I’ve just completely lost it with my daughter

[imsoverytired82]

I’ve just completely lost it with my 11 year old daughter

I’ve been so stressed this week. I’ve got issues at work and I haven’t slept

my daughter has been nagging all week about her world book day outfit. She’s asked so many times despite me telling her I’d ordered it. It arrived today and she’s still asking for more for it even though I’d said to her I can’t afford any more. Now she’s onto football boots (she’s had 1 session) and keeps asking. She is autistic so deep down I know she can’t help it. once she gets what she wants she’s onto the next thing.

its 11 and I finally got into bed and went into a deep sleep.My first in ages. She’s shouting my name lying in bed saying I need to take her to buy boots.

i wake up startled and go mad at her an drag her out of bed. Say some really horrible things to her. Scream at her. I’m so so sick of her just constantly not being satisfied until she’s getting something. It’s almost that she doesn’t care what it is as long as she’s getting something.

im so sick because she doesn’t care about anything other than ‘getting’.

This child is not by any stretch of the imagination being abused.

'i wake up startled and go mad at her an drag her out of bed. Say some really horrible things to her. Scream at her.'

'It was childhood memory traumatic for her I think.'

'It was horrific I dragged her out of bed and shouted in her face. She shrunk back and looked shocked.'

'She’s thrown furniture before and was damaging my house so I pushed her out the house.'

Which of these behaviours is not abusive? How scared do you think that little girl was when this was happening to her. Denying, excusing or minimising it is not helpful to the OP.

Both people in this scenario are unreasonable and violent and both have a diagnosis of autism. Only one of them is a child. Only one of them has the power to change anything.

It's the power imbalance which makes it abusive. OP has said it's not the first time either so this is an ongoing and escalating situation out of the child's control.

Exactly. This child is being abused. However much we might understand the pressure OP is under, this doesn't excuse her abusive behaviour to her vulnerable, disabled child.

It's shocking how many apologists there are on this thread who seem to think this child deserves to be abused simply because she's showing symptoms of her disability. Horrific, actually.

Yeah, I didn't read all the posts properly but do agree it's abusive behaviour.

I don't think the effect of trying to parent (some) autistic children can be underestimated but the family do clearly need help if they are starting to respond abusively. I hope any help they receive is understanding of the enormous stress of the situation and begins to relieve rather than add to the stress.

This nice, thanks for enlightening me 😂

thank you! I have just done that with chat got and it worked a treat trying to make her realise why it’s not acceptable to throw her chair and hiss at me when I’m trying to get her into bed.

Wow what a horrible person you are!! No child ever deserves a bollocking!!! She's not spoilt, she's autistic and hyper focusing which seems to cause her to be spiralling.
OP you must absolutely see that now child, how ever annoying shouldn't be subject to their parent dragging them from their bed and screaming in their face. And another time being pushed out of her home. She's 11! I have nd kids so understand the relentlessnes of it all but if school found out you would be getting a visit from social services.

Suppose that all the comments re social services etc are in any way valid (they are not) and the child should be taken away from the family. In the UK at the present time what exactly would her life be like? Not what it should be like in an ideal fairytale world but the reality of care in this country at the present time.There are thousands of children in care in this country and for most their lives are pretty miserable and most do not have anything like the behavioural issues of this child. There isn’t a plethora of loving families who would take a child like this on and many institutions are poor with a few exceptions. She would probably end up in an institution where if she was lucky she would simply be neglected and get very little help but if unlucky could be locked up, abused, tortured by grooming/rape gangs and end up on the streets or drug addicted. This is unfortunately the reality of state care in the UK for too many children.
OP is doing her absolute best, giving care above and beyond and living in an intolerable situation. Of course she will occasionally be pushed beyond her limits and may occasionally act in ways that some may regard as abusive but she is not wilfully and deliberately abusing this child and she knows the incidents should not have happened. Some of what OP is suffering could be classed as torture particularly the sleep deprivation. She is begging for help from the state who won’t provide any and has turned to this forum probably in desperation and while the majority of responses here are incredibly helpful and supportive many are simply not. While she has asked for opinions on whether she is unreasonable or not it’s sad that some are so unhelpful, critical and will not give any sort of help to OP to improve the situation. It shows how loving and caring OP is that she is continuing to engage on this thread to try and get help for her family despite knowing that there will be a great deal of unhelpful criticism.

Assuming all of this is factual the daughter will more than likely end up in foster care if this carries on

One poster said this.

Multiple posters, including you, have said that the school safeguarding team would contact social services, ignoring that the OP had tried to contact social services herself, for support.

Who will look after the DD if the OP “steps away”? Her DH finds the behaviour challenging, the OP’s wider family don’t help because the DD’s behaviour is too challenging.

If you read through the thread this is exactly what some posters have suggested. Also what do you think happens when social services gets involved? Routinely the children are put in care as SS know that they will be pilloried if things go wrong so don’t always offer the family the help they need and may involve other authorities to cover their backs making everything worse. How does mum stepping away help and where does she go? If she’s not there who does all the things she does for the family as a whole? Are you suggesting that dad and her younger sister will be able to cope on their own? Who funds all this for mum to “step away” ? They are already struggling financially because they have sacrificed considerably to give her private schooling which is acknowledged as the best for ND kids.
She has no willing family support and the authorities have refused help.
I would love it if there were loads of angelic, caring, patient saints from another universe out there who have the resources, patience and lifestyle to look after the numerous children in care in this country but there isn’t even for children with less issues than this poor little thing.
i don’t think this child is worthless, my heart aches for her but I also feel great sadness for her sister, father and mother who are in an horrible situation. Her staying where she is and OP continuing to care for her while doing her absolute best and taking on board the very helpful suggestions in this thread is the optimum outcome in what is the real world not the world you think exists and which we would all like to live in.
OP is an absolute fantastic mum who had a few moments of weakness when she was under an horrific burden and should be congratulated for her perseverance.

