Need advice for my 16yr old AS daughter

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My 15 yr old son has AS. This week we have been having my 16 yr old daughter tested for AS as well. The councilor is saying every indication is pointing that way for her too. I have not been officially diagnosed and really don't intend to unless I feel it is needed.

My daughter really went off the deep end when we suggested testing for her. She has really fallen into a deep abyss this last few weeks. She has cut off all contact with the couple of friends she has and seems to talk only is whispers with a face without expression.

We had more appointments scheduled for Monday. Last night, after dinner, she said to my wife and I that she is having 'suicide/doing harm to others' thoughts. We went into a bit of a discussion then asked her to go to her room while we discussed the situation. We called a local crisis hotline and they said we need to look into a behavior health facility. They told us to call the police if we believed the threat might be honest and eminent. A cop came to the house and we had a bit of a discussion with my daughter included. He talked with her briefly and told us that this was a difficult decision to make and understood that we hated to make the wrong one if this was just an AS thought that came to her mind.

He believed in his mind that there was no need to act that night but for sure to act today. I hate to take her to a doctor who will put her on Anti Dep. at 16 but if that is needed, we will. We are also calling the councilor today to determine if she needs to be checked into a behavior center. I sure hate to make such a life changing decision like that for her if this is just AS coming out in her.

My wife and I are at a loss. I believe I have AS to a degree but I never had thoughts like this, even though there was a short time when I was about 19 that I entertained the idea of suicide for a few months right after I entertained the idea of running away and living in the mountains. I know with AS, many things are possible when it comes to thoughts.

I'm missing your question. What specifically did you want advice about?

What does having AS mean to her? Why does the thought of having AS horrify her so much?

Once you know that, you'll be a lot closer to a solution.

I'm not sure why you're referring to this as possibly being an "AS thought".

Your daughter is clearly really struggling, and probably has been for a long time. It took courage/determination/desperation for her to tell you about her thoughts, and you need to take her seriously.

Please, stop thinking this is about Asperger's and listen to what your daughter is saying. See appropriate health professionals as soon as you can.

When I was 16 I was depressed and suicidal (I didn't know anything about Asperger's), and my parents literally picked me up while I was in my pjs by my wrists and ankles and put me in the car and locked the doors so I couldn't get out and brought me into a therapists office. I never forgot that moment. I've resented my parents ever since. They kept sending, actually FORCING me, to go to a therapist for help, but the help I always wanted and still want is from my parents. I always wanted my parents to just say "honey, talk to us. We are here for you and ready to help in anyway we can. YOU are in charge and we will be here to listen and do what you need", I wish they pulled me out of school for a little and let me gather myself. I wanted them to support me and love me but all they wanted to do was send me to someone else who could help me. Why can't parents help? Therapists don't know anything.

I hope your daughter gets the help SHE WANTS, not what others want. Good luck.

I agree with what Soccer22 said.

Bingo! Maybe there's an angle for you. Go get yourself analyzed first and see how you like it, and maybe go for treatment. At least you will know what is coming your way, and maybe you can share experiences. Like, she can see you going thru it, so maybe she can get the courage too. Lead by example.

Poor thing, wish I could give her a hug. Already feels like a daughter and I don't even know her.

This will probably be a pretty long post, so bear with me.

This isn't part of her AS. It sounds to me like depression. If she's been like this for more than a few weeks and is suicidal then she's depressed. She just realized that she has a disability that's going to be with her for her entire life. That's enough to trigger reactive depression. It's more likely that she was depressed before this happened and this is just the last straw, so to speak. 70% of people with AS experience depression as a teenager. You need to take this seriously.

(Also, if someone feels bad enough to tell you they're having thoughts of suicide, it's probably not a good idea to tell them to go be alone for a while immediately after, that seems like common sense to me.)

Anyway, when I was 12 my parents found out I was covered in scars from self harm. They ignored it and pretended it hadn't happened. When I was 14 I was hospitalized for attempting suicide. In the hospital I was put on medication, which I had no choice in. I'll try to give you advice based on my experience.

My advice is that you need to do SOMETHING now. This isn't something you can ignore and hope it goes away. It seems like you already know that, so that's good at least.

