DD’s birthday was an utter disaster

[bendmeoverbackwards]

It’s DD’s 19th birthday today. She’s ASD and has been out of education for a few years.

Last couple of birthdays have been disappointing to her and I know this one brought up a lot of emotion not just about birthdays but also her situation in general.

I asked her a few weeks ago if she wanted to see a particular show and a meal at a steak place. She just said no but gave no other suggestions. I then asked last week of she wanted just a meal out and where - no response. So I decided to book a local restaurant just in case as Saturday nights get busy, with the option of cancelling if she didn’t want to.

When I told her, she wasn’t happy and said she couldn’t do it now because I’d chosen it (autistic brain). I asked where else she’d like to go but didn’t get a reply. I suggested a takeaway, took hours of questions about this, she didn’t see a takeaway as a birthday celebration. She eventually decided on pizza.

I also got her a beautiful personalised cake. Last year for her 18th, I got her a nice chocolate cake with her name on but it didn’t have the same personalisation as her older sister’s 18th birthday cake (which was celebrated in lockdown so I pushed the boat out a bit). Also the board base was accidentally thrown out when there was a tiny bit of chocolate left on it. She complained about this for months. I said I would buy her an extra cake (cheapy supermarket cake) but I forgot.

Now she says she can’t have this year’s cake because of the lack of the other one and it would be in the wrong order (autistic brain again).

Choosing presents is also difficult for her so I chose a few small gifts and paid in £50 birthday money into her account. She didn’t like this either, she wanted to choose her own presents (but from past experience she takes ages to choose, months and months, so I thought I’d make it easier by giving her money).

Written down, I realise she sounds like a spoilt brat. But I didn’t do some things that I said I would eg buy her an additional cake and take her for a belated birthday meal (from last year).

The evening ended with her sobbing in the kitchen and me losing my temper 😢

I also know a woman like this. In her early 40s now and still living in her childhood bedroom, obsessing over her favourite aging band and a kids tv show from the 90s. She's permanently online, and winding herself up into frantic tantrums over inane nothings, like "not being informed the boiler was getting serviced today" or "the neighbours chopping a tree down."
Parents are both in their 80s, having had her later in life, with failing health, and it's going to be an utter shitshow when the inevitable happens and they die. She's got no money, and while she might inherit the house, she won't be able to afford to run it. She hasn't had a job in 25 years.

Me too

Having parented an anorexic we were told by professionals to step in firmly and take control of food and meals. It was just frankly too dangerous to be “nice” gentle and pandering to her strongly felt but utterly lethal feelings. We had to be the bad guys which was very hard but ultimately was absolutely the right approach. I wouldn’t know about autism but as others have demonstrated the bending over backwards to accommodate is do understandable but doesn’t help long term.

You say you haven't kept all your promises well you sound like you go above and beyond.. trying endlessly to do your best and yet nothings right or good enough... not done in the right sequence.. I seriously think your daughter is preoccupied with her self.. I know she is autistic but she is very capable of thinking clearly and explaining very well how nothing you do is right... I don't think anything will ever be with this thinking.. So she cried! Crying is sometimes nessasary.. your not supposed to be the perfect one and she's the autistic girl who knows how to make you feel like you're in the wrong all the time.. When did she actually say you did something right? Stand back and see how this way really isn't working for you or her.. Ask her to write down what would be OK.. not perfect but OK.. tell her not to expect things to be perfect as they quite often just arnt for anyone else either.. and how about counting her blessings! Literally writing down every day in a nice attractive looking book just 2 or 3 things that she's lucky to have.. eyes to see.. ears to hear... hands to do??! a mum who's trying so hard right now and for all her life to get it right! maybe you could find some outside things to do.. walking rescue dogs? to see creatures who've really had a hard time.. I really hope you can turn this situation round.. at the moment your on the road to nowhere.. Sending you kind thoughts and best wishes. 💞💐

She may not be able to help her behaviour, but she could go and see if meds would help. She's being impossible. There's no way you can make her happy with these conflicting requests and you should stop beating yourself up about it. You can't win, so give yourself some slack

This. Utterly controlling. And I know ASD

Tell her, with love, that she's acting like an ungrateful brat and needs to grow up. You're doing her no favours indulging this, whatever mental health issues you think she's got.

She’s playing you like a tuba.

So she rejects your help, won't seek or allow medical help and us making life miserable for those around her. You need to insist she accepts medical help or you will stop enabling her. Sometimes we try so hard to help we actually do the opposite.

