Resources for autistic adults dealing with parents/relatives?

November 26, 2022 5:51 AM

Where, if anywhere, can I find advice, help or resources for autistic adults dealing with older parents/relatives/other family who are not autism aware or autism friendly?

Searching is not working for me because of the focus on parents of autistic children and their experience. I'm looking for resources for a late diagnosed autistic adult dealing with family relations and expectations which might be easy or reasonable for a neurotypical person but which are difficult and distressing for me. The horror of Christmas is approaching... Has anyone written anything from this perspective on how to cope with neurotypical family?

posted by Flitcraft to Human Relations (5 answers total)

I would connect with the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network, which was founded and is run by adult autistics intentionally to center the autistic experience in autism advocacy and policy. Top of my head, I don't know whether they have specific resources about your question, but I'd start there.

The Autistic Women and Non-Binary Network has some resources as well.

I'd also explore the hashtag #ActuallyAutistic on whatever social media sites you are comfortable using, with the caveat of course that any hashtag can be used or attacked or dog-piled. I'd also check out Alice Wong's Disability Visibility Project; I don't remember whether Wong is herself autistic but she does a lot to center the experience a lot of disabled folks and a lot of aspects of the experience of disability.

I can recommend as well the books "What Every Autistic Girl wishes Her Parents Knew" which is by several autistic women, as well as the "Spectrum Girl's Survival Guide" both of which are a bit more premised on early diagnosis, as well as on identifying as female, but which were helpful for me as a man without a diagnosis in understanding and supporting some of the things I have observed in family members. To be sure, our society's treatment of autism intersects with gender, race, and other axes of oppression so it may be worth seeking additional resources that are specific to your own identities.
posted by gauche at 6:29 AM on November 26, 2022

Have you checked out Penelope Trunk?
I find her hit or miss, but she writes a lot about autism, is mother of at least one autistic kid and is autistic herself, so she might be of interest.
good luck.
posted by rhonzo at 6:36 AM on November 26, 2022

For first hand accounts, I looked into the many autism-focused Reddit recently and a lot of posts on r/AutisticAdults are on subjects like this so you might find something interesting there (or you could post this exact question). I've been enjoying that community because it focuses on practical issues and seems to be well moderated, and there are other ones related to advocacy.
posted by JZig at 8:39 AM on November 26, 2022

You might ask at the subreddit LateDiagnosedAutistic.
posted by NotLost at 1:32 PM on November 26, 2022

Thanks, this has motivated me to finally get on reddit where I can see some people in those subreddits have similar problems. I'll check out the books.
posted by Flitcraft at 4:51 AM on November 27, 2022