Personally in my experience the hospital wasn't that bad. I got lucky because I was in a decent hospital, so I think that's important. If she does end up in a facility temporarily you need to make sure that it's not a terrible place because they ARE NOT all the same. I would suggest looking for a place that has a ward specifically for teenagers if she does need to be hospitalized. Also, do not ever treat her poorly for being depressed, it's not her fault and it will make her want to avoid talking with anyone about it which could lead to a disaster.

Second of all, you do need to look into medication. Do not just force her to take it! Do some research yourself. Ask her to do research to determine which medications she might consider. Not having control over what's happening will make her more distressed so I think this is important.

You also need to realize that she will probably not have take antidepressants forever. She might just have to take them for a few months. Reevaluate frequently if the medications is helping, what the side effects are, and if she feels she still needs to be taking them or if she wants to take something else. Also, some antidepressants can have nasty withdrawal when you stop taking them, so I would advise starting with medications that don't.

To determine if she needs to be hospitalized I think you need to ask her if she's just having thoughts about harming herself or others or if she has a plan or the impulse to do it. You also need to come up with a plan in case she is home and does have those feelings. What do you want her to do in that situation? She needs to feel safe to tell you or your wife if that happens. Usually hospital visits for suicidal feelings only last 3 days to 3 weeks so you need to have a plan for home even if she is hospitalized.

I don't know what you mean by "behavior center". When I was 14 they tried putting me in a live-in facility home for children with emotional problems as an alternative to living with my parents but I was so panicked by the idea of everything in my life completely changing that they decided against it. Unless this is something she wants to do, I would only consider it as a last resort.

Last edited by Makar on 12 Feb 2014, 11:27 am, edited 1 time in total.

These are not the thoughts of an autistic person; they are the thoughts of someone with depression, and possibly other problems with their mental health. No reputable checklist of autistic symptoms includes suicidal thoughts.

It is possible your daughter is just being more honest than a lot of people would be - that is a symptom of autism - but that isn't the issue, her mental health problems are.

When I was 16... actually, thinking about it, 15, I had something of a breakdown, which it took a lot of therapy to get out of. It wasn't "because of AS", it was principally because of my chronic anxiety just becoming too much.

Anyway, I'd discuss courses of action with your daughter. She's at a very delicate place right now, and could end up resenting you if you force something on her she doesn't want. Equally, there's a chance she'll end up hurting herself if you get it wrong. It's a really tough situation for you.

This is extremely important ^

School is or was a nightmare for most people with AS that I've talked to. Being in a loud busy environment with nasty judgmental teenagers for most of your day is not healthy for someone with AS. Plus there is the stress of hours of homework, tests coming up, no one likes you and you don't know why, you try to fit in but you can't, ect. If you're depressed all of that becomes extremely difficult to manage or cope with. I know for me it was a major trigger for my depression and it could be for your daughter, you need to ask her about it.

You also need to do your own research and communicate with and support your daughter through all of this. You need to treat her like an adult and not like a misbehaving child.

Sounds like depression to me, not AS. Granted, the suicidal thoughts and the depression might be triggered by her thinking she might have AS. Not everybody who has AS is depressed. Do whatever the mental health professionals tell you to do.

This isn't "just an AS thought" whatever that might mean. It seemed to me from your post that your daughter has some but not a lot of social connectedness with peers. If that is the case then I would guess she needs you to take her thoughts and worries more rather than less seriously than a child with more social connectedness to peers. I hope I'm making sense? I think if her supports are adults, not feeling believed by adults hurts much more than for kids who have a lot of friends to rely on. So when she says I feel overwhelmed, she probably does. You may sense a disconnect if she is an Aspie because it's hard to communicate deeply felt confusing emotions. And this is an awful thing to have to deal with as a parent, something i worry about ever facing, and hope and pray my children never feel those awful feelings.

I also wondered what your daughter's understanding is of what being tested means, what AS or any other label might mean, and why you decided to have her tested. Through no fault of anyone's, sometimes kids have awful explanations for these kinds of things that can be very upsetting. I can remember as a child feeling that if anything was identified as wrong about me, it would be a disaster, which was terrifying since even I eventually understood I wasn't typical.

I take my daughter who has ASD to a wonderful counselor who tells me to listen more, empathize, validate rather than arguing or telling her how her concerns are overblown. I don't know whether that could help, but I thought worth sharing. Hopefully you get enough advice from enough different people that you find what can help your child feel happy and strong again!