I did say I’d get her the extra cake, she showed me a message from no eke NR when I said I’d get it next week. I never did, I forgot. And for an autistic person, if someone says they’ll do something then they should.
but that’s only for other people isn’t it? She doesn’t have to be held to the same standards as why would there still be all the unopened presents she’d asked for?
re the failure to launch dc and other family being banned from kitchen at times only comes out to eat (and only when her parents have vacated the kitchen as they're not 'allowed' to be in there when she is)
am remembering a similar thread where one 20 yo dd banned her sister from eating with the family and the parents went along with it, no one else was allowed to watch tv unless she did and was there, and the screaming and crying that would occur if anyone did. Sadly the op of that thread went along with this, oblivious to the negative affect on her other dc.

At 19, shouldn’t she be celebrating with her pals, not giving you grief about the things you’ve tried to do? You’ll never win if this is how she sees things.

Sorry but you’re doing this wrong. You’re indulging every aspect, including promising her a second birthday cake because the cake board was thrown out when it had a scraping of chocolate still on it?

I’ve got an autistic teen and a partner with OCD. Neither of them are little kids anymore, they know what’s wrong with them and they take action to manage their behaviours as much as possible. Of course we make allowances, of course we have bad days, we have to work around some things but the ridiculous spoilt behaviours are no longer tolerated because they have to function in the real world. My partner is obviously and adult and now has thing well under control. My teen is much much better than he was as a small child because he engages in help and support and I also have frank discussions with him.

Why are you indulging every aspect of her behaviour? She needs to grow up, just like everyone else. Her autism makes that more of a challenge but she is old enough to actually understand her brain more, understand expectations, understand how other people act and how her behaviours affect other people. She is old enough to be able to manage a lot of her condition, but she isn’t doing anything because she is so indulged and spoilt. I cannot believe you promised her a second cake a year ago…

And to make promises but not follow through? You’re handing her excuses for her behaviour. And you’re not dealing with it because you keep folding and trying to give her everything she wants, which you will never be able to do.

I have an adult childish ASD and EUPD. What you're saying is very familiar OP.

@Playingvideogames

I strongly agree with you. If someone doesn't think about or understand the consequences of a particular action, well, it needs to be demonstrated to them by positive and negative reinforcement techniques. This works whether the person is ND or NT, if they have learning disability, if they have a mental illness. Even if they are a dog or a cat or an earthworm.

My (austic, learning disabled, non-speaking) DS was on an intensive ABA programme for seven years and he has it ingrained in him that actions lead to consequences (and no, not punishment, before any anti-ABAers try that route, modern ABA does not involve punishment). He deals with the world as it is, not as he (and we) wish it was. He knows that is really the only way. As for all of us. He does not get to go along being rude, selfish or lazy without finding out that this is unacceptable, whoever you are.

We of course advocate for inclusive services, non-discrimination etc, I get enraged when I come across real discrimination and am very very vocal about it, I dont care who doesn't like what I have to say. But but I insist DS gets on with everything in a polite and thoughtful way, like we do, including when dealing with difficulties, be they emotional, cognitive, institutional, physical, whatever. I believe it to be insulting and belittling to portray autistic people as unable to conform to society in terms of respect of others. They are able. They may need help and learning to do so, but we have all had to learn to do things that are difficult or against the grain. For example, we would all like to be lazy at times (I certainly would!) but failing to contribute positively to your own wellbeing, your family (if you have a reasonable and non-abusive family of course) and wider society is not acceptable for any of us.

I would strongly advise structured behaviour therapy for this young woman, not generalised psychotherapy. And, yes it absolutely needs to be with a therapist experienced in treating ND patients. It is rather late now, so it will be more difficult, but behaviour and risk can absolutely be modified at any age. (You will not get what she needs on the NHS, dont even bother).

I agree with the PP who said that autism is not a disability. It isn't, it's a label for a wide range of things, some of which CAN cause disability.

I've often thought when reading about the recommended approach for PDA that there doesn't seem to be an exit strategy. Are the parents doing this low demand approach really expected to continue doing this soul destroying parenting indefinitely to meet the adult child's needs? How does that even work when the parents inevitably age and their own health and energy levels start to decline?

I don't blame parents for doing this out of desperation and fear for their child's mental health or fear of being physically abused by them. I just think it sounds like unsustainable madness longer term.

You did your best OP, tbh I feel whatever you did wouldn't be good enough so you need to give yourself a break.

