So lonely even DD and DH don't understand me.

[Thevegetarianchef]

So after a lifetime of anxiety and bouts of depression I was finally diagnosed with ADHD and autistic traits.
This has been helpful with regard to work relationships.
Not so much my home life.At the weekend we met up with DD who left home nearly ten yrs ago.She lives hundreds of miles away so we see each other every few months.
We had all gone shopping not DHS favourite past time and were grabbing a coffee or going back.
They wanted coffee in a cosy cramped hot cafe.
I wasn't so sure.Off DD stomped and I know she gets handgry as this has happened before.
DH ran after her. We settled on good old Mand S which was spacious.
Am I unreasonable to expect anyone in my own family to realise I struggle and have always with cramped spaces or to find out about my diagnosis as DH said I Keep going on about it.I have linked articles for him to read to understand.
I feel so lonely and misunderstood and isolated already.

I'm sorry, OP, but rightly or wrongly, I'd find this behaviour manipulative, as if you were using your diagnosis as an excuse to abdicate all personal responsibility for managing it yourself and to make everyone do what you want lest they be accused of not being supportive and understanding. It would annoy me. You say your daughter has traits too and yet it's only you who deserves the "understanding", who should get to choose where you go.

It's reasonable to expect your family to be supportive as you try to do what you can to manage your condition but it's not fair to expect them to do the managing for you. Understanding works both ways.

You know absolutely nothing about her. I hope that posting your little rant made you feel better about yourself though. And i hope that people treat you with more kindness than you've shown her, because it sounds like you could do with it.

Autism is not an illness

Doing your own bit of ranting there, and being unkind yourself, ironically.

I can't believe some of the ableist opinions and attitudes here to the OP. Pure cuntiness !

I do have to say I really, really appreciate the fact that my DH is understanding, thoughtful and endlessly supportive in trying to help me to navigate this. It's very hard when your brain works against you every single day. I work very hard to mitigate it but there are days where I just can't, and on those days it's an immense help to have someone in my corner. I think it's just one of those things that unless you suffer with it yourself, you can't relate to just how debilitating it is.

@Thevegetarianchef speak with your DH and your DD at a neutral time and try to put into place some strategies for you all to follow together to make things as smooth as possible.

It is, for those with the most severe level of needs.

Not the level ones and self diagnosed that isn't.

The eloquent and reasoned rational post from people saying theyre mentally disabled, and cant cope with anything the irony doesn't escape me. This is a real meltdown, and needs that mean they need everyone to give way to them.

There are ND people on this thread - but you’d describe their input in that manner because you don’t happen to agree with it?

I have a relative who I've grown up with who was diagnosed later in life. She also is deeply uncomfortable in certain situations with food, loud noises and around how close she needs to be to exits.

When she was younger she knew these things weren't "normal" so she would mask as best she could. Sometimes when she wasn't tired/ hungry she could do this successfully. Sometimes when she wasn't 100% it got too much and she would lash out, suddenly demand to go, refuse to go somewhere we had been before. At the time, honestly, it came across as inconsistent and demanding because we didn't understand what was going on and she couldn't articulate it. She was also confused and ashamed of it which made it worse.

Then she got her diagnosis and suddenly things began to make sense and for the first time she was able to give herself grace. However, she was just learning this about herself and needed time to learn which boundaries were requirements and which were preferences. She also needed to work out how to balance her needs with how to be in society. During this period she became very fixed, deeply uncompromising and defensive about what she perceived to be people failing to support her when in fact we were learning too. She felt she had been masking and making herself uncomfortable for years and I think was genuinely a angry about that. Why didn't people notice? Help her more?

Then she got proper help, good therapy and she was able to let go of the anger and see it as people had good intentions but didn't always know the right thing. She was able to work out and articulate her limitations and she accepted that being part of society means in some situations she does have to bend or withdraw. It's night and day.

For example a trip to the theatre. Previously she would have agreed in advance without stipulations then got really stressed in the run up. Back out of dinner last minute or insist we rush through it and be erratic during the show, dashing off at the interval, disappearing etc.

Now she will normally skip dinner as the stress of eating out isn't worth it for her but we will all meet extra early at the venue so we can still catch up. She is clear she needs an aisle seat towards the back and we are always happy to do that but if someone wasn't she would be grand with them sitting elsewhere. We know to leave her alone during the interval and she'll do her own thing. We always go the long way home on the car on the way back and talk then.

That’s about the size of it.

Dont backtrack now you arent getting the responses you wanted.

You said you hardly see your DD so how is her "temper tantrums" an issue??

You make no effort to see her and when she wants to spend time with you throw the temper tantrum about a cosy and potentially hot (you didnt even bother to check) and end up going to a bog standard cafe.

You're framing this entirely around your own discomfort and overlooking the impact on your daughter. Children of parents who consistently avoid ordinary environments are emotionally affected by confusion, disappointment and resentment. Children want to see their parents as capable and resilient. When you've repeatedly shown yourself as unable to cope with everyday life, you've undermined your daughter's sense of safety and stability. It's no surprise that she reacts with frustration when each instance of possible avoidance likely triggers the memories of the unfairness she's had to live with.

