Finding HopeParenting a Young Adult With Autism Spectrum Disorder: I Interview My Mum
Posted on March 31, 2021
Since this is my blog, the experiences are predominately from my point of view but I thought it would be really useful, as well as interesting, to get a different perspective on the same scenario. So, with that in mind plus the fact that most resources are aimed at the parents of young autistic children, I asked my Mum if I could interview her about what it’s like to be the parent and often advocate for a young adult with Autism Spectrum Disorder. I came up with a list of questions and she answered them. I had almost no input on her answers, only to ask for more information or detail if I thought she hadn’t fully answered the question or finished a thought. We’re hopeful that this could be of some help to parents with adult children managing a form of Autism.
I’ve talked about what it was like for me to get a late diagnosis but what was that experience like for you?
The process of getting a diagnosis for you was frustrating at best and distressing at worst. You were very clear about your need to know the causes of your difficulties and so refusal from medical professionals to engage with that need was hard to witness. I needed to do the research, follow up possible assessments and/or therapies and talk about your challenges against a backdrop of suspicion of being overprotective and a distrust of my motives. Even when it became clear that your inability to talk for yourself at the outset was a result of Selective Mutism and your experience with those professionals, I was still met with a resistance to engage with me on your behalf.
Although I’m more able to speak for myself now, what has it been like having to do so much advocating for me?
It always felt like it was my role to do this until you were able to do it for yourself. I wasn’t trying to fix things, just get your voice heard, your experience understood so that the problems you were facing could be addressed and the right support provided.
I knew all the answers to questions you were being asked because we’d talked about it all beforehand. Both before and after your diagnosis, it has just felt like I can be the means to you being heard and hopefully understood as and when you are not able to do it yourself.
As in your first question, this doesn’t always work! And I do often feel frustrated by a refusal to accept my intentions, confusing it with a reluctance to ‘allow’ you to speak for yourself/become independent.
Knowing me but having an outside perspective, what would you consider to be the positives and negatives of having Autism Spectrum Disorder?
This is really difficult for me as all I see is YOU, with all your qualities and all your challenges. Combine this with the fact that each person with ASD presents so differently and I do find it difficult to generalise. Understanding more about women on the spectrum now, I see your very singular focus on anything you set out to do as a positive. I think your intense empathy is a double bind, giving you a compassion that can then often be overwhelming. The biggest negative I see is your level of anxiety. This is often debilitating and always massively exhausting and affects most aspects of your life.
How do you think things would’ve been different if my ASD had been recognised when I was younger?
This is a little easier to answer as I think, from all I see now, knowing about it earlier may have enabled us to access support for you and given you access to specialist resources. Having said that, I wonder if a diagnosis earlier might have ended up giving you a label that meant expectations, both your own and society’s, may have been different for you. Increased awareness of and understanding surrounding neurodiversity is relatively recent.
What do you think is the most important skill or trait when it comes to parenting a young adult with ASD?
This question makes me want to ask you what you feel has been most important but my sense is that being there for you, trying to put aside any preconceptions and opinions of my own so that I am able to really listen and hear what you are telling me, leave aside any of my own anxieties or fears, to support and encourage you to do what you want to do; a combination of protection when things are tough and support to push forward when you feel able.
I also feel it has been important to be prepared to read and research for myself and learn all about the condition so I can share this whenever it feels necessary to inform the argument for support. And to be prepared to persist when first attempts are met with a negative response.
I’ve often talked about feeling like a burden for not moving out or contributing more as a young adult. What are your thoughts on this?
In answering this, I would like to reference a quote here, which I think explains how I feel about this. I found this during one of my searches and thought it was a positive recognition of the difference I see and how it affects your life in the sense of the ‘what’ and ‘how’ you contribute and participate. Keri Opai, a Mental Health Service Award Winner in New Zealand, consulted the Maori disabled community in order to develop variants in language that differ from what he called the “sometimes condescending English terms,” and instead emphasised the ‘gaining [of] strength and ability.’ So the word for ‘disabled’ itself is ‘whaikaha,’ which means to “have strength or to be differently able.” He also spoke of people with autism having ‘their own timing, spacing, pacing and life-rhythm’ and so interpreted autism as ‘takiwatanga,’ meaning ‘in his or her own time and space.’ (Te Reo Hapai, the Language of Enrichment by Keri Opai)
I do understand that you feel this way though but I know that you do what you can when you can, and that this inevitably fluctuates according to what you have going on at any particular time. With the anxiety and fatigue you experience on a daily basis, and your focus being studying at the moment, it just doesn’t make sense that you do more than you are able to, nor that you would move out to live independently, with all the extra demands that would make on you, yet. There is plenty of time ahead for that. Until then, I get to enjoy your company and give you the support you need.
I’ve been taking various medications and going to different forms of therapy for years now. What do you think have been the effects of those, positive and negative?
I have always felt that it would be a combination of therapy and medication that would be likely to be the best way forward, and I think we both agree now that this has been the case. It was challenging to find a therapist that you felt able to work with but once we did, we knew instantly that you could start moving forward, in your own time and in whatever way felt possible, something your therapist has always supported.
