Dd, autism and cake - Thread 2

[bendmeoverbackwards]

I had no idea that my first thread would fill up and I am in awe and overwhelmed at the amount of support.

I am going to re-read all the responses and make a plan. Thank you, this has been eye opening.

Also who does eventually show these people? I guess these days you can Google a YouTube video but back in the day I taught a number of my uni flatmates and boyfriends how to iron a shirt/ make a bed/ cook a meal/ put a wash on because they had got to that age without apparently being shown by their parents. Sometimes people post on here about having poor self care etc routines because their parents never instilled it. I will continue to think it’s important to give teens such life skills including stuff outside the house such as navigating public transport, getting some shopping, ordering in a restaurant.

I don't think it's difficult for anyone averagely intelligent and motivated to learn to use a washing machine (the University ones had instructions on as did the laundrettes) or to start cooking basics like pasta or rice.

Being hungry and not having clean clothes is pretty motivating.

The DD here has not got any of the natural motivators that someone living away from home would have. It's a shame she doesn't get on with the older sisters because that would be an obvious way a lot of younger siblings would pick this stuff up, along with a lot of other useful stuff.

Depends on the family dynamic doesn't it?

My mum would have considered it pretty disrespectful if I'd tried taking over in her kitchen. We had a number of conversations abour housework etc and she felt strongly that it was her role while we were at school.

She didn't work outside the home though (and had a cleaner) - very different for the OP getting home after a day at work.

It’s not even cleaning though (the Op has a cleaner) refusing to put shopping away so mum has to do it after working all day before mum can cook evening meal (after dd3 has been bed rotting all day watching tik tok cat memes) feels disrespectful, I think that’s the right word @Carriemac.
It ties in with dd3 not seeing mum as a person in her own right and not respecting her eg bombarding her with 20 messages when she’s out for evening.
Hopefully with dad and mum on same page she’ll start doing things more readily.

@Phineyj dd does get on very well with dd2 who is away travelling at the moment. Hopefully she might inspire dd3.

That's good to hear! It's amazing what kids will do sometimes when people who aren't their parents suggest it.

How’re things this week @bendmeoverbackwards? I hope your DD is adapting

Dh delivered the news about her allowance being tapered down. She hasn’t commented (yet) but complained that he told her and not me. I told her it was a joint parenting decision and sometimes dh will inform her of things and sometimes me.

Meanwhile I saw in the news recently about over diagnosis of some conditions which again sent me into a bit of a spiral about her diagnosis 8 years ago. I have mostly made peace with our decision but every so often I wonder ‘what if’ we’d delayed seeking a diagnosis at least for a few months. Dd is obviously so deeply unhappy, I just can’t imagine how that feels for her day in day out 😢 I try not to think about it too much and focus on my own life. But it is painful as a parent to see your child so unhappy.

I think a diagnosis 8 years ago is really pretty irrelevant at this point, OP - if it wasn't that, it would have been something else!

Besides, the actual neutral statistics measurers (not those with a political axe to grind) say we've most likely got UNDER diagnosis of ASD and ADHD, especially in girls.

It could be that she was misdiagnosed, it's always possible with any diagnosis. But the behaviours that led to you being concerned and her being diagnosed haven't changed. Whether she is autistic or not, something is blocking her from moving on and living a full life.

So imo whether she is obsessing over birthday cake (and everything else) because she's autistic or because of some other reason doesn't really matter. It's a damaging loop she's stuck in that as a parent you have to try to break her out of.

Hi op, diagnosis or not I would've thought a big factor in her unhappiness is being stuck in her life. You're doing the right thing trying to find ways to nudge her forwards. Her self esteem and wellbeing ought to improve if she can move away from that state.

Good news that she questioned the information coming from DH and you stuck to your guns. And she didn't melt down. So she is starting to adapt to the new reality. That's progress! Well done.

Yes, your DD is unhappy. She is pinning her unhappiness on that diagnosis. But you know she was unhappy before the diagnosis as well. She blamed you amd she blamed the diagnosis because that is easy for her. You don't have to blame yourself, try to let it go.

Her unhappiness is internal to her. What you did or didn't do has a limited effect. You are helping to improve her life but she may always suffer from bouts of misery and low mood. What you are doing now is starting to give her the skills to nagivate life a bit better - putting her on the path to behave more like an adult, and to stop her just sitting in her room and blaming everyone else while she lets her own life go downhill.

Diagnoses like autism are rarely black-and-white. The diagnosis is more like a pointer to the areas in life that she might find especially hard (like change!) and to strategies that may help her.

Keep on looking after yourself and making the effort to protect yourself and separate yourself emotionally from DD's moods.

OP, think back to the start of your thread. The dilemma about cake. That is not typical behaviour. I can’t know if an autism diagnosis is the correct one, but it is very, very clear she has issues and you were not wrong to seek help for her.

OP from what you have said I would eat my hat if your DD isn't autistic. The over diagnosis refers to people with successful careers and lives going to the GP to ask for an autism diagnosis because they like structure, not children with misphonia who refuse to go to school for 2+ years and have week long tantrums over a birthday cake their mother lovingly bought.

She is autistic. She is struggling to accept that. You did the best you could at the time with the information you had.

