of those things can change my daughter.
Please tell me I'm not alone in this feeling.
This post has made my blood boil. Children are not ‘meant to bring you joy’. Children are not meant to ‘make you feel proud’. Children don’t owe you anything but you owe them everything as you’re the one who decided to bring them into this world. They did not decide to appear.
Agreed 100%. Still, castigating them as parents doesn't solve their family problem...
And they are part-right
Being Autistic is a condition that makes the Autist annoyed at the world and the (NT) world annoyed at the Autiists. It can indeed be hard to love people like us. The forum is full of such evidence.
I'm quite certain that getting annoyed about their situation isn't going to reduce the overall levels of angst.
I'm going to think about this a bit... There must be something they can do to make this a bit better.