Regarding medications, I do have concerns about their effects on you physically as well as mentally and appreciate that living together does mean I can help monitor these effects and see patterns and changes that maybe you can’t.
What do you think the hardest part of living with ASD is?
Again, looking at you, I would say that the hardest part for you, of living with ASD, is the sense of feeling different and feeling left behind your peers; and watching you being so exhausted by managing the mental health issues that have troubled you as a result of the late diagnosis.
Do you feel your life is different because I’m autistic?
Yes, my life is different to what I had expected it would be at this point, but then so is yours. But we deal with that, and make it the best we can, for both of us.
What has been or is the hardest part of parenting a young adult with ASD?
I have often felt very isolated, and criticised for continuing to be your voice when you are not able to speak. And I do worry about the barriers you may face in a world that does not always recognise the assets and abilities of neurodiverse people, expecting autistic people to change rather than have society change the many inhospitable or incompatible environments and expectations that may hinder them.
What help/advice would have been helpful to you at any point?
All the way through… someone willing to believe in my intentions and acknowledge that, I, as a parent, only have your best interests at the core of everything I do.
So hopefully her responses to these questions have been helpful or reassuring to the parents among you guys. During this process, she actually realised that she had questions for me so we decided to do the same thing in reverse and that post will be up tomorrow!
What Women With Autism Want You To Know
Posted on December 8, 2018
The other day, I was just browsing through YouTube (probably procrastinating something) when I came across this video.
“Autism is not a disease, it is a developmental disability. It’s about living our best possible lives with this condition.”
I am ridiculously excited that this video exists. Even a few years ago, when I was looking into Autism as an explanation for my struggles, I was still being told that women don’t have Autism or being dismissed because I didn’t fit into the stereotype for Autism (which has come from autistic boys and men). So the fact that this video even exists shows that some progress has been made. At this moment in time, it has just short of a million views. A million! That means that potentially a million people now have a better understanding of Autism in women. That’s completely amazing!
There’s so much good stuff in this video – you really should watch the whole thing. But here are some of main points and some quotes that stuck out to me:
1. Autism covers a wide spectrum.
- “Autism is an internal thing, not an external thing. No one looks autistic.”
- “Autism isn’t a linear spectrum of high or low. It’s a whole bunch of different traits that are on their own spectrums. It’s kind of a 3D, weird mess.”
- “Autism is simply a different way of thinking, seeing, and interacting with one’s world.”
2. We have emotions.
- “I would definitely disagree with the idea that we’re not emotional. I think we’re actually highly emotional. I think that we just… many times we don’t express it the way people expect… We’re feeling it. It’s there. But it just might not come out. And then, at other times, it might be overly expressed.”
- “We can’t filter them out because we feel them so strongly so we shut down as a way of processing all those emotions.”
3. Social interactions can be challenging.
- “It takes a lot of effort to appear [like anybody else, like someone not on the spectrum]. Like, it takes a lot of conscious awareness. Social skills are like a muscle for us.”
- “It’s very, very draining. Even with people that I care for and enjoy being around, I have to psych myself up to be around them.”
- “All the little things that everyone does unconsciously, autistic people do manually. So that adds up. What I’m doing with every part of my body, I am to some degree aware of and trying to do.”
4. Diagnoses can happen at any age.
- “A lot of women, women that I know who are autistic, are not diagnosed until their twenties, thirties, or even beyond. A large part of this is because the way that we diagnose Autism is by using criteria that were created by observing boys and Autism looks different in girls and women than it does in boys.”
- “I feel like, ‘okay, I know why I’m this way, I know why other people are the way they are, so I can bridge this gap.'”
5. The nuances of dating can be challenging… but we do have sex lives.
- “We just may need more support in order to learn how to make [relationships and sex] happen. We don’t naturally understand the nuances that are involved and there are a lot of nuances.”
- “People on the Autism spectrum, especially women, are more likely to experience sexual assault or some sort of violent incident than the neurotypical, non autistic population. We are very vulnerable. We definitely can be more trusting because we are very honest and upfront people so we don’t think that other people might not be so honest and might be trying to hurt us.”
- “One of the traits of Autism is not reading between the lines in social interactions and so much of dating and sexually is supposed to be indirect and subtle and that it’s inappropriate to talk about sex in a direct way, even when you’re teaching it as sex ed.”
- “No one is teaching the social aspects [of dating and sex]. And honestly, this is where autistic people are the canaries in the coal mine. Teaching the social aspects of sexuality would help everyone. Autistic people need it but it also benefits everyone.”
6. We have lots of different interests.
- “There is a stereotype that everyone with Autism is into science and math and stuff, like Rain Man. But a lot of people with Autism… women actually, especially… a lot of us are into the arts.”
- “In my experience, autistic girls are also just as obsessive autistic boys. They’re just obsessed with, you know, fantasy novels or their favourite band or whatever. Not planes, trains, and automobiles.”