Avoidance is not the same as management. Managing sensory overwhelm means prioritising - saving your tolerance for the situations that matter the most, not ducking them all. I'm autistic. If my child wants to go to a café, I go. I find it noisy, it's a high level of sensory input, and I struggle to hear without lip-reading. However, I lip-read, cope in the moment, appreciate spending time with them, and then try to use strategies later, low lights/less talking/ear defenders/mindfulness/breathing exercises to recover. That's the reality of being autistic and being a parent: you absorb a lot of discomfort so your child doesn't pay the price for your differences. Do you have anything preventing you from doing this?

Your daughter's sensitivity to your avoidance comes from years of experiencing what it has cost her. Until you recognise that, you'll keep feeling rejected when, in fact, she is reacting to being the one left carrying the burden of your incapacity.

The people closest to you, who have been most impacted by you, will have the hardest time accommodating your avoidance, for the reasons above. It's much easier for people with no skin in the game to just go to the next cafe or whatever. You should try not to see this as a measure of care or understanding.

This thread highlighted why it is important to push your ADHD DC to be uncomfortable at times, as the adult world won't accommodate it.
I hate to chime in, a friend recently received an ADHD diagnosis, she cannot have any conversation without discussing her ADHD, it is over diagnosed and a blanket for a lot of issues, recently, my neat cushions were setting off her emotions.
She can spend time dressing well, perfect makeup but can't make a bed or wash cups.
I've been avoiding her calls, she sends endless links, my DC have a genetic disorder and ASD, I have enough information on neurological issues.

Well, yes, the children of autistic parents frequently report miserable childhoods, having to tip toe round their parents so as not to trigger them. The daughters probably just had enough.

Do you always get your own way?

You have to remember that there were two other people here, also with needs. Your DD was getting frustrated, and you acknowledge your DH had also spent hours doing an activity he doesn't really enjoy.
They both got steamrolled because the cafe they'd have preferred looked a bit cramped to you.
Your DD getting "hangry" and stomping away perhaps suggests she's not entirely neurotypical either.

Heaven forbid the one with the diagnosis occasionally has to yield. I imagine your family are fed up with the woe is me attitude.

Autism is not an illness, it is a disability

You’re being pedantic and arguing for the sake of it.

So why couldn't you say something along the lines of " it looks very full in there so shall we try somewhere else? Perhaps M and S because there is usually plenty of space there." This is much more acceptable to others because it takes the situation out of your personal realm into the general.

Yeah, as a child i'd to tiptoe around my disabled mothers wheelchair. A right pain in the arse. She really should have tried harder to get her lazy ass out of it and bring me mountaineering.

No, not being pedantic at all, just factual.

I totally agree with your addition, having absolutely reached burnout this year, shortly before my diagnosis, actually, in very similar circumstances to you, mid septation, 2 ND children with polar opposite needs, midway through intensive career retraining, other relationship/friendship breakdowns, burnout is real and it's debilitating. For around 3 months my spoon levels were next to zero and even just the essential life stuff put me in a negative balance to the point of suidical ideation because I was so convinced my brain was going to explode.

It is impossibly hard, OP, you have my sympathies, it's a massive thing to try and balance but it's important to be self aware of that, even if in that moment you don't have the capacity to do anything different, it means your tact towards the request you are making is less demanding and more asking/appreciative, and avoids feelings hard done by if others seem irritated as you understand where they're coming from. Making the effort when you can is a big help.

I also should mention that the turning point for me was the right level of medication. Its amazing how much more resilience I have for certain environments when you can no longer hear 8 background conversations at the same intensity as the person stood in front of you, and you can't hear the vibrations of the fluorescent light bulbs. I didn't even realise I was hearing it until I was medicated and stopped hearing it, because I had learnt not to consciously acknowledge it, but it was adding to the sensory overwhelm hugely. You mention your hormones made the wheels come off, OP. The link between hormones and ADHD is huge, have you spoken to your GP about anything they could do to help with that, like HRT? Are you taking medication for your ADHD? If so, have you been on this dose since pre-menopause? Could you ask to explore re-titrating to see if there is a more suitable medication for you if your symptoms are more problematic?

My DS at the age of 32 has just been diagnosed with ADHD and he is having therapy to deal with the trauma of what he sees as years of being misunderstood. He has spoken at length to me about how he feels, a lot of the things he said have been hard to hear as there is a level of blame it feels directed to me for not understanding him and getting him diagnosed as a child. I did get him assessed at 6 on the recommendation of the school who thought he may be dyspraxic, the report came back he was the worst case of ADHD they had seen. The school however told me they disputed this diagnosis and recommended he was privately assessed. I paid for this and it came back as he had a higher mental ability than his age and not ADHD but he was frustrated by being held back. No advice on how to deal with it, but the school put in place some 1-1 sessions and he seemed to do well going forward, has plenty of friends and now a very good career.

He still blamed me, but said he sees the same traits in me and continually asks me to get myself diagnosed. Anyway what I came on here to say is that he continually talks about his ADHD as if that is who he is now, when in my mind he is still the person he was before and lovable either way, He doesnt have the autistic side and is very socially outgoing, in fact he said he struggles being alone.

Can I ask if it is when you are on medication you feel like this and discuss it with your family, as I have noticed its only when my DS takes his medication he gets very serious and almost accusatory in the way he confronts me.

@Greysowhat Classic strawman argument and not remotely comparable.

But she IS still the same person. The diagnosis doesn't change her needs.

What are you talking about?? Autism is not an illness, it is a disability.