• Replies 12 replies
  • Subscribers 12 subscribers
  • Views 2889 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Related
Hints and tips
  • To quote someone's message, first select/highlight the relevant text, and then use the Quote button that appears
  • To "mention" someone, type @ followed by the start of the forum name, and choose from the list; that person will get a notification of being mentioned

My daughter "doesn't want autism"

NAS90015

My 12 year old daughter has had a recent diagnosis of ASD and since then she hasn't wanted to talk about it, only that she doesn't want people to know which I think this is because she had some awful bullying experiences last year, a few this school year and she's feeling really isolated from her friendship group after slowly being pushed out. I've been quietly researching what her consultant advised in the report (mostly being able to name/identify emotions, the physical feelings associated with them, PDA and social stories etc) and any attempt I've made to discuss it, no matter how small and infrequent, causes her to shutdown and withdraw.

Her dad and I aren't together but she se's him regularly, when communicating with me his response to the diagnosis has been pretty poor - essentially it's nonsense with an undercurrent of embarrassment/shame. 

I got some resources to be able to name emotions etc and showed them to her, she got very frustrated so I put them away to bring out at a later date when she is ready. 

It came to a bit of a head earlier when I suggested we go through what her school day typically looks like so I could try and identify areas she enjoys compared with what she struggles with. She was initially up for it and a common theme that came up was that she doesn't like sitting at the front in class which felt like a small win to finally be able to get any information out of her. I could tell she was losing interest and asked if she'd like to stop which she did - so I did. 

I bought up the emotions wheel and she wanted to look at it so we were discussing what physical feelings happen with different emotions and she told me she doesn't want to do any of this, she wants things to 'be normal' 'we didn't have things like this before' and all of this makes her sad because she 'doesn't want autism'.

I'm more than happy to wait until she is ready and learn what I can, change where I can but I don't want to ignore it because I don't want her to be ashamed of who she is. I understand that it may feel too much for her and too soon, I just don't know what to do.... please help! 

Parents

  • I can only speak for myself but the majority of the autistic people I have known and certainly myself tend to be a problem oriented. Talking about how things make you feel without talking about the problem and how you might solve a problem just feels hollow. You’ve already identified a lot of things that make her feel bad. Feeling like she isn’t normal makes her feel bad. Being bullied and un popular makes her feel bad.

    why would she want to talk about a situation that  made her feel bad unless she was working towards trying to fix it? I imagine that’s her attitude. You have to understand recognising emotions in herself and recognising them and others will be two completely different processes for her. Success in the one will not translate into success in the other.

    if you want to talk to her about her feelings you’re probably gonna have to talk to her about her problems. and if you want to talk to her about her problems you’re probably going to have to give her the impression that you’re at least trying to help solve them. So are you ready to address your soon to be teenagers popularity crisis?

    Because if you’re trying to convince her that life would be better if she just learnt to process her feelings of being upset about being isolated and eat them up then I think you’re going to be disappointed.

Reply

  • I can only speak for myself but the majority of the autistic people I have known and certainly myself tend to be a problem oriented. Talking about how things make you feel without talking about the problem and how you might solve a problem just feels hollow. You’ve already identified a lot of things that make her feel bad. Feeling like she isn’t normal makes her feel bad. Being bullied and un popular makes her feel bad.

    why would she want to talk about a situation that  made her feel bad unless she was working towards trying to fix it? I imagine that’s her attitude. You have to understand recognising emotions in herself and recognising them and others will be two completely different processes for her. Success in the one will not translate into success in the other.

    if you want to talk to her about her feelings you’re probably gonna have to talk to her about her problems. and if you want to talk to her about her problems you’re probably going to have to give her the impression that you’re at least trying to help solve them. So are you ready to address your soon to be teenagers popularity crisis?

    Because if you’re trying to convince her that life would be better if she just learnt to process her feelings of being upset about being isolated and eat them up then I think you’re going to be disappointed.

Children
No Data