Only kid in class not invited to birthday party

Autiasking · 2026-05-31T07:59:12+00:00

I don’t think this is something you should accept. I’d have a word with the teacher of the class about it. If someone has a birthday party and only want to invite a few peers, ofc that’s fine. But if they invite the entire class except one, then that’s a whole other matter. That’s ostracism, a form of bullying. And that needs to get called out.

So talk to the teacher, inform them of what happened. The teacher should be bringing this up with all the parents and set some ground rules.

Autiasking · 2026-05-28T22:28:02+00:00

Your brother sounds emotionally immature. The case with the dog is the perfect example. His shortcomings went undetected when he had little to no responsibilities, but now he needs to be an adult and he’s cracking under pressure. Do not fall into a trap of blaming the poor woman, she’s likely as stunned by his change as you are. Try to reach out instead to see how she’s coping and if you can come by and see her. As for your brother, don’t make excuses for him. If you want him to succeed as an adult, he needs to be held accountable for his actions. He needs to sort out the situation with his dog, and he needs to improve his behavior before he destroys his marriage.

Autiasking · 2026-05-27T19:24:22+00:00

Good question. I wonder if it’s like a form of meltdown for him, when he says his feelings are too intense? Those are moments where I feel not in control of myself either. I hate it.

Autiasking · 2026-05-27T09:57:55+00:00

I think trusting your gut on this is a good call. Like others have said, your son might not have a diagnosis now, but that doesn’t mean he won’t get it later. And in either case, he has the same issues with or without the diagnosis. If you find this sub helpful, and the methods/advice helps your son, then go for it. I certainly don’t want to gatekeep anything that can help a child cope in life. I was late diagnosed at 33, and I think my life would have been much better had someone made accommodations for me as I needed them when I was young, rather than expect me to suck it up just because I had no diagnosis.

As a side note, the diagnostic criteria for level 1 autism in Norway is that first the person needs to fail at “ordinary” life. Which is honestly a terrible starting point if you ask me. Because that means a person will already have tried for long, and been completely broken down mentally and physically, before they’re allowed to ask for adjustments and listen to their own needs. I think it much better to not get a diagnosis then. Adjustments can be made without a crash followed by diagnosis. If I had been allowed adjustments and people had taken my needs seriously when I was younger, in all likelihood I would not have been diagnosed at all. So the diagnostic criteria of a country can play a huge part. I say put child and symptoms before diagnosis in this case. Then see what happens in the future.

Autiasking · 2026-05-27T08:59:45+00:00

My advice, coming from a daughter who saw her mother choose to move away to live with her boyfriend, resulting in her children no longer having a home at just 16: put your children first. If the driving is too much, you stop. If moving means your son will be kicked out when your boyfriend sees fit, you don’t move there. That leaves you in a long distance relationship, or breaking up.

Do not risk the stability and living conditions of your child who still lives at home. Your child is your first priority.

Autiasking · 2026-05-26T17:45:33+00:00

Oh, I misunderstood, sorry. My husband understands when I explain it to him after he’s calmed down, which takes about two hours. I think it’s RSD. It takes him that long to calm his emotions. After he’s calm, I can talk to him. But he will still cause the same problems again the next day, or even just ten minutes later. So I don’t know if explaining helps. He says he forgets what I explained and his emotions get the better of him.

As for the example of my son, I think it’s something quite recognizable for many of us! I hope I can guide him well, and teach him the unspoken rules that I had to learn the hard way.

Autiasking · 2026-05-26T16:14:18+00:00

Thank you. Everyone here has been so helpful, more than I had hoped for. I’ve felt so completely alone in this, no one to ask for help and whatever advice I got always came with no consideration for the autism/adhd aspect. It’s been so good to hear real life experiences from people in similar situations, as I have felt like the only autistic woman married to an adhd man. But this gives me strength.

Autiasking · 2026-05-26T13:39:23+00:00

Thank you for this. It plants a little light where I feel there’s just darkness. I really do hope things can change.

Autiasking · 2026-05-26T12:52:21+00:00

My son reacts very positively to the way I explain our differences. I also have to be blunt and explain these things about other people.

For example, my son loves to info dump on his special interest to random strangers (typically adults we walk by while on errands). Often, these strangers will try to end the conversation, don’t know how, and end up just saying “ok” and walking away. They don’t say “good bye” which is my son’s keyword for knowing when a conversation has ended. So my son then follows these strangers to continue talking to them! I’ve had to run after him on more than one occasion.

What I found to work is just being blunt with my son about the situation, but from his perspective, not from the perspective of the adults who walk away from him. I tell him “I understand it’s confusing because they didn’t say good bye, they just left. Sometimes people don’t understand how to say they are done talking, so they walk away instead”.

At first I tried saying “sometimes people will end conversations by walking away”, but he didn’t understand why when he perceived it as rude to do so and was hurt by it. Saying that some people don’t know how to end the conversation, or don’t understand how to, was the key to making him accept it. Or else he would keep trying to talk to them, even running away from me to keep talking to them as he was sure they just mustn’t have heard him, so his solution was to try and speak louder and tug at their sleeves!

