this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2023
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Autism

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Warning: Hot take: the longer I’m a parent, the more I feel that we shouldn’t be able to have children (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
39 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Some background:

I am a 35 year old male with a 2 year old son. I was diagnosed this year after a lifetime of struggling and becoming a parent exacerbating my traits.

Today I had an appointment with my son’s speech therapist, because he’s still not talking more than a couple words. The appointment is unstructured play and interaction including mimicking him, waiting for his cues, etc. The problem is, I can’t pick up on communication cues or read what to do next. I can’t communicate with him like a normal parent and I feel like I’m holding him back.

The therapist had to guide me as much as she had to guide him. This was my first time meeting her, and it was all overwhelming and overstimulating. I was fighting back tears half the time and I couldn’t keep and make eye contact as well as my 2 year old. 😭

I feel like my kid is going to be stunted because of my issues. I’m newly divorced and I’m doing my best so my wife doesn’t take him from because “I care for him, but can’t care for him.”

I struggle without routines and children are chaos. I am excluded by other parents because I’m weird or different, and they keep their kids away from us when playing at the park. I want him to be able to socialize and have friends and his autistic monster father gets in the way.

Everything is always so overwhelming and I struggle to not have panic attacks. How am I supposed to help when he gets to school? I have trouble with numbers and can’t do math😭😭

I just feel like giving up. I don’t know what to do

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The good news is every one of those things you mentioned can, in some form, be learned. The bad news is you have to learn them.

Did you know if you look directly between someone's eyes it looks the same as eye contact to them without as much internal pressure on you (or at least me)?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

My 12yo ASD child hates making eye contact. I've told him to either look at someone's nose or forehead because people will expect him to. It's sad that the world expects him to conform to it because he's "more normal" than his 7yo brother who also has been diagnosed with ASD. When you interact with 7yo you know he's a special needs child, but when you interact with 12yo you might think he's not on the spectrum. ... And I'm just over here with ADHD and major executive dysfunction. TL;DR eye contact is hard no matter what