AIBU to feel embarrassed our tiny house is affecting the children?

[Miseramble]

I know I've got issues about this but I need advice.
We live in the tiniest house. Miniscule. 8ft x 9ft kitchen. Tiny box 3rd bedroom. No hallway, no entrance way, front door leads straight in to lounge. Stairs lead straight on to front door. Not enough room fo 2 people to stand by door to remove or put on shoes, we all have to go in to lounge just to put shoes/coats on. I hate it and it's a daily huge stress. The whole entire house upstairs and downstairs is 85m2. The back garden is the size of most people's front gardens.
So it was meant to be a 5 year home when we bought it 11 years ago when DC were pre-school. That was the plan.
They're now teenagers both as big as adults.
And we never moved after 5 years.
And we can't move now.
Me & DH are both NHS staff (me midwife him paramedic) and suffered horrendously with the 10 year long NHS pay freeze whilst at the same time COL soared. We became significantly worse off financially. Meanwhile our 5 year fixed rate mortgage deal ended 3 years ago and when we re-fixed the interest rate had significantly risen and our monthly repayments doubled. Worst of all, our long term plan for me to increase from part time when dc were little to full time now they're older has failed because both dc have SEN, ND, high levels of anxiety, developmental delay, school difficulties, and basically both need me around when they are not at school. So I only work whilst they are at school for 25 hours a week. DD is on the verge of school refusal and I'm endlessly worrying about how I will work at all if she actually refuses long term. She is under CAMHS. Whilst DS is having weekly counselling. I can't work any more hours than I do, meaning I can't increase our income. Meanwhile DH earns a salary which is a shit amount where we live for the main breadwinner. DH had the opportunity to develop into a higher pay band but it required him to do a masters which he turned down on the basis that he is struggling with his mental health enough as it is without adding more pressure from stuying whilst still working on top of family commitments, so this means he's closed the door on increasing his salary. I feel angry that he's not pushing himself for us financially when we so desperately need more money; he can see how much strain I'm under working every school day then straight home to start looking after 2 teenagers with extensive needs. I don't stop, I'm run ragged and he returns from work daily at 9pm so I get no help whatsoever.
So we can't move. We're stuck in this tiny house that we never meant to stay in for this long. Stepping up the ladder is unachievable for us.
We live in an expensive area. Our house is tiny but we chose it at the time because it's on a lovely street, in a beautiful area surrounded by countryside. What I didn't consider is that we bought the smallest house in an area filled with 4 bed detached houses or significantly extended semi detached with whopping great rear extensions and luxurious loft conversions.
Anyway I now feel crushed that we can't provide a bigger home for DC. They really notice now. They both get grouchy and irritable by the lack of space. DS stopped inviting friends round about 2 years ago. I keep asking him why and he won't answer but I know it's because all his friends live in massive 4 bed detached houses, in our very affluent neighborhood. He goes to theirs or meets them out instead. And DD asks to have friends for sleepovers but there isn't enough room for someone else to sleep in her boxroom. DD is endlessly asking why we can't get an extension on our kitchen like all her friends houses.
And now DS has been invited to a birthday party at someone's house. I checked their address out on Rightmove. And guess what. It's yet another massive 4 bed detached house with a football pitch sized garden. It is only natural that DS 15 is going to compare it to where we live.
I don't know what I'm asking from this post. But I'm angry and tired and disillusioned and poor. I think I need advice about how to deal with feeling embarrassed towards my own DC for not being able to provide a family home that's big enough for a family to be able to actually function in. I feel like sitting them down and apologising. But there's no hope of doing anything to give us more space.
I have looked at this friends house with the birthday party invite and now I feel like a failure. Just like I feel everytime my DC get invited to all their friends massive houses. I want to be able to provide a big house for my DC but I can't. We are literally the only family in this village living in such a tiny house.

@AgeingMillennial I agree with you to some extent. My 2 youngest are ND, ds is autistic and dd3 has AuDHD so I have some experience. I decided early on, particularly with ds as he presented more severely eg non-verbal, melt downs, sensory processing disorder that it was my aim for him to live in the real world. My cousin has a similar aged ds (23) with similar autistic characteristics and he never goes out, has abandoned education and games all day. It has been challenging and he does still have challenges but he loves his job, lives away from home and is living his best life. (Of course if you've met one autistic person you've met one autistic person so what works with one may not work with another).

@AgeingMillennial , you are hugely over simplifying.

And my experience is that family members like you, who thought they knew better and took this approach, make life harder when it’s already shit, for both me and my children. It’s not helpful. Does it really take much to be a bit supportive?

Thank you, I will look in to this.

But what is ‘supportive’? Is it encouraging OP to simply claim benefits, continue to run herself ragged meeting the needs of everyone else in the house bar her own, and continue down a path where her children become less and less independent and more and more reliant on her being around 24/7?

I don’t doubt raising kids like this is hard. I’ve seen it close up, several times now. I know it’s not a case of just giving them a stern talking to and they’ll snap out of it. But equally there’s a reason that we have WAY more highly anxious and parent dependent young adults since parents were encouraged to do absolutely everything for their kids and do everything softly softly.

