If you're autistic, can I ask you a personal question please

[CanIaskapersonalquestion]

My dd is 10 and autistic.

Honestly trying to navigate our way through various situations and support her as much as I can and learning as I go.

This week there has been a death in the family, quite traumatic for me as I was there, dd was also close to the person.

Dd says she doesn't feel she can cry, fair enough, we all deal with death differently. She has been talking about hiw she feels and then asking to stop talking about it when she feels its too mucb, I'm being guided by her.

However she gets a certain amount of screen time per day, usually very supervised but the last few days I haven't been as on it as I usually would due to the circumstance. There are strict controls on her tablet so I wasnt really too worried.

I had a look at what she had been doing, and she was looking up how to show empathy, and she has been doing exactly what it said, saying certain things, holding my hand etc.

Waiting lists for appointments are ridiculous, I have called to make an appointment this morning and they are going to send one out but it could be a couple of months.

However is this usual? She must be feeling some kind of empathy in order to want to show it?

As I say this is all pretty new to me and I dont know if this is ok or something I need to be really worried about.

Sorry if it a jumbled mess of a post.

Clever girl

she’s trying to work out how to make you feel better

She care about you deeply and wants to get it right she sounds lovely x

Aw, what a lovely girl. Absolutely no need to worry about this. She is feeling empathy and she wants you to know it. Some non autistic people could learn from this quite honestly.

Sorry for your loss.

Sounds like she really loves you and wants to be there for you but doesn’t know how so is trying everything she can of to get it right. What a sweetheart.
So sorry for your loss x

Good for her. And she could be looking at it for reassurance that she’s getting it right, rather than using it as guide on how she should act.

I would reassure her that you are Ok - sad but OK as she is young to be feeling so responsible for making you feel better

Funnily enough when I was assessed for autism, I was told the assessment wasn’t going forward to the next stage because I did exactly what your daughter is doing…I learned how to ‘be there’ for people, but it’s not from any natural spring inside me. According to the assessor I couldn’t be autistic if I was capable of learning that. 🤔
Anyway, that’s by the by - what I was going to say is I can see what your daughter is doing in my own behaviour patterns. My first family death was my grandpa and I adored him. But I didn’t cry. Life went on. And it’s not through lack of care - I absolutely adored him and I think of him a lot all these years later. My brain just wasn’t wired to grieve like others. Similarly I’ve never mourned a pet. I love the pet, but they die and life goes on. So yeah, while I am technically not autistic, I think the way she’s behaving is perfectly normal. You learn to behave in expected ways even if it’s not your natural reaction.

I am so sorry for your loss. Your daughter sounds lovely.

DD is 15 and autistic, and has good insight. She has told me before that she makes eye contact and counts to 4 because otherwise other people won't like her. She also never initiates hugs or kisses but will sometimes say "You can hug me if you like". She will also practice saying things and has asked me for help to try and make a sentence sound sarcastic. Her communication is quite formulaic in that you can sometimes hear her choosing to put the stress on certain words or change the volume part way through when she is getting it 'wrong' for NT ears. This does sound quite similar to me.

I'm very sorry for your loss, OP. But how absolutely heart-warming to see what a wonderfully resourceful and empathetic DD you have - she's been doing her own research on how best to support you in your sudden bereavement.

Have you perhaps read and internalised the misguided idea that people on the autism spectrum don't feel empathy, full stop? They absolutely do experience it, but may struggle to identify the socially appropriate way to express it.

What you're describing here may look like a purely intellectual exercise to you, but to me it's exactly the same way my own DS on the autism spectrum does his best to help in similar circumstances. You have a DD to be proud of.

Oh thank goodness.

She is very sweet and caring, although not in ways that others would necessarily recognise as being caring. She wouldn't think to hug someone but she will do things like get a favourite snack or do something practical for them.

I spoke to a 'friend' this morning and she said dd sounded like a sociopath and we had a fall out about it. Then I sat and worried about what she said. I wasnt sure if I was just blinded by my love for her so thought I would get outside opinions.

I am not relying on dd at all for support but she obviously knows I'm sad.

Oh and have a look at the autistic doublw empathy problem. https://www.autism.org.uk/learn/knowledge-hub/professional-practice/double-empathy

I must say when I was your DD's age my parents would never have even tried to talk to me about death . I was told my grand parents had died and that was the end of the conversation. It was nothing to do with us children- actually I was even told my grandmother's final illness was nothing to do with me, which still hurts me to this day. We didn't go to funerals because in my parents view it wasn't a place for children

That was a long time ago. And I had a pretty dysfunctional family and my Autism diagnosis was a very late life one.

