Adult Autism Diagnosis?

Belladonna14

My daughter has just been diagnosed at the age of 10. They diagnosed ASD but told us to read info about aspergers.
She is really struggling with the diagnosis. She won't even discuss it at all, and feels it has ruined her life. She just does not want to be 'different'. I am left wondering if we have done the right thing getting a diagnosis.
Other than my mum in law, our parents haven't been told, as she doesn't want anyone to know, and to gain her trust i feel that I need to respect that. I hope that as she gets older she comes to terms with it.
At the moment we aren't sure how much of her changing behaviour is autism and how much is hormones. I do see her having difficulties though as she just cannot grasp how to behave socially. She comes across as a rude, naughty girl, which breaks my heart (although even though I know about her diagnosis I still struggle with her behaviour).
As a family we find it hard. We have fallen out with family over her behaviour on numerous times ( I think they think that we just aren't strict enough with her so they try to discipline her , which over stimulates her. We have learnt to ignore a lot of it, as confronting her makes it worse).
The lack of sleeping is a nightmare - 3 years down the line and we have never had a night time that hasn't been a battle. This is affecting our relationship as my husband and I never get any time together without a child present.
It is hard but we love her and we are learning how to be.

[Deleted User]

Obviously, whether to go for a diagnosis or not is very much a personal choice and is the right way to go for some, not for others. With my children getting diagnosis, I wish I had forced the issue sooner as both have had quite big problems in school (my older son has been very negatively affected by his school experiences, now I am doing all I can to make sure my younger son doesn't experience the same). The sad thing is, having a diagnosis does not spread out to having a school being more responsive to their needs. You'd be quite horrified at what has happened to both my children in schools that supposedly 'deal with Children with ASD all the time'.

My younger son is now very anxious, the anxiety builds up, the school refuse to see it. I walked him in one day at the end of last term and was told by the SENCO "but he was grinning from ear to ear, he wasn't masking (I have sent them information on masking), he was genuinely enjoying himself"! This was inspite of me having to walk him in, him being obviously very very upset.., but he'd had a good day the previous day, he wasn't masking lol. There's none so blind as those that refuse to see. So a diagnosis is an important part of the journey and its a useful 'tool' but I have been surprised how little has changed in the ten years since my older son's and my younger son's diagnosis. There is more protection legally, but little change in terms of what schools are willing to do and see when ASD is involved in school difficulties. The legal protections haven't made much difference in my experience. I'm still having to do the same things and I am still watching my younger son go downhill. However, because of the diagnosis, my younger son does have some protections, which he really needs. You can't afford to be swayed by a child's need to not be different to stop a diagnosis as it is a useful tool if they have difficulties in school. Well, that's my experience.

Yep I am in the process of getting him an EHCP.

But reading this is amazing, I've just gained a greater understanding of why I get bad reactions from people when I have walked out of social arrangements or not attended at all. To them, they aren't big things, but to me they are. I didn't attend my own birthday celebration at work once. I arranged it lol. Didn't go myself and had no understanding of what other people's reaction would be. I do now, though. I remember it being a big thing with my ex's mum, she used to make it clear she didn't like me or what I did. I walked out of weekends away after enduring various comments twice, with no regrets whatsoever. After the second time, I refused to go at all. Apparently its just not the done thing and was a real black card against me (although there were so many, one more didn't really register). But now I understand why something that seemed logical to me (I wasn't welcome so I wasn't going to stay there) wasn't to them (you have been invited so you stay). To them it showed a lack of character, to me it was just the logical thing to do.

There's been a few other things on here too that have registered. Thank you. My father was certain I had manic depression (although I'd like to know when I could ever be considered to be manic lol), my GP has on his records that I have a personality disorder which I have managed to have hidden from my records, thank god. I too refuse to attend meetings now whenever possible as I can't do 'instant' verbal communication without getting very stressed. I prefer to communicate in writing.