As PP said, autism isn’t a final diagnosis where everything needs to be tailored to them and provided by their exhausted mum, or else. It’s an explanation of their learning and world experience profile which can be worked with so they actually live a life outside of gaming, screens and mum serving up all their snacks.

Actually I agree with Ageingmillennial.

I have an autistic 25 year old who still lives at home and has never been able to work. They get high rate PIP. They had an EHCP. At 15 (or even 11 or 12) they could be left safely after school for a few hours. What is the danger - in the absence of severe learning disabilities and therefore a risk to personal safety, which I assume is not the case as they don't have EHCPs. And as I said earlier, "it feels scary" isn't a good enough reason to protect someone from age appropriate acts, when it isn't actually dangerous.

Once you understand that in many cases what people call "PDA" (a rare condition, fwiw) is actually just spiralling autistic anxiety that uses an avoidant coping style, it all becomes clearer. Yes we had to stop pushing in certain areas outside of DC's possible capability (such as getting full or part time work) but there are still things that are achievable. I don't feed my DC breakfast or lunch; they have to make it themself or go hungry. Yes we went through "6 bags of crisps for lunch" but those days are past now. DC makes simple meals using the kettle, microwave, toaster, air fryer and has just started using the hob. If I had kept stepping in, they would have happily let me keep feeding them and not learned those skills. DC can get the bus to a certain activity now; to begin with, I had to drive DC to that activity, and wait there during the activity, then we got the bus together, and once they were confident they started getting the bus themself.

It's a mindset thing. Not 'my kid cannot do XYZ' but 'My kid doesn't need to do X or it's too far ahead of what they can currently do, so we will leave it for now; but they need to be able to do Y so how can we get there, slowly and step by step? And they want to be able to do Z, so how can we enable that, without me just picking up all the slack?'

@AgeingMillennial working with ds and with the excellent support of his senior school ds has learned, in the most part, how to manage his triggers, take time outs etc. He still requires support from me, normally in the way of long phone calls, touches base with dd1 who lives not too far from him every 2 weeks and doesn't really have friends but he's enjoying his life.

I disagree strongly based on my own experiences. You are assuming that you know better than the OP does about what will work, that you know her children’s needs better than she does, and that you know what’s needed. That’s a fairly arrogant position.

My experience is that for my children, safety and recovery have been far more successful in enabling them to challenge themselves and achieve more independence.

I had a family member who took your stance and I will never forgive them for heaping judgement on my struggling child and casting a negative spin on everything I did for them.

It isn’t a ‘mindset thing’. Many people are breaking themselves trying to live the mindset you describe and trying to take ‘small steps’, whilst just watching the child get worse and worse, and experiencing massive blame and judgement all around them. I know I was.

It’s great if something worked for your child, but it doesn’t mean it will work for others.

So I have more than one autistic dc.

One had 1:1 support in school and gets enhanced pip. Was able to be left for a few hours at home, like your child, and to be scaffolded to make meals etc independently.

Another spent several years at home having become severely mentally and physically unwell. They could be left, except when their physical health meant it wasn’t safe. But for a long time couldn’t leave the house or go into a shop without me. The professional advice was that pushing small steps was increasing anxiety. I stopped pushing. It took a long time, but now have an independent young adult who is away with friends atm.

Another had severe separation anxiety. You ask what the risk is, in the absence of learning disability. In her case, a level of panic that made her completely unsafe. Unsafe levels of meltdown that would have put her at risk of injuring herself, but also a level of psychological distress that was unacceptable, panic attacks, vomiting, etc. You think I should just have left her anyway?
Eventually, with safety, she does go to limited places without me and can now be left at home.

They are not all the same.

And because it didn't work for your child doesn't mean it won't for others either!

It hasn't "worked," fwiw. It's a work in progress. We are talking about a 25 year old who has recently learned to cook a burger in the air fryer and who now gets dressed about 5 days a week rather than laying in bed 24/7. We are talking about a 25 year old who can now walk to McDonald's and order food using the electronic board on their own.

They fell apart and then we needed to begin to put them back together. That involved about a year to 18 months of almost no expectations outside feeding themself. But from there the only way forward was to support via small steps or accept that DC was in bed for the rest of their life.

Now OP's DC aren't there yet. But they are showing signs of coping by avoidance and OP is showing signs of assuming they can't do things that they probably can. I hope she doesn't ever get to where we got.

(Also have 3 ND kids).

"You think I should just have left her anyway?"

Not all at once, know. As I initially suggested, popping out to the garden/ popping to corner shop/ going for a walk etc gradually building up her confidence in being alone. Even if that meant started by popping to the toilet alone while she waits outside. There's always a step one above what someone can comfortably do now, that will be progress. Sometimes it's tiny tiny increments. A long journey begins with a single step, as they say.

..and in any case, the fact that OP is still suggesting that her 15 year old son needs "putting to bed" suggests to me that there are other elements at play in this situation.