I need a listening ear. I’m so upset.

[BeggsAndFacon]

I’ve cracked under the pressure and I’ve been crying for the past hour. I have 3 DC aged 22, 14 and 13 years old. The younger two both have autism, both high needs but in different ways. The 13 year old vocal stims a lot. It impacts the sibling who is noise averse.

This makes driving to school or anywhere very difficult. I’ve supplied both of them with ear defenders, fidgets, headphones and music. These only help a little.

We’ve just gotten home from football practice and the 14 year old has just lost it with me. He said that whilst I was packing up some kit (they were waiting in the car), younger DC was stimming vocally and loudly. I know this is probably the case, I was less than 10 minutes packing things up.

The 14 year old has told me how I’m letting them down, how I should parent more effectively, how I never do anything to help the situation, that I should do something and be a better parent. It has broken me .

The 13 year old had an unrelated rant earlier about how I shouldn’t smile so much at people at football practice, how not everyone wants to chat to me and as he has no filter, will openly and loudly tell me in front of others “not everyone wants to talk to you mum”. It makes me feel bad.

They have very rigid thought processes so if a change happens , such as needing to call to a shop for milk after practice , instead of going straight home as planned, I’m called a liar . I always change things . I always lie.

I live life trying to balance their needs, I’m firm with them but make accommodations for their needs, I’m trying to keep everyone happy. It’s not true that I’ve done nothing to help. I KNOW the constant noise is wearing. I make sure they always have access to noise cancelling headphones or ear defenders. I do remind younger one to keep some thoughts and noises to himself, it lasts a few minutes before he forgets and stims again.

I’ve offered to allow the older one to travel to school with a friend or on the bus to avoid the noise; he didn’t want that. I’ve offered to increase the time they spend separately at their dads; he didn’t want that.

The 14 yr old ranted about how I just let the 13 year old “get away with it” (the stimming), that I find it funny (I don’t always, but he does have a good sense of humour too and his stims can be random and humourous), that he’s being naughty and I just stand by and do nothing.

On the flip side, the 14 yr old is so noise sensitive that nobody is allowed to sing along to songs in the car and nobody is allowed to talk to him when they are listening to music. He is very snappy and will scream and shout himself when frustrated.

This all started when I said to the 14 year old that I was proud of how he played at practice . He said he didn’t care, he’s sick of the noise and I need to do something to sort out his brother, before he ranted at me as above.

I burst in to tears. I’ve had enough of being blamed for everything that goes wrong but never appreciated for the things that go right. I’m really trying my best.

What else can I do? I can’t punish the younger one for stimming but the older one thinks he’s being naughty and immature. He forgets that he also screams and shouts when in meltdown.

I constantly remind the younger one about the noise. The older one reminds me it’s my job to parent them both and this just really made me feel like an admonished child. I’m usually very sharp on rude behaviour, but also try to understand them too. It just was too much today and I’ve broken down.

What can I do?

Ah yes, there’s no parenting issue that can’t be solved by putting your child out onto the streets on their 18th birthday, autism or no autism. FFS 😂

You’re doing a wonderful job so please be kind to yourself. Young adults on the spectrum can be very personal and nasty when they’re finding something intolerable. I have a daughter with asd and she can be utterly cruel with her words and even though I know she’s dysregulated and struggles with empathy, the words hurt all the same. This week she called me an embarrassing failure for quitting one of my jobs, which I was forced to quit because of the pressures at home overwhelming me. We become their punch bag and it’s soul destroying.

There are some things you just can’t solve, you can’t make the world a quiet place and you can’t help that one brother triggers the other. The noise pains him but you have given him headphones and choices to empower him,
you really can’t do a lot more. You are in an impossible situation. You won’t be able to reason with them or train them to be more considerate the way you can with neurotypical children, as a lone parent you are the focus of all their suffering and frustration but you don’t deserve it.

Be sure to look after yourself, seek out local groups for parents with autistic teens and grab any opportunity to get respite and do something for yourself. Parents of asd children can often feel like their lives are controlled by their children and they lose all sense of self.
You need to take care of yourself with the same dedication you give to your children. Our job is not easy at all but we are not alone. Please remember that.

I can so empathise with the twisting yourself to suit everyone else and consequently neglecting all your needs and wants. My 2 boys have ADHD and have reduced me to tears more times than I can count. When they were younger I did everything possible to reduce their triggers and make things as comfortable as possible (cos all day in school was so hard for them). I burnt out twice.

Now they're 10 and 12 and I'm still putting them above me in every situation but I am im therapy and my therapist says I need to stop. That there's reasonable adjustments and then there's me not existing except to serve them.

So I'm trying to change. But its hard.

She might be being too soft on them. Needs to toughen up. They've got no respect.