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 😢

Fuck me you have the patience of a saint. Does she have any understanding of how fucking unreasonable she is. And is she ever likely to move out and give you both a break?

This. You can’t win. Autism or not, she is being unreasonable.

can you have a conversation about where this goes in the future? You are the only person who will tolerate such situations with love & patience - friends, family, boyfriend relationships are off the table right now if she can’t behave better.

Refusing to see a doctor, therapist or generally trying to help herself should not be an option.

does she work?

It sounds like there's just no pleasing her. Just give her some money, tell her she can buy what she wants and then ignore any moaning. She's old enough not to need being made a fuss of.

Just stop. Stop trying to please her. I know your intentions are good but I think you're making matters worse.

Genuinely OP I would say don’t bother next year. Whether you do or you don’t you’ll be in the wrong somehow.

You’re great, she’s a pain.

Whack £150 in her account and don’t try so hard next time. Life’s too short.

DD (17) has ADHD and ASD. She ruined the last two Christmases over similar. She can do it whenever things don’t exactly match her idea of how things should go, and she also can be unforgiving of mistakes / forgetting something. & incredibly rude and even cruel with her words to me when that happens. Won’t talk to DH, her siblings or grandparents etc.

As disappointments / things not going to plan is life and as I know her psychologist has emphasised the need to remain flexible (ADHD meds make the autistic traits more pronounced inc PDA and she loses flexibility) I’ve started being firmer with her about boundaries. If she is rude, we don’t do whatever is planned - it gets cancelled and i don’t replace / reorganise. (I would have done this when the kids were young but for quite a long period this hadn’t been necessary - her behaviour is worse again during the later teens ).

If she’s inflexible or not happy with something but she remains respectful, i’ll work with her to talk through things but will not give into ridiculous demands that I would disregard if they came from one of her siblings.

I know all of this is hard for DD but i’ve said i’m not your punchbag and Im not going to tolerate things that other people you will have relationships with would not tolerate as you need to learn. It is hard but we are seeing some signs of her learning and understanding - as it is not instinctive.

I am not saying this approach would work with other YP with ASD, everyone is unique but wanted to share our experience. You have all my sympathies OP, when you’ve tried hard but it’s still wrong it’s exhausting.

You need to listen to your DD.

You need to stop making her birthday what you think it should be and make it what she's telling you she wants it to be.

It all went wrong when you booked the restaurant.

DS doesn't have a cake or presents or any celebrations around his birthday because he doesn't like them. He hasn't for a few years. This makes him happy.

I've had to rein in me in order to listen to him and what he wants to do to celebrate. I think you need to do the same.

She just sounds spoilt, no condition is justification for treating your family like this. You brushing and explaining it away is merely indulging it.

You tried. You did your best.

What would happen if you stopped trying? Give it a whirl.

It’s not you that is making her unhappy, nor can you make her happy. There is no point in doing back flips trying to please her, you’ll never be right but will grind yourself down in the process.
You sound like a lovely person, change your mindset. As lovely as you are, RL situations are not going to be as accommodating.

This is insane! She’s an adult, not a toddler. Even with autism. She needs to learn how to function in the world. What would she be like in the workplace? I fear she’s been pandered to far too much. This behaviour is unacceptable.

@bendmeoverbackwards did you post about all of this last year too? I seem to recall a practically identical post with a wealth of experience and advice.

But is she spoilt?

She said no to a restaraunt and OP booked one anyway.

OP felt needlessly guilty about getting the sibling a better 18th cake so made it a 'thing' about the cake and then forgot to get one of the cakes she (not DD) mentioned getting.

OP put money into her account despite knowing she likes to choose presents.

This is not to say OP is anything other than a loving mother who is trying to go above and beyond; but sounds like lots could be avoided if she listened to her DD and accepted she might not be arsed about birthdays in the same way she is.