I wish people realised and understood that autistic adults have meltdowns too, and that the only control we have over it, is the bit where we try and prevent ourselves getting to that stage.
Noone is having a good time in that state.

It is not the same as abuse.
All parties need support here

The OP trailed a child from her bed and screamed at her. Threw her outside the house. How is that in any way being a fantastic mum ?

Where do you suggest she goes and how do they pay for it when they have no spare money? OP needs to work to pay the school fees so it needs to be nearby.

You keep saying that the OP should remove herself from the home and it’s still a laughably unrealistic solution.

The OP has said her DH is also exhausted. Who helps him? Who assists in the home when the OP is away? Her family won’t, they find the DD too hard. Who funds it? Where does the OP go? What happens to the other child?

To whom does the OP go to and ask for “significant help” and how and when does she realise it has worked?

It’s all very well going on about how terrible the OP is, but you don’t have any realistic advice for her, do you?

Of course the daughter deserves safety. We all do, and children are uniquely vulnerable.
In households where they are all neuridivergent and have already cried out for help, and one of them has completely melted down at their daughter after being woken up, then you need to look at more factors and not reduce it to stupid simplistic non-solutions.

What sort of system would repeatedly turn down giving support to a woman feeling at crisis point and asking for help from social services, but then somehow find a placement for her when her mum has lost it and screamed at her??

And then comes on here feeling awful, and then she's kicked a bit more.

In cases like this, it requires whole family support for the best outcome for everyone.

Heh I thought I'd pop back to see if the thread had gotten hysterical yet and it hasn't disappointed.

Some of you need a lie down or something.

Hope you've got a plan forming OP. SN kids are hard to navigate some times

I doubt OP told SS what she does to the girl. From what OP has posted, it's all about what her DD does to OP.

That is what OP wants help for. She wants someone to make her DD stop the annoying behaviours. But she can't because it's part of her condition and OP has not looked into any strategies to help manage her daughters anxieties.

And if posters are saying that the OP can't change her own behaviour either then nothing will change for this family because the onus cannot be on the child to seek help for herself.

Unless OP is willing to address this properly and start approaching agencies who can help her, not with 'fixing' her daughter but with advice on how OP and her husband can manage the situations that keep repeating themselves then the violent reactions will also keep repeating.

That's probably what SS actually need to be made aware of. Not to have the child removed but make sure she is safe in her home and doesn't become one of those 'mistakes have been made' statistics. This is a situation that is escalating. OP said this is the worst it's ever been, not that it hasn't happened before.

She’s approached multiple agencies; they won’t help. The private ones are ridiculously expensive and it’s difficult to know how helpful they will be and the family is already suffering financially paying the school fees which is acknowledged as being probably the biggest help for the child. Probably why she’s persevering here despite the unhelpful and unkind comments.

If an autistic adult male pulled his wife from her bed and screamed in her face, would that be ok because they were having a meltdown?

You've created a whole made up scenario in your head though.

Families consist of human beings of equal importance and the relationships between them can be complicated and even more so when you have several of them who are autistic.
The kid can't seek help for themself, but the adult has desperately tried to seek help for themselves and for their child and been turned down, showing self awareness of their limitations and seeking help to cope.

Families like this need to be able to access support in good time.
Now the issue is bigger than it needed to be, and part of the problem is the assumption that the parent is exaggerating when they say they aren't coping or that if they recognise that they are close to losing it. Where do you suggest someone goes?
You have to recognise the relationships, the dynamics and also what outcome you are looking to achieve.
Do you want best outcome for the family, or do you want to focus on punishing the mother?

No not at all.
Would also be abusive to march them into work and force them crying through the door if they were anxious.
Would be abusive if you removed their phone when you thought they'd had too much time on it, or restricted their money or made them go to bed at certain times.

If the wife in that relationship had been acting like the autistic child did in that relationship, then the husband would hopefully be able to leave or improve the issue and I'd have far less sympathy for two adults in an adult relationship.
The autistic parent of an autistic kid clashing, is personally relatable to me and I feel for all everyone involved because it's fucking shit.
You can't just leave your kids. It's hardly a decision you make lightly You just hope you can keep coping and keep trying to get support.
You get told how you're supermum or inspirational even when you are begging for help. I got told how strong my family was when I was actually ready to drive into a fckn tree.

The problem is, as ever that women aren't even seen as reliable witnesses to their own needs.

My older brother has several disabilities. Incredible the help she was able to access for him fairly easily in the 70s and 80s. I had OK support for my eldest in the early 2000s but my subsequent children it's become non existent. it is an absolute shit show.
It needs to be a more holistic family centred approach, before everyone loses the plot.

@WallaceinAnderland
You make a lot of sensible, right and valuable points here.
Shame some adults still struggle to understand.

No. I’m sorry. The first step needs to be that the child needs to be not abused.

this all family shit smacks of my parents dragging us all to family “therapy” circa 1981 for me to be told it was my fault because I was so “difficult”.