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 😢

Is she working? She seems to have you under her thumb.

Good God OP. Do your DD a favour and start to lower her expectations about what adult birthdays look like in the real
world.

You are an amazing mum doing your absolute best. Many people would have lost their patience with that behaviour long ago.
My son is autistic so I fully understand the difficulties.
Is she able to live independently/take responsibility for herself? Or are you very much in a carer role?
As she is getting older you will probably have to take a little step back and protect your own metal health aswell as hers.

Why do the needs of autistic people outweigh the needs of NT people? Much as you’re bending over backwards to please your DD she also needs to understand that you were born a certain way too. Ie because you are NT you will sometimes get things wrong.

You will never get it right OP, so you need to learn to not let it bother you. Otherwise you’ll be writing the same post when she’s 48.

You can. People forget things, it's life. It might be upsetting to her but you can't beat yourself up about it.

Even people with autism have to face the consequences of their actions and words. Sometimes parents (and partners of adults) can get in to a habit of trying to appease, appease, appease, but it doesn’t help them long term. You can work on changing your relationship dynamics, for both of your sakes.

Pandering to her every whim and demand isn’t making her any happier, is it? So stop doing it. This is not going to help her grow up and function in the adult world.

Like the PP I am going against the grain here . Your daughter sounds hurt, lonely and needing connection. She compares to the sister as it feeds into feelings of being inferior.
shes caught between having the great birthday others talk about but having no idea how to make that happen

Does she understand that means she is never going to get a cake again

You need to stop trying so hard op. Your daughter is in an ingrained habit of blaming you. It doesn’t do her any good. Make sure she organises her own birthday treats, cake, etc. you’re becoming a martyr to an emotional bully

My best suggestion is that you find a private family therapist.

This sounds like a horrible situation for all concerned. It may not be her fault but your DD is making herself and everyone around her very unhappy. Whether she has ASD, OCD, PDA or whatever she still has to find a way to manage in the world and the current ways of managing seem unsuccessful and unsustainable.

Spend the birthday money on a therapist.

You sound like a really lovely person. You can’t win so if she doesn’t respond just tell her that you won’t do anything until she has decided what she wants to do. I know you say she is autistic but she sounds very unhappy and manipulative. It can’t be easy to for any of you. I wouldn’t try to please her anymore as it just seems to cause more issues. It’s not you and you are doing more than most people would x big hugs

Why didn't she remind you/ask about her extra cake at the time? She'd clearly remembered it - it feels like what she actually wanted was another stick to beat you with rather than a cake. If you had remembered and bought it I am certain that it would have been wrong in some way.

It is possible to be both autistic and horrible - they're neither linked or mutually exclusive. Her behaviour is abusive - if she treats a partner like that is that ok because she's autistic?

I agree. I wouldn't stretch this out any longer. Her birthday is over now and you went above and beyond even if it wasn't appreciated

Whilst I agree she is suffering, and I have immense sympathy for OP, I do agree she needs support to understand how to fit into the world.

She needs to develop at least an intellectual ability to understand other people have different experiences, thoughts and feelings from her own, that her behaviour impacts others and will effect how they behave to her, when it’s appropriate to express thanks. Essentially ahe needs to learn, even by rote, some social skills.

I wish my H had had this support, instead of professionals trying to teach him in his 50s.

People mention the DD’s lack of responsibility taking. There are autistic people who, because of their autism, find it very hard to link consequences to their own actions, and instead blame others for the outcomes of their own actions. They need support to make the links.

Their rigid and inflexible thinking makes this hard, as once an idea has fixed, it’s nigh on impossible to shift.

Have you posted about this before OP? I distinctly remember a post about a ASD daughter who was late teens, bitching about her cake - attending a West end show and going for a meal???

You sound like a truly wonderful, loving mum.
And for your sake as well as your daughter’s, I’m going to gently challenge you.

The cakes don’t ‘have to’ be one after the other. That is what your daughter wants, perhaps understandably given she is Autistic, but the ‘have to’ part is where at her age, in my opinion, she needs help to understand and cope with the world as it is, because nobody else is ever in a million years going to be as accommodating as you are, and she needs to learn this reality.

Assuming she is on a path towards becoming an independent adult (even in assisted living), my advice would be to start letting her experience natural consequences.

No decisions about birthday meals means that she either doesn’t get one or it’s to a place that isn’t of her choosing. If she then cries, you can give her space to do this and loads of empathy, but explain how and why it happened this way. I wouldn’t advise running around trying to ‘fix’ it as you are currently doing, firstly because (as you are finding) it is both exhausting and impossible because she doesn’t even know what she wants half the time, but also secondly because it’s reinforcing the idea that the way she wants things to be is the way things ‘should’ be, that her unhappiness is somebody else’s problem to fix, and that she is being hard done by otherwise. None of which is true. These expectations will not serve her well and will lead to disappointment time over time.

The ‘natural consequences’ approach will lead to more tears and tantrums in the short term, but if she doesn’t learn the with the loving support of her parents, life will teach her in a much harsher way later on.

You sound like a lovely mum OP.

Your daughter isn’t spoilt, she’s autistic. My daughter is too, and birthdays and Christmases completely overwhelm her. The build up and expectation can be too much. She has an idea in her head of how they will go and if they don’t go that way, it can cause meltdowns.

I’ve had to let go of what I think her birthday should look like and do it in a way that works for her, so very low key. She picks her own gifts, no surprises. Not everything gets wrapped, no pressure to do anything “special”. It’s hard for people to understand sometimes.

Kindly, OP, she's now an adult and other people aren't going to contort themselves to appease her as you're doing. She needs to learn that not everything can be done her way and to her rules, life simply doesn't work like that. I've raised one ND and two NT children, and that age is tough. They're hovering on the line between childhood and adulthood, and sugar coating it for them really doesn't do them any favours. Autism or not, she needs to start treating you with some respect.

As a consequence yes you absolutely can go back on it. "I'm no longer doing X because of how you have acted today"

Its as simple as that. She is 19 years old and has you wrapped around her finger - not in a nice way!

I feel like there are a lot of parents relentlessly pandering to their adult child’s ’autistic brain’ which conveniently dictates that everyone around them must walk on eggshells and jump whenever they click their fingers.

Tell her to organise her own birthday next year.

I think one day we’ll look back and be amazed we tolerated this nonsense.

And to add to that, she can also arrange her own bloody cake.

Just IMAGINE treating our parents like this even 20 years ago!

Hear bloody hear.

You’re blaming a lot on autism when she just sounds like a brat.

Look , I get she is autistic but she also has to live in the world . I also think that she can live with some discomfort. You are a fantastic mum but she is now an adult.

Exactly. The adult world isn’t going to be able to pander to this sort of behaviour. I appreciate why it’s happening but I get the feeling you’ve also created a bit of a monster in the sense she refuses to get help and expects to be able to emotionally bully you. You need to drop the rope - she’s an adult now.