Do I have a right to be annoyed?

[Anxietyqueen1987]

My daughter's 5th birthday is coming up and I'm planning on doing something small for her birthday, only very close family and a friend, with her two children. A little back story, my daughter is Autistic and doesn't have any friends, which I'll admit is probably harder for me than it is for her. Anyway, a friend and her two children were due to come, this "friend" is aware of the situation and has been through similar things when people have failed to turn up for her childs birthday parties and knows how heartbreaking it can be (also bearing in mind I have made the effort to go to both of her children's parties). Anyway, she has now decided that she is throwing her own birthday party on my daughters birthday as a few of her friends wouldn't have been able to make it so she has basically said she understands if I cant make it and thats that. So now my daughter wont have any children at her already small little birthday party. Am I wrong for being upset? Am I over reacting?

@AtrociousCircumstance Thank You

what I said was is that my daughter doesn't have any friends at the moment, which gets to me more than it does her

I have to ask, is your daughter actually bothered? Or is this more about you wanting to do something "normal" for your daughter by throwing her a party?

Our son is at an ASD specific school. He's never had a birthday party, he's never been invited to a party. School are very accommodating about effectively having an in-class party, with the parents providing a cake for them to share. But our son's birthday is in the middle of the school holidays, so we cannot even do that! But he doesn't really know what a birthday is, and certainly doesn't know that parties are the norm. So it doesn't upset him.

@Eggysmom I don't think she will be bothered in all honesty but its it's not necessarily about me wanting to do something "normal" I just thought she deserves a nice little celebration. I will definitely be talking to the school, I'm sure they will be more than happy to help.

YANBU at all. As a mum of an autistic 9 year old girl I completely feel your pain and it's hard when they don't have any friends ( although dd is friendly with other sn kids at her school)
I'm really surprised that this person has done that to you and your dd. She's not a friend at all to you op.

www.autism.org.uk/services/local/england/london.aspx
have a peruse this will be support groups etc BUT they maybe able to tell you if there is anything local to you, I remember the more general PHAB clubs which were for all disabled people

Anxietyqueen.....you went out of your way to make me feel like shit, not the other way round, I was genuinely trying to help. If you read my posts you will see that I havent been rude to you at all. You called me a cunt for goodness sake. How is that nice. I was still civil with you and tried to help, making suggestions about school etc, that actually others made too, but you decided to pick on me and twist and turn everything I've said into something bad. When I said you need more friends, it wasnt a judgement at all. You took it that way. I genuinely felt for you and felt you needed support round you. You say I am uneducated about the topic, but to be fair, who is? Unless you have an autistic child, not everyone is going to know the ins and outs of autism. And you posted this in aibu, not sen, so to be fair, you are going to get lots of people not knowing the ins and outs if autism. As mentioned previously, I have an extremely disabled close relative, so I do know what it's like to need support and to not have time to make friends, but you (and anyone in that situation) do need them.. I'm reading through your other thread as you've been quite nasty to me and I wanted to know more background to try and understand why. Actually you are still being nasty to me saying to me "fuck me, why am I explaining myself to you?" And I'm still bring polite back.

@FelixFelicis6....if people keep responding to me, like you, with nasty comments, I'm going to keep replying....that's the way it goes.

But seriously anxietyqueen...I do think its brilliant she now has speech, and I didn't mean that spitefully (despite you again thinking so). As speech is so so important. I do think you need support groups round you, and I do think you could do with people helping you, whether you want it or not. And I mean that with the utmost best intentions, because I know its not always easy to accept help when you want to do everything yourself. I know what it's like having people avoid you because of a disabled family member and when I said you need lots and lots of friends I meant it. Some of our friends have stuck with us and have been great, even just talking to my disabled family member when we bump into them in the street helps, even with speech. Sometimes when a family member struggles with that you find yourself not talking to them much yourself in the home as its natural to want to relax in the home, so every little bit helps.

Jeeze.

Anyway, OP, I'm glad you're contacting the school. I taught in a specialist school for children like your daughter, and we always held birthday parties in class. Usually parents supplied cake etc, but we always kept supplies of party snacks and would nip to the shop at lunchtime for a cake if none arrived.

I do recall the occasional parent sending out invitations to all the children for a party of their own, or they'd ask me for the name of a child who their child particularly liked and approach their parent through me. I know that the other parent/s were absolutely thrilled to have their child invited to a party.