I think the fact you and your dd are talking about death and her feelings is absolutely wonderful. And very much she should be encouraged to deal with this loss in the way that is right for her. There is no right or wrong when it comes to experiencing and dealing with grief and thats the message you should be giving her.

Your friend isn’t a friend. I hope you shut the door on her. Your DD is trying to do the right thing in helping you grieve and I’d say that’s a good thing overall but I don’t know the ins and outs of autism and how these things work.

Personally, I’d be a proud parent as to how your DD is handling it. I suspect she is doing better than most non-ND kids her age would.

That is not a "friend" you need in your life when you are grieving.

Your DD is behaving perfectly normally as far as my autistic brain is concerned by Googling what the socially appropriate way to behave was. I struggled to work out what you thought the problem was tbh and what kind of appointment you thought she needed!

Given your DD is doing the opposite of disregarding your feelings your EX friend is uneducated

Your daughter is wonderful and your friend is... not.

I'm sorry for your loss.

I’m not autistic, OP, but have been very involved in the lives of my autistic godsons, and I absolutely remember the elder in particular researching or asking me or his parents how to show sympathy. Your daughter is trying to figure out how to make you feel better in a way you will recognise/understand.

I have autism and my son (14) has quite severe autism - he attends a specialist autism complex needs school. I am higher functioning (for want of a better word, apologies I know some hate that term) and wasn’t diagnosed until adulthood. I was very high achieving etc in school / etc. Just for some background.

I think your dd sounds a lot like me. She wants to understand how others expect her to feel and loves you and wants to show you she cares about you. But for a lot of people with autism death can be a funny thing. We’re often very literal - even if we care about the person we tend to adapt fairly quickly to them not being there anymore. It’s like our brain compartmentalises things differently. My much loved Grandad died when I was 7 and I remember going to see him just before he died and everyone was very upset and I remember distinctly thinking his body wasn’t of any use to him anymore and I wouldn’t be seeing him again and that was that. Oddly enough I have cried over missing him many times since then but in the moment I really felt quite “oh well”. My son was exactly the same when my Mum (his Gran) died when he was around 7ish.

I have spent my whole life masking and trying to work out how others relate to each other. I remember being on a school trip on a coach and listening to others talking to each other trying to work out “how” to be friends with someone. It didn’t come naturally to me at all. I think it’s all part of the same thing.

I think this is really sweet and your friend sounds ridiculous. When my DM died, I found out late at night after the DCs had gone to bed. The DCs were 11 and 14 at the time and I waited until the next morning. They are NT. I told DC1 and they looked a bit stricken for a second. I gave them the option of staying off school for the day but they said they were fine then went to school. They seemed to get on well with my DM but I didn’t see another emotional response. DC2 took the offer of the day off school. Neither asked me if I was ok and I don’t think at their ages this is unusual behaviour.

i mean they never asked me if I was ok, not then and not after.

This sounds absolutely exhausting monitoring how you speak to this degree. What a shame people can't be more tolerant of other people's differences.

Thank you. That link was really useful.

And thank you all for confirming what I already thought, I just let that stupid woman get in my head a bit. I won't be speaking to her again.

In my head it makes sense that she feels empathy because she wants to show it, but doesn't really know how, so got some help.

She has been pretty ok after everything, shes back to school next week after the holidays and she has support there, just if she feels like she can't talk to me. We have had some conversations and she is pretty matter of fact about it all, but knows I'm sad.

The diagnosis is quite recent, I didn't really recognise her as autistic until the school pointed various things out and it all clicked into place a bit. She is just my lovely girl who processes things a bit differently to me. I shouldn't have let that woman make me think otherwise.

I agree. I'm quite exhausted trying to learn how dd thinks and what she needs, I cant imagine having to do thay with almost everyone I meet.

What a lovely child your dd is. People often think that autistic people are emotionless and cold. That is wrong. Whether not your dd feels grief at this loss, what shines through is that she recognises that you are feeling grief, that she loves you and wants to comfort you. What a clever girl to recognise the challenges this poses her and to look for solutions.

It makes me very sad that people are having to filter themselves to this extent. Your daughter sounds lovely by the way OP and your friend sounds very mean.