This isn't "just an AS thought" whatever that might mean. It seemed to me from your post that your daughter has some but not a lot of social connectedness with peers. If that is the case then I would guess she needs you to take her thoughts and worries more rather than less seriously than a child with more social connectedness to peers. I hope I'm making sense? I think if her supports are adults, not feeling believed by adults hurts much more than for kids who have a lot of friends to rely on. So when she says I feel overwhelmed, she probably does. You may sense a disconnect if she is an Aspie because it's hard to communicate deeply felt confusing emotions. And this is an awful thing to have to deal with as a parent, something i worry about ever facing, and hope and pray my children never feel those awful feelings.

I also wondered what your daughter's understanding is of what being tested means, what AS or any other label might mean, and why you decided to have her tested. Through no fault of anyone's, sometimes kids have awful explanations for these kinds of things that can be very upsetting. I can remember as a child feeling that if anything was identified as wrong about me, it would be a disaster, which was terrifying since even I eventually understood I wasn't typical.

I take my daughter who has ASD to a wonderful counselor who tells me to listen more, empathize, validate rather than arguing or telling her how her concerns are overblown. I don't know whether that could help, but I thought worth sharing. Hopefully you get enough advice from enough different people that you find what can help your child feel happy and strong again!

You need to make clear to her that Asperger Syndrome is not a "mental illness" - it's a neurological condition, which can be a handicap, but does not mean you're mentally damaged. You meet people with AS all the time and in most cases, you'd never realize it if they didn't tell you - unless you were around them every day for a long time and knew the diagnostic criteria, then you might start to suspect.

Suicidal Depression, however, IS a mental illness. Depression is not unusual in people with High Functioning Autism, but autism doesn't cause it. For most of us, the depression comes from the way others treat us for thinking differently than they do.

But thinking differently than the norm is not a bad thing. There are a great many brilliant and famous people who have AS, do a search and see how many names you recognize, it may surprise you. You'll also notice just looking around Wrong Planet, the members here are of all ages and types. You shouldn't let the concept of "DIAGNOSIS" psyche you out. For a lot of us, that diagnosis came as a tremendous relief, because it made sense of personal issues we had struggled with for years.

One thing it did not do, however was essentially change our lives in any way. It is what it is, and we are the same people we were before we'd ever heard of Asperger Syndrome. We didn't grow antennae on our heads, or fangs and claws, or humps on our backs. It doesn't kill you, or make you an axe murderer, or cause your IQ to drop.

All it means is that your brain is wired with more neural connections than most people, making you more sensitive to sensory stimuli, like light and sound and touch and smell - meaning your perceptions of the world around you are slightly more intense than the average human, which in turn, means your view of the world at large may be slightly different than those around you, because you experience it differently.

In some ways, it's like having a superpower, and if you've read many superhero comics, you know that those abilities always come with their own set of problems to deal with. Fortunately, nobody's depending on us to save the world, so we can chill.

I would be extremely offended if someone thought my thoughts were just "AS thoughts".

Everything Willard said is true, I think. But I can't even really believe I'm ok and I am much older than your child.

I think generally, for girls, fitting in and being able to make good conversation and make other people comfortable is considered desirable, not having good social skills is often seen as a mild problem that will respond to instruction in a boy. And a character flaw in a girl. I'm not saying I believe this all the way, but it's to an extent the feedback I have gotten. And we as a society in the US if that's where you live still ask girls to be social glue, so questions about your daughters social abilities may hit her hard.

Girls will sometimes help other girls, though. And if you can emphasize positives about her abilities and what makes your daughter special, I think that helps.

I attempted suicide when I was 15, but that was most certainly the depression not the AS. Not sure anti-depressants are the solution per say, since some of them can increase depression/suicidal thinking in adolecents to young adults but she definitely needs some kind of help. Its probably good to see what the counselor has to say.

Not entirely sure what a behavior center is.....is it essentially like a impatient mental health sort of facility? Or is it something where they would just tell her to act different and treat her symptoms as either 'bad' or 'good' behavior. If its more the latter I'd think it wouldn't be to helpful...if its the first one perhaps. I think I could have benefited from something a little more intensive than weekly talk therapy at that age. But I thought I was supposed to just 'get over it' and move on so it left a lot untreated and now I have a lot of difficulties functioning.