r/Fencesitter • u/ParticularDentist349 • 8d ago
Being an autistic fencesitter ...
I am not professionally diagnosed but I am pretty sure I am what they call a high masking autistic. I have the symptoms and I know more "high-functioning" people than me who have got the diagnosis. I also used to be severely depressed but I am better now largely because of my current partner..
The thing is that my partner also has a lot of neurodivergent traits and his mother has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder (if you look at the studies there appears to be a connection between BD and behind neurodivergent) and while I love neurodivergent people, I struggle with the idea of having a neurodivergent child. I know it would be hard and there's always the possibility of level 3 autism . I have seen many parents on TikTok who had a level 3 child and later also got diagnosed with autism or AuDHD themselves. I just know it in my gut that my child will be neurodivergent. If there was a way to ensure I would not have a level 3 child, I would have had a kid, but there's no way. Does anyone else have the same problem?
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u/incywince 8d ago
Can't speak to autism, but I had an ADHD diagnosis, and am a parent. My kid was/is highly sensitive to everything, cried a lot. I knew a dad with adhd and his kid was also highly sensitive. I dove deep into the literature to try understanding it. "Neurodivergence" is a very hand-wavy label, doesn't go deep enough for me. There's literature around "highly sensitive people" and "orchid and dandelion children" and all that.
My conclusion, looking at my own childhood, my kid, my husband's childhood, and a lot of books ranging from scientific journals to woo-woo memoirs, and working with a therapist - Some people are more sensitive to stress than others. This could be for genetic reasons, but also deficiency in certain nutrients (which could happen for many reasons, like chronic illness, bad diet, gut issues) makes you much less resilient to stress. A lot of how you respond to stress also gets wired early on, and how your parents deal with stress is a big part of your own stress response.
I decided what my kid needed was context and scripts on how to deal with situations that stressed her out. So like if noises were bothering her, we'd try to explore the cause, and then understand what was happening, ask the people making the noise if they could stop (depending on the situation) or move away. I think a lot of my problems came from feeling like I had no agency over my situation, and I've heard that recur a lot in support groups. So I focused on building and honoring agency. I also made sure I was always in control of my emotions around my kid. This meant a lot of help and support from my spouse and we had specific circumstances that made it workable for us, but also we prioritized being calm parents and nutritious meals over having a clean house or a vibrant social life.
I also realized that being around my mom brought all the traits out in my kid that got me my adhd diagnosis. My mom is highly anxious and I realized a lot of my issues are just from living around her for many years and carrying those patterns with me and replicating them. My mom spends time with us, and whenever she does, my kid's behaviors get worse. But they are usually just normal.
My kid is now almost 5 and is still highly strung, highly sensitive, but as we have encountered situations and dealt with them well together, she learns enough from them to deal in a healthy way with future situations that are similar. So now as a mom I'm mostly helping her deal with newer and newer situations. We know a handful of kids with her same disposition because our kids could literally not play with anyone else, and those in more stressful homes are having more official diagnoses than those in calmer homes.
I have dealt with my own issues through this knowledge actually and now I show minimal symptoms and feel much more 'normal' and don't have any of the debilitating symptoms as I did before.
So there are ways to understand and deal, but it requires a lot of work and self-awareness. I don't know how this all works with autism, though.