I’ve said this before but if you hadn’t sought a private diagnosis, she’d started secondary school and then not coped I strongly suspect she’d have blamed you for not pursuing a diagnosis.
Your dd has a professional diagnosis and clearly is autistic from all her struggles and behaviours.
She might be deeply unhappy but that’s not because you took her to an appointment when she was 10.

@bendmeoverbackwards Your daughter’s behaviour led you to seek support… you didn’t diagnose her…

Either you believe that autism is a thing or you don’t. (Some people still think it isn’t - and they are the ones pushing this weird narrative of over-diagnosis.)

But if you do believe that it’s a real thing, remember that your DD has been diagnosed with it by an independent expert with no agenda except good clinical practice. It is incredibly unhealthy and unhelpful for you to still be obsessing that you did the wrong thing a decade ago. Seriously, for both you and your daughter’s sake, you need to move on.

As per pps, your descriptions of your DD’s behaviours scream autism (but I am not a diagnostician).

At this point you need to focus on getting your daughter to move on into her adult life. You've started to make changes which is brilliant - don’t undermine yourself now. Keep going.

I’m sure the diagnosis is correct, dd has many autistic traits (as do me and dh which isn’t a surprise really). But I look back to DD’s early years, she was a very happy child. There were some aspects of her behaviour that I did struggle with but she was a delight - funny, sweet, did very well at school, very sociable, loads of play dates etc. But at the start of puberty the misophonia kicked in and we sought help. And as much as I remind myself we did what we thought was best at the time, sometimes DD’s words hang over me - that she was so happy before. And a possible alternative might have been to hang on for a while before seeking help. And maybe it would have been better for her if she was in control rather than be pushed into it unknowingly by her parents 🤷‍♀️

Seriously OP, you need to stop analysing the past. Your dd would NOT have been given a diagnosis if she didn’t meet the criteria. Let’s hypothesise .. you didn’t seek help when you did, you waited to see what would happen/how dd would cope - likely scenario, she’d spiral downwards drastically as often happens when autistic girls start secondary school, her mental health would decline rapidly, there’d be no help or understanding at school, you’d be running round like a headless chicken (as you do now) but even worse because you wouldn’t know what was wrong or why this was all happening. Dd wouldn’t have sought help, you couldn’t have sought help as your dd wouldn’t engage.

You did what was right. Just move forward, stop looking back.

Please don't beat yourself up you did nothing wrong in getting her assessed. It's very likely that if she hasn't been diagnosed she'd be showing the same behaviours and blaming you for not getting her assessed instead of for doing so. I've seen an incredible number of social media posts and tiktok videos in which people, young women mostly, express a lot of anger towards their parents and teachers for not getting them assessed for autism.

OP a lot of ND kids are happy in earlier childhood, mine included. It’s often when expectations on them increase and hormones kick in that this changes.
My DD seems to become more obviously neurodiverse compared to early primary, it’s very common.

I genuinely can’t imagine anything you could have done to change that

You’ve mentioned other things in early childhood that made you go down route of diagnosis so it wasn’t just the misophonia.
A professional diagnosed her.
Without the diagnosis and understanding at secondary school she may not have even got GCSEs.
I think you would benefit from support group for parents of autistic teens/young adults.

Thank you, as I’ve said 90% of the time I’m ok with our decision to seek a diagnosis and know there is no point over analysing the past. It’s just very occasionally these ‘what if’ thoughts creep in but I’m learning to silence them.

Dd is continuing to bombard me with messages - that I don’t understand how it was for her, it f felt like she was insulted every day since she was 11, life is never going to improve, her life is finished, how people told her she’d make a good lawyer and now dd2 is doing this (just demonstrates how childish her thinking is) and then she signed off by saying ‘don’t tell dad’.

Im planning to largely ignore most of this but say it’s fantastic she’s considering law, does she need help with researching ways in?

Yes, don’t help her ruminate. Push hard on the positive “yes, how can we get there?” aspect.

Also, don’t promise to not tell her dad. It’s like colluding with her against him.

Well done, keep going!

You can be supportive without allowing yourself to be drawn into her incessant recriminations and intense focus on the past. She can believe whatever she wants about the past, but you can keep concentrating on helping her move forward. I hope you aren’t responding to all her messages? And make it clear that you have no intention of keeping your DH in the dark. She’s still trying so hard to control and manipulate you. Don’t play that game anymore.

I wouldn’t respond. It’s really inappropriate she’s bombarding you and saying don’t tell dad (it’s what abusers do - don’t tell!)
If she needs help researching law as a career at 19 then frankly she’s not cut out to be a lawyer it’s so competitive to get an entry level role (I’m a solicitor)
If she speaks to you I’d say oh that sounds interesting let me know how you get on.
It’s obviously a very tricky family situation if dd1 and 2 are managing to live as successful functioning adults and she isn’t. She can’t blame her evil parents and awful childhood. It sounds she’s latching on to difference between her and them in that you pursued a diagnosis not for as the reason she is like she is not she’s different because she is ND.
She could do a 1 year access course and then a law degree possibly with a foundation year. The entry standards for some law degrees inc foundation are extremely low but the chances of going on to qualify are virtually none existent.
Is she watching a lot of ND lawyer content on tik tok. There seems to be a trend of young women lawyers doing day in life and making it seem quite aspirational inc those who are ND.