@WhatNoRaisins well exactly. I am an older mother and DS is going to have to live without me one day. People will hopefully be kind to him, and they and the available services will hopefully enable him to have a fulfilled life long after I am gone, but the chances of that happening are far greater if he is not an abusive, rude, lazy person.

@bendmeoverbackwards
What was the consequence for her telling her dad to fuck off out of his own bedroom?

Are there ever any consequences for her behaviour?

I think a sit down and talk about her future and what her impossible demands mean.

Explaining that the disappointment and upset she feels comes from her own inaction to choose or communicate is the reason she is upset Neither you and the world beyond are psychic. Unless she communicates to you, in good time, what exactly she wants that doesn’t involve time travel or the impossible then she is in for far more disappointment.
Saying she wants to choose her presents is all well and good but she is on a deadline and if she doesn’t choose then someone else will.

Whilst you will try to do things for her, but if one mistake is going to be brought up again and again no matter how much you try to make it right then what would be the point in you trying.

You can’t put right the cake issue. You can’t time travel back, so how does she move forward from that or does that mean you don’t buy her a birthday cake ever again

If she carries on over her life time in the same vein restricting her life because she cannot move on from someone making a mistake which they have tried to put right then she is going to end up lonely with a self imposed restricted life

She is a grown up now and she needs to be able to function in the outside world and to live/work and communicate with other who will be NT or ND and have their own issues going on.

She need to accept the fact her brain works differently.
With her ADHD she has a pill she can take but with her Autism she needs to learn to recognise that there are choices in how she behaves.

She isn’t alone in having to make these choices, everyone (ND and NT) has to make these choices daily everytime someone upsets them or things don’t go as plannned

Getting therapy and taking all the help on offer is a way for her to recognise that going with her gut reaction of making everything a catastrophe that can’t be put right is going to lead to another avenue of her life shutting down.
Getting help will show her techniques where she can recognise the pattern of behaviour over a minor issue doesn’t have to lead to an over reaction with consequences that will hurt her more.

You sound like a lovely mum and trying so hard. You can’t do right for doing wrong. Yes she has autism but it’s not a get out of jail free card to treat everyone like shit, I wouldn’t tolerate her coming into your room and swearing at dh.
She needs to engage with treatment. It’s her choice not to. What does she do with her time? Dwelling on perceived cake slights from a year ago is too much time on her hands. If she can’t work could she volunteer.
The indulgence and treading on eggshells isn’t working.
I’d have clear boundaries in place to protect yourself so your bedroom is private. I’d stop promising anything.
Birthdays are obviously a massive stress point for her. I wouldn’t tie yourself in knots. If she was away at uni you wouldn’t be getting involved in plans. I’d ask once if she wants you to book or arrange anything for her birthday by text then if she doesn’t reply leave it not keep heaping pressure on to decide. Buy her a small gift and some money. Buy a cake but I’d it’s not right shrug and leave her to her moans.
Facilitate her getting support and medication but you don’t have to be her emotional punching bag and she will have to navigate living without you at some point as she’s likely to outlive you.

Team DH all the way here. She sounds spoilt rotten.

I tried doing money this time. So she could choose her own present in her own time. But she complained about that as well, she doesn’t see money as a present 🤷‍♀️

Absolutely agree. It’s our job as parents to enable our children to live as independent adults in the real world. Unless she is so disabled that this is unrealistic then you OP and your DH need to urgently step up and seek professional assistance.

And what did you do then? Did you meekly apologise? Or did you tell her to grow up and get a grip, that everyone else has lives to get on with so if she can’t choose a present in time then she gets money to choose her present whenever she likes without irritating everyone else and interrupting their lives constantly with her issues, and to avoid a problem next year when she complains she didn’t get a present last year.

You need to actually parent her. You’re not because of her needs, but you’re failing her by doing this. She needs to learn and she needs consequences and she needs to figure out how to manage in the world.

So basically nothing will ever please her? As I can imagine asking her “well what do you want?” Will trigger tears and verbal abuse?
she doesn’t want a gift, doesn’t want to be asked what gift she wants, doesn’t want money? Doesn’t want this cake but if you don’t get THAT cake she’s hard done to?
sorry op, but i remember your other threads now where you say how you’ve always met her needs over her siblings and she really is ruling the roost.
It does sound like it’s a controlling game now for her where she has you walking on eggshells and you then enforce the others to do the same. Buy her a gift card in a box then she has something to open, and leave it at that.