Autistic family.

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Hi, (English is not my native language, so please forgive me mistakes)

I think I need some advice on my situation. A wide range of advice. I have two sons both with diagnosed autism. Older is 6.5 years old, younger is 5 years old.
I am also under taking diagnosis, although is it quite difficult in my situation.
But despite having or not, diagnosis, I have a lot of autistic symptoms (sensory, a wide range of social problems, need of routine, escape in to own world and interests, problems with concentration, and many more) and I meet in my daily life many problems, especially having two autistic children. I think, I need help, but it is quite difficult for me to do something, I suffer from depression, from 4 years. Actually, I know already, I had depression before, over long time, but I did not know about it. From 4 years I am on citalopram 20-40mg.

1 year ago I left my job to look after children. But now I see I do not manage at all. I do not manage with my own problems but adding there my children and their problems, make my life very difficult. I have tried to find help, but usually help and advice suits family with one autistic child, sometimes with two, but I could not get help how autistic parent has to cope with two autistic children?

I feel overwhelmed by my children, in many situations they are unpredictable for me, make loud noises or moves that stress me. I have problem to get contact with my children, it is quite difficult for me to enter to their world and see their view and understanding of the surrounding. They also have problem in contacting to each other. Many times I tried to do something with my children and our life but because of many problems, I met, I just gave up.

I feel looped in my own reality, and actually I see no solution to my situation and no hope.
Maybe someone knows how to find help in our triple autistic life?
I will be grateful for any advice.

Break the problem down. Is connecting with each other your priority now? It's often helpful to identify priorities or one circles around from issue to issue never getting anywhere and feeling completely overwhelmed.

How old your kids are and what country you live in help are important in identifying ways to get help, if you'd want to say.

Welcome to WP Inference. I can see how it is difficult for you and I hope we can help. Are there any organizations where you are that can help you with child care? Do they get help at school for their Autism?
Waterfalls, his kids are 5 and 6 and a half.

Thanks, Skibum. Sorry I missed their ages.

I think I am mixed up whether you need help more with your kids or for depression, Inference?

Thank you very much for the response

Thank you for the response. I will try to describe my problem as clear as is possible, but it is not too easy to order my thinks and write them down.

First I am going to answer your questions:

Waterfalls, I need help both for me and for my kids. My depression is a result of my autism. It is connected.
Regarding problems, I will try to break down my problems, although it is not too easy to order and write my thoughts down.
I know, the best way is write the problems down, and see them in the reality, so we can find solutions, but sometimes even thinking about problems is overwhelming for me and results in the escapes in to something to reduce the stress. But I will, at least, to approach to my problems.


skibum, my boys are going to mainstream school (p2) and nursery class(2 h per day). They both have Speech and Language Therapy, they have Educational Psychologist but we have limited contact with him. We were also last week first time at OC therapy and at the Dietician. Last year I was attending Triple P Stepping Stones Course, also sleeping workshop. I have got a lot of good advice and information, but these are direct usually to the NT parents having one autistic child. In our situation autism has also influence on my behavior, which is not taking under consideration in books and leaflets I received.

The biggest problem I have is influence of autism on my life and hence on the life of my children. Apart of social difficulties that I meet (e.g keeping relationships and even contact with the other people, not understanding social rules and behavior of the other people, inability of imagining of the feelings, thinking or intentions of the other, and many more), sensory problems (sensitivity on noise, light, movement, smell, taste, textures, touch), needs of routine and not managing in the case of changes in the daily or further plans (which is very frequent in my life), I also have problems to manage the stress, that is a result of many things in my life and which causes escape in to different addictions like eating, drinking, smoking, internet, gaming, etc, I have problem to deal with my children and understand their behavior, to introduce daily routine, to play with them, to take them outside and many more.

My children need help and support in their development but as far I'm not able to provide them suitable conditions of development. I was trying many times to do something but it was resulting like everything in my life - not done. Now I know, it was connected with the Autism, but despite of this awareness I still can't do something to improve and make easier our life.

At this moment I have no idea what to do. Is a social worker suitable for us?
Or someone who can help me to order our daily life?

This may be a key to getting a handle on daily life. You might want to experiment with a rigid schedule such as a timetable for every activity. If you get a board and post a schedule on the wall describing every activity for every person and the times that activity is scheduled, it may bring a little more order into your world.

It might seem a little "over the top" or theatrical. However, as an experiment, it might help to discover new ways to take some of the pressure off. Your should feel free to modify the schedule as needed or perform additional experiments to discover what does and does not work for your situation.

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Yes you are right. Daily routine could help us a lot, but the problem is to introduce it. I was always feeling well in the work or school, where the daily routine occurs naturally. The problem for me is to introduce the routine in my home. My children behave in unpredictable way for me, and their behavior sometimes depends on the behavior the other but sometimes don't. It is very difficult for me to deal with both my children, because I am able to focus only on the one at the time. If they behave in the unexpected way for me I do not know what to do. If they overwhelmed me by noise or movement I give up. There is a lot of examples in our life that I just do not manage How to get contact with my children? how to understand their behavior? how to explain them social rules, if I do not understand these? How to help to keep relationships and friends for my children, if I do not have any? How to help them to find the way to the reality, if I escape from the reality as often as it is possible?

How to be an autistic parent to autistic children?

For me I get lost if there are too many issues to address. So I would not be good with writing it all down, that would overwhelm me. I would need to pick one or a few priority issues to try to change.

Yes, a social worker with experience with autism could help. You're right, though. Many professionals are seemingly surprised when the parent has ASD too. What's good is one of your kids is still preschool age and workers are more attentive to parent needs at that age. Would it be possible for you to observe at the school how they support your child?

Also I do not feel you need to be able to explain all social rules to parent well if there are other peoe to help your kids with that. You can still accept and support them and help them identify problems and where to turn when there is a problem.

Do you get some "you time", when someone else can care for the children while you do some things by yourself? All mothers need this time out. You could perhaps join a group of mothers who provide this for each other, or even start one yourself?

I like the idea of taking it one problem at a time rather than trying to take care of everything at once. Maybe introduce one routine for example, what time all of you go to bed. So I would make a time, maybe 8:30 pm (2030 if you are using international time,) and every night no matter what, they have to go to bed at that time. Even if something is not finished, it does not matter, they just need to get used to a routine and in a few days they will learn that this is the time for bed and so whatever they want to do before bed they have to do before this time. And maybe you can make your time 10:00 pm or 11:00pm (2200 or 2300) this will give you two or three hours alone to just have time for yourself which is very important if you are Autistic. Then maybe every month you add a new thing to the routine. So the next month they will continue to sleep at 8:30 and then perhaps add a routine for what they do right before sleep. Like they will brush their teeth and wash their faces at the same time every night. So each month as they get used to the new routine you can add another small thing. Then perhaps the next thing to add will be dinner at the same time every night. And so on.

Can you also tell us where you are from? There may be other members here who are from your area who might know about resources that could be very helpful to you.