Agree completely with this. ASD is a difficult condition for all concerned and there has to be understanding but there also has to be teaching, boundaries and compromises

I feel for you! I have ASD DD17 and AuDHD DS13, whilst they’re different to your child, they still come with challenges. I was so furious with DD one time I called her selfish (she was) … that caused much upset but it did help in the long run
good luck

Not all of that behaviour is down to being ASD. You're being very accommodating and one day she'll hopefully realise that.

My son (also asd) is so much like this (only 10 though) when something is ‘wrong’ he goes on and on about it and blames someone. It’s so debilitating. The easiest thing I have found is to do the same things, so every birthday we have a bbq at our house and invite the family. We try to follow this for so many things but other stuff still pops up. For example we went to an ice cream place last week and they didn’t have the flavour he wanted, he was distraught and kept going back to how he felt and saying the week was ruined.

She’s an adult, and she ruined her birthday, not you.

You've been lovely.

I think you should seek therapy for you, to be able to set calm boundaries and step back from the drama and trying to please someone who cannot be pleased by all this. It’s really helped me with my adult dd.

If your dd can’t communicate what she wants then it’s hard to keep asking and guess what she wants
You’ve done everything you can to celebrate a birthday so don’t beat yourself up

autistic Covers a wide spectrum, my own experience is with someone with a mental age of around 5/6 years old but 28 years old. It’s hard but he is clear on what he want

Your daughter is very lucky to have you and you have made more than enough effort for her. Put thing into perspective about all the birthdays in the history of the world. Your daughter had the opportunity for a very nice one. The fact that you are on a website worrying about this shows how much you care. She has an issue with birthdays. She makes birthdays bad for herself. This is unfortunate for her but don’t fret over it. There is nothing about autism that makes her behave this way. She is awkward and you are so nice to her that now that awkwardness has become embedded in her life and she is able to ruin her own birthday all by herself. She needed a firm hand earlier on so that she would not be this ungrateful (it sounds like she isn’t a very young child). You notice how she sounds like a spoiled brat but you don’t believe it because she is your daughter and you love her. That doesn’t mean that she isn’t in this instance behaving like a spoiled brat.

I think you have a lot of patience but need to now protect yourself. What support are you getting? You say she won't accept help but can you access support groups where there will be parents with children with similar behaviours? I know locally one group has been running for years so the volunteers that set it up have adult children and provide a listening ear, so it's not just about people going with little children.

Birthdays are clearly triggering for her and at 19 I think you should have dropped it. I would have been at uni then, but I don't think my parents would have been fussing around trying plan a London trip or meal out. It would have simply been cook something nice at home and have money for the gift.
She doesn't like you planning her birthday, she doesn't like you giving her choices (which is something that usually works with younger children) so can you now just drop the idea. Have a calendar where she can clearly see you haven't forgotten when her birthday is but make no comment about doing anything. Wait for her to raise it.

I do think you need to set boundaries and not pander to her. She is making these choices and if she doesn't like them she is to blame, not you.
It is interesting how she will only engage with you and not her dad, who I imagine is firmer and doesn't give in.

Does she actually want to celebrate her birthday?

I don't have autism or PDA but I don't like birthdays and would prefer not to have them. It's difficult when you're a loving parent because you feel that birthdays are something that you have to give your children but I think you should consider whether this is something that your DD would rather do without.

She’s autistic. Her autism likely means she lacks the cognition to fully understand her own situation and lacks the executive functioning to do anything about it, even if she did.

My H is autistic. I just organized all his support from agencies. He’d never do it. Even when it was all organized and he only had to make one call to finalize, he wouldn’t do it. I ended up telling the worker she had to call him.

Living with autistic people can be extremely trying. I’m understating it. It can destroy you. There are loads of destroyed women on the support groups for wives of autistic men.

The lack of understanding of autism, as demonstrated on this thread, makes it harder. It’s very isolating.

Sorry you are going through this OP. It must hard to see your daughter suffer, as well as hard to live with.

It is entirely her autism that is making her behave this way.