Adult daughter

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Hi I have just joined this site. I think my 24 year old daughter has aspergers - she has no got a diagnosis and it is very hard to get one as an adult. She would like some clarity to help her define herself and her difficulties. I am feeling very low at the moment as I worry for her as she is so anxious and angry. She gave up work a year ago and had a failed relationship - she obsesses about things a lot and can get locked into a spiral of negativity. I am trying to help her move on by supporting her with a part time college placement. She has been on antidepressants but wont go back to her gp even though she is still struggling with massive anxieties. Anyone else with a child of the same age.

Hello, and welcome! I was a child of that age once. I wasn't diagnosed until the age of 49.

There are no medications effective for the treatment or cure of Autism.

Psyche Meds Drove My Son Crazy < Link

OTOH, I had better experiences with more...holistic methods...and finally, Science is catching up to what I already knew...

Your Brain Might Be Less Depressed < Link

Psilocybin Promotes Growth of New Brain Cells, Can Even Cure PTSD And Depression < Link

Yeah, Willard, I remember that "psych meds made my son crazy" article. The shrinks are there to push dope, and insurance won't pay for therapy because the drug is supposedly a cure-all. I have talked to older people online who were alive in the 70s, and the idea back then was to close the mental hospitals and use drugs to solve every mental malady. It didn't work. So now we have crazy people harassing other people on street corners and shrinks BEGGING people to take meds. It sucks. I recently was telling my shrink about being in debt, and he immediately started talking antidepressants. I had to talk him out of it. I hate being in debt, but I have a plan to pay it off, and am not suicidal.

The other thread about a new diagnosis on an adult daughter has posts with recommendations for books and other things. The anxiety might be related to the job and worries about her future. Exercise and taking part in constructive activities like searching for a job and doing activities that she has enjoyed in the past might be drug-free alternatives that she may be willing to do and might be helpful.

Autobiographies written by autistic adults: Stephen Shore videos, Temple Grandin videos and Temple Grandin and Sean Barron Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships, John Elder Robison Raising Cubby, David Finch Journal of Best Practices. I'll repeat my post from the other thread:

Loving Lampposts is a nice general documentary with lots of snippets of parent and autistic adult interviews. It's available for viewing free on hulu, where I watched it.

Temple Grandin has a bunch of videos online, at TED and at Cornell.

For figuring out how the brain works, a college level introductory psychology class, lifespan or human development, and neuroscience classes might be helpful. I like the books Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, The Selfish Gene by Dawkins, Jane Goodall's In the Shadow of Man, Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin, and The World Until Yesterday by Jared Diamond.

Your daughter sounds almost exactly like me when I was 24--I was unemployed, dealing with the disintegration of a relationship, etc. First, and this is huge, you need to keep on giving her the love and emotional support you've been giving her. And encourage her to find activities, stuff that she's passionate about, that she could maybe translate into a career. I felt depressed back then because I felt like I didn't have a purpose. Showing her that she does have one, and encouraging her in her talents, will help her self confidence. The other thing I would recommend is picking up a copy of Rudy Simone's Aspergirls--it's got lots of practical information about AS in females, with a bit at the end of each chapter that advises Aspergirls and their parents (or anyone who cares about one).

OH. MY. GOD.

I have so much I want to say right now I couldn't if I tried.

It's probably a good thing I have to take my daughter to soccer practice.

OK-- I was there once, when I was a little younger than she is. And I've been through hell. But I'm OK. I have a daughter. Three of them, and a son. And soccer practice. All of which means that I'm OK.

She will be, too, most likely.

I'll get back to you. I swear. As soon as my head stops spinning.

My first reaction is to make a Selfish Aspie Comment: That article that Willard posted was published in 2007. Where was that article in December of 2010, when a well-meaning (we hope) Arkansas psychiatrist heard "Asperger's" and saw that I was angry (never mind why) and wrote me a blanket prescription for all the risperidone I cared to swallow?? Where was that article when some newly-minted felons in West Virginia turned "as needed" into "maximum dose every day, for the rest of your life, no matter what happens?" Where was that article when I sat in a one-room apartment in Pittsburgh, losing my verbal and cognitive function and becoming both narcoleptic and violent??

