Being a Mum with Aspergers and ADHD

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I have never been on this forum before, but I came across it. No one knows who I am here and I'm protected by the anonymity of the internet so I'm going to go into some rather difficult things.

I am a 25 year old woman with an ADHD and Aspergers diagnosis. I have been through special education, social services, support workers, mental health teams the lot and most were toffee nosed, condescending as*holes with their heads up their asses and no life experience of their own. Me and people do not generally mix. I have never had a job and or cared to and I don't really have any friends apart from my partner. However, by chance, I ended up being a Mother, twice. The first time at 21 years of age I was pushed into giving my first up for adoption. It was a horrendous experience that haunts me every day and will do forever. I was treated like a criminal the whole time I was pregnant and the midwives made rude and nasty comments and never took me serious. I now have to deal with the fact that the baby I gave birth to is calling strangers Mum and Dad, when with the right support I was perfectly capable of raising him. I got pregnant again by the same partner at 24 and vowed I would fight to raise her myself. I succeeded and everything is going well. I am already getting less interference from the suits, clean shirts and ties than I was at the start and they are thinking of taking her off of the child protection register next month because it's all going to so well. However the whole experience is making me deeply depressed. I feel like no one respects me. I feel like I am being told what to do and I am being ordered to go to a Mother and baby group that is causing me a lot of distress. It's extremely busy, about 20 other women sometimes. I have NOTHING in common with the women there. They all seem to 30-40 year old married, middle class, educated, figured out, perfectly dressed mum types. Being there is terrifying. I find myself getting depressed whenever I have to go and I never talk to anyone. I go to a group I like on a Monday and my support workers run it. It's for parents with learning difficulties and it's a small friendly group which I like being in and look forward to. I can't tell the slimy suits and ties how I feel because it just gets used against me, so I just have to pretend to be OK with everything and I have to play their game but it's humiliating. I feel like one of those poor dogs that gets forced to jump through hoops full of fire. I have tried verbalising how I feel but I get shot down. I feel like no one listens to me. All my life I have been either used, abused or told what to do and I just feel so worthless as a Mother on top of everything else. I have been controlled by people so much sometimes I get confused about who I actually am. I have very little support. My Mum is an alcoholic with mental health problems and my Dad lives in his universe and only his universe. Neither of them were of any help when I lost my first child and they hardly see my daughter. I could die and they would probably never find out unless someone told them through the grapevine. I have gone periods of 2 years before now without ever so much as a phone call and in the end I visited them. I love my partner but he has ADHD and needs a lot of my support as I am much more independent than him around the house and with pratacle tasks. He is also very lackidaisical and terrible with money. I am starting to feel like everyone including him and my daughter would be better off without me. I am starting to feel that the suits and ties are right, I am a bad Mother, I should never have had children and my daughter and son will hate me one day.

I am not looking for direct advice, I just needed to vent and it would also help if someone came and told me that I wasn't the only person feeling this or at least something like it...

No one does respect you; it does not matter how well you do, no one will ever respect you.

In their opinion, you are double-retarded and should have been sterilized. That is all there is to it, that is all there will ever be to it.

Give up your daughter. Get your tubes tied. Never look at another man again.

You might be a perfectly capable human being-- but the fact is that YOU WILL NOT BE ALLOWED TO BE CAPABLE. Sooner or later something will go wrong; you will have to ask for help and they will all be standing there ready to say, "See, we told you you couldn't do it. You shouldn't have tried."

Give her up now, while she's still cute enough to have an easy time finding a normal family.

I'm sorry. I know that hurts. It hurts me to say it. But I have fought, and fought, and fought. I have done things that it's widely known autistics can't do, simply because I came of age before Autism Speaks and the rest of it, when no one knew what was wrong with me and never thought to tell me it couldn't be done.

My payment for it?? This morning my husband told me that the sex isn't good enough, the housekeeping isn't good enough, and my personality isn't good enough. He doesn't want to argue, and he doesn't want an empty shell, and if I can't give it to him, he's going to either kill himself or file for divorce.

I'm starting the paperwork to hand over the life insurance my mom left me, the house we bought with it, and the kids. I'm going to be making the childcare arrangements so he can take care of the kids without me. I'm planning my own obsolescence, and then I'll just put a change of clothes and $500 in a backpack, kiss them goodbye, and walk away.

Fifteen years, my heart and soul, everything I've loved and fought for-- up in smoke, because a pretty Oriental bartender flirted with him in Miami Beach and he got started thinking about what he could have.

Give up your child now. It will only hurt more later. Walk away.

Don't let him get away with it.

Wow, this sounds like my experience of motherhood, totally. I love my son, who is now 6, but I hated being a mom. It was, and still is sometimes, total sensory overload, and when I tried to describe what I was going through, I felt like no one understood. Other moms looked at me like I was psychotic and scary; my counselor wanted to dose me with medications; and my husband didn't know how to help, so he started to avoid me. My parents are in another state, and couldn't help; my parents-in-law and sister-in-law refused to help; and because I was broke, I couldn't afford a babysitter. I felt really, really trapped and resentful and was too tired to be a very good mother. I never felt like I fit with the happy, doting mothers of the kids at my son's preschool when he got older, or his elementary school now. Even my boy sometimes asks why I'm "not like the other mommies".



You owe it to yourself, and your daughter, to go to this group, no matter what anyone else says. Every parent's needs are different, just as every child's are; and if you feel welcomed and strong in this group, you will make far more progress as an individual and a mother by going to this group. Perhaps your service workers could advocate for you to the suits? Maybe you could ask another friend, neighbor, counselor to go to the group with you, who could attest to its benefits for you (or the inefficacy of the other group).

You CAN be a great mom, even if you are not a conventional one. In fact, you already ARE a great mom, because you care deeply about your child and you respect yourself enough to resent those who deprive you of the support you need and deserve in the task of raising her. Many, many children have parents who do not care enough to put up a fight for their well-being. Even if they have other resources at their disposal, they have far less than your child will have, because ultimately children know whether they are loved or not. Please don't give up! If you give up, your child will always wonder whether you did so through your own fault, or some failing of her own. As miserable as I was the first few years of my child's life, and as uncomfortable as motherhood can sometimes be, I am now enjoying being a mom. My son has seen the worst of me, but he knows that I love him, because he has seen me struggle to be a good mom from the day of his birth, and he and I are very close. My husband has also seen my progress, and has become a great dad and a source of encouragement and support.

I wish the best for you and your family! Simply because you are seeking answers and insight, I know you have it in you to succeed.