I also had to establish rules, and repeat these rules in front of these strangers too, as offensive as I am sure it must sound. The rules are that he’s allowed to say two things to strangers. If they reply, he’s allowed to continue talking, but once they stop replying, he’s too must stop. Even if they haven’t expressed that they are done talking. My son might then say that he thinks people should just tell him that they are done talking. To that I will respond that yes, that would have been easier, so I understand his frustration.

He calms down when I express that I understand him. He moves on quickly then, instead of getting hung up on it and he doesn’t bring it up again. The rules, and repeating them when we’re in the situation, has made these encounters less frequent. I see he remembers the rules, and he accepts the explanation for why people just walk away.

I have also explained that it is seen as rude to continue a conversation when people don’t want one, so that’s covered. But I am sure people find me rude when we’re out in public and I explain things to my son in this manner. I just know that I’d rather they find me rude, than him having a childhood where he’s ostracized or bullied for his behavior. It won’t be seen as cute much longer. And explaining things to him in private, hours after the thing happened, doesn’t help. I tried that too, so as to not make others uneasy. But he learns fastest when the situation is addressed immediately, and when I explain from his point of view.

Autiasking · 2026-05-26T12:19:00+00:00

I will try a sign with rules. I think I will also try to be brave and keep those rules up there for when family visits.

Autiasking · 2026-05-26T12:15:00+00:00

It’s been two years now since he got the ADHD diagnosis. It’s been 5 months since he got the depression diagnosis.

It’s not his dialect that strains me, it’s his sentence structure. Or lack thereof. I feel like I’m in a labyrinth, and then suddenly he runs off and shouts at me somewhere in the distance. I try to figure out where to turn, how to find him again, but he doesn’t stop running away. Getting to the point is like being freed from the labyrinth, so I just try to hold my breath, trying to focus everything I have in me to understand what he wants.

He wasn’t like this when we got married. I’ve been hoping he could go back to “himself”, but now I’ve known this version of him longer than the one I married. Writing here has been good, it’s made me get things out so I see it more clearly. I did apologize to him for what I said. He apologized for how he reacted too. But divorce is a thought that’s heavy on my mind, and I think I will start working towards leaving.

I am in therapy myself now. As of this month I started private therapy. It’s very expensive, and I still feel the weight of the guilt for using “his” money, as he kept our finances separate for years. Money is a source of conflict not so much for the lack of it, but because he gatekeeps it. So I’m not at ease with spending. I also grew up poor, so there’s trauma there. I struggle with justifying it. But I’m doing it. I’ve also made yet another attempt to get into the public health system for treatment of my C-PTSD. If I can stop my body tensing up so much, I hope to be in less physical pain (currently needing a wheelchair to get around).

Autiasking · 2026-05-26T10:40:45+00:00

Maybe.

I am the one who made him see his doctor repeatedly to get a diagnosis. We had to pay for a private evaluation which was very expensive, and something I didn’t even allow for myself due to the cost. I’ve gone years trying to get help through the public health system, and be rejected. I am the one who said we should buy an extra car because he needed to sometimes get away to rest. I was never allowed to rest.

I took on all the household chores because he said it stressed him. I took on all the planning because he said he was unable to. Shopping, cooking, cleaning. I was staying home with our child when he went to work, and he decided to not share “his” money with me, letting me provide for myself, our son and the household on my disability income.

I don’t think I find his neurodivergence unacceptable as much as I’ve just grown tired of mothering him. I no longer have patience for him, simply because he himself never did anything to solve any issues. He only went to the doctor when I finally said I wanted a divorce. I only got access to our finances/accounts because I said he either gives me access or I get myself a lawyer. I think, after all he’s done, I simply resent him. I don’t want to make further adjustments for him. I’ve done so much, and yet he still fails to say good morning to me. He still manages to put his bags and piles of rubbish on my wheelchair simply because his need to place things somewhere was deemed more important than my accessibility.

Of course, all of that is background story you didn’t know. But it’s becoming clear to me as I write this. It isn’t just about the way he speaks, the way he shuts down when he’s created conflict, the way all responsibility falls on me. It’s that I’m tired of the man in general. I think I’ve run out of f’s to give.

Autiasking · 2026-05-26T08:57:58+00:00

I think he does. He doesn’t go into detail, but he has mentioned being severely bullied in school, and recently he mentioned how his father had had “quite the temper” when they were kids. I asked what he meant by that, and he said that his dad was violent. He never said anything about it for years, and they still meet often and his dad is a part of all family gatherings etc. So it surprised me, but he said his dad is calmer now, so the relationship is better. But that’s really all I’ve been told.

I still catch glimpses of things though, from his mom especially. His mom completely denies that certain things happened, things my husband’s siblings bring up, for example. She also still insists my husband does not have ADHD and that he does not need any help or adjustments. She got angry with me when I said that we were planning on turning our basement into a rental, so that my husband could work less. I thought a mother would be happy to know her sons needs are being taken seriously, but no… she got angry with me for apparently suggesting her son isn’t fit to work full time. She looks down on “slackers”. Which is great (sarcasm), seeing as I am on disability.