That story was close enough to what happened to me that it might have broken through my "good Aspie" pathological compliance and my willingness to see myself as defined by the most negative comments I could find. Of course, I don't know what I would have done then that would have been better than where I finally washed up, so I guess it's best counted as water under the bridge.

Why haven't I seen this article before???? I was, apparently, not using the correct search terms.

Wow. I got out. Alive. I got a flat tire on my way to a suicide attempt and landed in a good place. And I'm OK now. Ho. Lee. Crap. I am the luckiest woman alive.

Now-- the question is, how do we save the OP's daughter from that hell, the hell next door, or one of the other hells on the block????

I'd suggest that the first step is to check out some of those books. Rudy Simone, Jennifer McIlwe Myers, there's a book called "Women From Another Planet" that has been helpful to me. The bad news is that it does not propose any solutions. The good news is that it's full of the stories of other ASD women and it's a hugely validating reassurance that one is not alone.

The next step is to point her, perhaps, here. There are a lot of ASD women here who have, despite having their struggles and failures and heartaches, made lives for themselves that they're happy with. Some of them have even stayed married for fifteen years, had a pack of kids, and enjoyed reminiscing about back in the day with friends they've had for over a decade. In short, point out to her that she can still do anything she wants to do if she will put in the extra work that is sometimes needed.

Someone said, lots of listening and loving and support. That's HUGE. I would not have made it without the handful of people-- Dad, Grandma, Husband, Friends-- who listened and loved and supported. That's worth more than any professional, any medication, any therapy.

Your daughter may suffer from two main effects, Aspergers and youth. Both tend to increase focus. Youth by definition has limited life experience and a subsequent limited frame of reference. When you add to this the intensity of focused thought that an Aspie can bring, you get a recipe for depression.

I saw an interview on 60 minutes many years ago and the interviewer was asking if the man was afraid that he might go to jail. He responded, "The first time you go to jail you get all upset. The second time you know to bring your toothbrush." It has been said, "The best education in the world comes from the school of hard knocks. The problem is the tuition is so high."

Your daughter put a lot of herself into her relationship. One way you can help is to guide her to a larger perspective. She is not wrong for having put so much of herself emotionally into the relationship. She was wrong in picking someone who could not be trusted with what she gave.



Your daughter may have some OCD issues associated.

There are a number of nutritional supplements that show an ability to decrease unwanted thoughts and compulsive behavior.

Inositol
Lithium Orate
L-Theanine
Mucuna pruriens
GABA
L Tyrosine

One theory is that since our food is grown on huge factory farms and the soil has been depleted for decades, that we are missing more and more micronutrients from our food. This is manifest first with those whose genetics might make them more vulnerable than others to the decrease in these critical substances.

Some people have found some measure of management by experimenting with various supplements to see if anything helps them mange these effects better. You may want to do research and see if your daughter is up for any experiments. If she sees no problem, she may have no interest in following through.

Welcome to WP

Sorry I can be of no help but I wish you all the best with your daughter.

At twenty four I was unemployed and getting kicked out of college for not attending class.

Thoughts of suicide entered my mind quite frequently and only a very close prior experience with that spiral stopped them from taking root. My dad died around that time. Instead of ending it all I got married and then trained up in a skill I loved and got work doing it.

More than two decades of gainful employment later, still married and now the father of twins, I can say that I still have a tendency toward catastrophic thinking, but it's an annoyance I have learned to work around. I still have trouble making and keeping friends, but my wife is quite good at that, so I have a social life through her. I have also made real friends at my job, though a lot of what goes on there socially mystifies me.

What I can say to her and you is that there is joy and delight in this life and it is worth grabbing every bit of it you can. If you work for it, it can get much, much better.

You may not be able to change the bits that don't work for you, but you can learn to get where you need to go by a different route--and that way lies happiness.

I wish you both the very best as you struggle with this.