7. Bullying sucks.
- “You know, it’s like somebody making fun of a blind person only in this case you’re blind socially.”
- “We all start from somewhere but that isn’t necessarily where we’re going to end up and you have to believe that there is going to be a future.”
- “There’s enough misfits in the world, like, people who got picked on. There’s so many of us. So you do find your tribe.”
8. It’s getting better.
- “I think things are going to be a lot better for the next generation.”
- “You know, your kid might be behind their peers but it doesn’t mean they’re gonna be behind forever. Your kid is a full human being who will grow and change just like everyone else.”
As I said, it’s amazing that this video exists and that autistic women are being seen and that people are finally understanding that autism in women looks different than it does in men, and that it can look different from woman to woman. I agree with all of these points but there’s still so much to it, to living with this everyday. So, in addition to these points, this is what I, as an autistic woman, want you to know:
- I have no idea either – Just because these behaviours and reactions are coming out of my brain and my body, that doesn’t mean I necessarily understand them. I’ve done a lot of reading about Autism and mental health but it’s just different in real life. I’m learning everyday and I hope that you’ll keep learning with me.
- It’s exhausting – As these women said, it’s draining, even when it comes to things that you enjoy. It’s like you have to consciously process everything you do, everything around you, and that takes up so much energy. I cannot manage as much as everyone else and I find that so difficult to get my head around.
- I’m doing my best – I promise.
Learn With Me
Posted on March 29, 2018
I was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder at the age of twenty, after actively struggling for several years. When I use the word ‘actively,’ I mean that, while I had had difficulties with all the things that turned out to be characteristics of Autism, they had become really hard to deal with and were having a serious impact on my life and my mental health. For example, I’d always found socialising confusing and stressful but I’d managed it for most of my life, thinking that that was just how I was built. Ultimately, that’s true but knowing where it comes from has been very helpful, both in validating that struggle but also in helping me to learn how to cope with those feelings. So, the diagnosis was a really big deal but I still think a lot about why it came so late and what that means.
In my opinion, there was one big reason why it took so long to get a diagnosis and that was the lack of awareness and understanding around both mental health and Autism, especially in women. Because Autism in women often presents very differently to the stereotypical male presentation, no one even mentioned it until we’d been looking for an explanation for more than eighteen months. I have a couple of blog posts about the process of getting my diagnoses coming up but the short version is that we started out by looking at my mental health. We went to various people but no one took my anxiety, my depression, and so on as serious problems, brushing them off as things that everyone deals with. So it took a lot of work to get even one person to recognise that what was happening was an actual problem, and then even more work to get them to see that that was part of a bigger pattern. And I know that all of that was down to this general lack of awareness about how Autism can manifest and again, how it can manifest in women.
I am very grateful to have my diagnosis, regardless of how long it took to get it but I do think that getting it so late has had a detrimental effect on me:
- Expectations, my own and those of others – Having grown up assuming I was neurotypical, I have always compared myself to my neurotypical peers and hated myself when I couldn’t measure up. When I got to sixth form, I started to really struggle (mentally, socially, academically) and so the whole thing started to snowball. And because I was comparing myself so viciously to those around me who were coping so much better, I did great damage to my mental health and self esteem. Had I known that my brain worked differently and that I might need support, those two years of my life would most likely have been an altogether different experience. Even now that I know the difference is there, I still find it really difficult not to compare myself to others; I still often see myself as less capable or less intelligent or less whatever word is relevant to the situation.
- The mental health consequences – While this is not something I can scientifically prove, the chances are that this whole process has had an impact on my mental health. Being repeatedly invalidated and brushed off definitely made my depression and anxiety worse. That invalidation may also have triggered the development of Borderline Personality Disorder; I’m not qualified to make a definitive statement on that but between discussions with my health professionals and my own research, it’s a theory if nothing else.
I’ve often had friends and family ask what they can do to help me and to be completely honest, I don’t know. I’m still trying to figure all of this out for myself: what’s affected, what helps, what doesn’t… Sometimes it feels like, just because it’s my diagnosis, people think I have this deep understanding of it. I’m definitely more clued in than I used to be but even two and a half years later, I don’t always know what to do when something comes up. I think the only thing I can say is this: “Learn with me.” This is a process, which involves a lot of trial and error and over-planning and screwing up. When it doesn’t work, it’s no one’s fault. We just learn and move on to the next thing. But hopefully, we can navigate it as a team rather than a group of individuals.
I try not to spend too much time thinking about how my life would’ve been different if I’d been diagnosed at a younger age because there’s little to be gained from it. It is how it is. But occasionally the thought creeps in and I imagine this life where I’m so much more productive and engaged and independent. I don’t know if that’s how it would’ve played out but it’s a seductive thought. But as I said, I try not to go down that rabbit hole. I think it comes down to this: there are people I wouldn’t have met and experiences that I wouldn’t have had if I’d been diagnosed as a child and ultimately, I wouldn’t give those up for anything.
Finding Hope 