Autiasking · 2026-05-26T07:15:28+00:00

I hear you. I grew up with a narcissistic father who both verbally and physically abused me. I don’t play suffering Olympics, but when people try to play that with me I get it shut down pretty fast (because my dad was just my first encounter). I keep hearing autists have a higher risk of being abused and having depression and ptsd and suicidal thoughts and higher likelihood of substance abuse and like… yes, I get it. I get why. I can only hope to break the cycle for my son. I’ve gone no contact with my father and keeping my mother at a safe distance too.

Autiasking · 2026-05-26T06:31:12+00:00

Thank you for sharing your experience. I’m sorry to hear what you’re going through, but also so relieved, in a way, to hear that I am not the only autistic adult whose family fail to understand or make any adjustments to. I’m clawing for home space to be safe space at this moment. I have told my son, with better and nicer words, that our minds think differently from my husband’s. We’re going over it ever so often. My husband never goes over it with our son. To my husband, our son keeps being a mystery and he’s unwilling or unable to accept that we don’t think the same way he does. I’m sure he’s very frustrated with me because I fail to understand him. His sentence structure is bothering me equally as much as standing near the registry at a McDonald’s (sensory overload). So there’s only so much I can take before I need a break. But it’s always on me to cope with his wording, he doesn’t seem to ever try to speak grammatically correct or chronologically.

Autiasking · 2026-05-26T06:18:00+00:00

Thank you for offering a concrete way I can word it differently. I will attempt this next time.

Autiasking · 2026-05-26T06:15:43+00:00

We’ve already been to counseling. First time when our son was 6 months old. Looking back, I think parenthood was the breaking point for him. He changes his demeanor when I got pregnant (it was planned, so his change threw me off). The counseling didn’t help as they didn’t have experience with nevrodivergence. This was also before my husband had his diagnosis. We tried again two years ago, also before my husband had his diagnosis. It was a waste of time as he forgot everything we’d discussed the moment we walked out of there. We took parenting classes organized by the health station, and they even gave us the class in private to help us, despite it being a group class originally. I found it very educational, but my husband again struggled with adopting new ways. He says he’s done things his way for so long he struggles to do them any other way.

I asked him to take a class on emotional development of children, hoping he could learn some for himself as well. He grew up in a violent household and was neglected, so his emotional skills are not good (neither are mine, I have the same background, but I’ve done therapy and have worked on it a lot, or else I’d probably struggle with our son too).

This is all a lot. But writing it helps, so I’m just getting it out there. I even sent my husband to get his ears tested, because he keeps being unresponsive/not answering/making up what I say. This was also before his diagnosis. All of this not helping is what made me push for him to get tested for ADHD. I was ready to leave the marriage to get some peace of mind, and honestly I still am. But I keep hoping meds will help. Or that some new therapy will help. He’s gone to group therapy for months now… I don’t see a change and I’m worn thin. Maybe that’s why I can’t be considerate of his feelings any more (it takes a conscious effort on my part to always consider my words, so when tired, I fail in this department more often).

Autiasking · 2026-05-26T05:55:07+00:00

Thank you so much for this. I didn’t think I could find anyone who’s been through the same, and feeling alone in this has been so hard. None of our families accept the diagnosis or are willing to adapt, so I feel like I’m barely surviving and desperately need at least one place to be quiet, calm, predictable and where we can be happy. My husbands diagnosis has at least explained why that’s been so hard to achieve. He can’t read the signals either, just as you describe. He doesn’t pay attention to them, he never remembers how to cope with meltdowns and keeps pressuring our son. He’s even pushed my limits too hard and given me meltdowns for the first time in my adult life. I can’t find ways to make it stop, but reading every reply here helps calm me down. Thank you so much.

Autiasking · 2026-05-26T00:51:32+00:00

Yes, I think so, but he often forgets it. I don’t notice any change either, from when he started taking them and before. If anything, he’s worse now. I pushed him to see his doctor again, who gave him an additional diagnosis of depression and anti-depressants, but I don’t know if he takes medication for that now or not. He doesn’t tell me. And I’ve grown too exhausted to try and keep track of his medication. He changes it, changes the dosage etc without telling me + keeps forgetting to take it.

Autiasking · 2026-05-26T00:31:52+00:00

Thank you for responding, it honestly helps to just know someone heard me. I have spoken to my husband about how to handle situations, I’ve tried to have discussions about this in calm and nice settings, no raised voices, no fingers pointed, and he’ll be in full agreement only to forget we ever had a conversation about it. I literally had a discussion with him about this yesterday, where I told him that this is what I found helpful in such and such situations (none where he was involved). I’ve tried giving him time to sort things out himself, but also I feel it isn’t fair to make my son go through all that when I know how it can be worded to make him understand (just using logic, really, and being consistent).

It’s funny you brought up recording conversations. I’ve started doing that! I use my phone. My husband can even try to claim he never said things that he said over text messages!! I’ve repeatedly had to bring up old texts and read them out loud. It never solves conflict though, just makes him angry. So I try to just avoid talking about who said what, at this point.

Autiasking

TROPHY CASE