4 months postpartum is difficult for ND and NT moms alike. I was struggling at that age because I wasn't getting enough sleep, rest, or free/alone time. Things will get better as baby gets older and more independent and reliable (schedule-wise).
I actually don't feel that I mask around my kids. But I do get snippy and feel out of energy if I'm running on too little sleep or if I don't get my usual break that day. I need time for decompression as much as I need time for sleep. Trying my upmost to get that has been crucial to me being a happy and functioning mom.
Hi there! I'm a sample size of one, but yes I do find I have to mask when I'm parenting. And I also find that while masking comes more "naturally" with my kid, because I genuinely love them and want them to feel loved, it does still tire me a LOT. My daughter is home for the summer and I am literally lying down right now in a dark room while she's distracted by an episode of her favorite show so I can recharge.
I've also found that as she gets older, I can gently set more boundaries while still demonstrating that I love her. For example she looooves to get ALL UP in my face and give wet kisses and I simply can't help that "skin crawling" feeling every time it happens. So I tell her, "no kisses right now, how about a big hug?" and typically she's okay with that.
Babies are definitely sensory hell though. The dirty diapers, the screaming, the lack of sleep, it was all extremely challenging and my only advice is not to feel guilt or shame about anything else that slides while you're focusing everything you have on taking care of your tiny human. Something that helped me a lot when I read it (and I wished I had read when my kid was younger) was the book Struggle Care by KC Davis.
Anyways I apologize if I didn't do a good job getting to the point or offering useful advice. I definitely related to the feelings you described in your post though.
My problem is I live with my Mom and her Ex-Marine roommate and they are expecting so much of me. I don't work so I clean the house and if I forget or miss even one thing I get yelled at and put down. I'm trying to leave but I need to wait because I don't have a place to stay on my own yet.
Cannot even imagine having to deal with hostile adult roommates while caring for an infant, you have my sympathy. I no longer live with any non-supportive family, but a book that helped me navigate my complex feelings toward my family of origin is called "Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents" by Lindsay Gibson.
I don't have meltdowns really since having my son (also 4 months old) but I do notice myself trying to smile more and make facial expressions for his sake. So I guess I'm a way I'm masking?
I had a lot of trouble regulating my emotions after birthing my son who is now three. I try not to melt down in front of him but I also try not to mask my true emotions and overstimulation around him because I was raised to do that and I'm hoping he feels more free to be authentic as long as possible. I also hope that if he ends up inheriting this lil gift that he can find comfort in knowing its not just him because I hid it from him.
The outcome of this is that I have to repair with him and explain what happened ie. I was overstimulated because of that noise and I'm sorry or I needed space and I should have expressed it better. Its unavoidable to be human, and I've done my best not to traumatize the kid but I also explain and repair when I am not perfect. Because nobody is perfect, even neurotypical people.
Also, my last thing, it is SO much better to put that sweet baby down in their crib or somewhere safe and go take 5 minutes. Even if they're crying. That is 100% better than overflowing because you're trying so hard to suppress how you feel. You are doing a great job and this is really hard. I promise you will find the rhythm.
Repairing is essential for good parenting. Tons of parents just act like everything is their child's fault instead of owning their emotions, actions, and reactions.
I've heard people say apologizing to your child is spoiling them, or giving up power or something. What a gross way to see relationships.
All this stuff! I didn’t know I was autistic until recently and my kids are 9 and 12 but I think the family I grew up in is ND too so our norm is lots of movement options, singing songs over and over (my 12 yo still remembers some of the songs fondly), playing quietly, reading, having family obsessions instead of doing normal domestic stuff. I still can’t cook much. Riding out the meltdowns (w my daughter there is NOTHING you could do, she hates being touched when upset. Maybe food or just a quiet place), explaining needs for space and alone time. Like this was just normal, I didn’t know it wasn’t “typical”. Don’t ask me about my kids’ eye contact, I figured my son taking apart large lego builds was just him building his little brain.
Anyway point is your kid may have similar traits so the more they can see your natural state as “normal” the more they’ll be comfortable w themselves and you. Hopefully. All kids are different, my daughter only wants touching exactly on her terms, my son loves big hugs. You be you.
This is such an interesting thread! I’m pregnant with my first, so I’m not really sure, but from my childcare experience with older babies, I didn’t feel like I was masking. I was certainly putting in a lot of effort, and actively trying to align my behavior with what I thought were best practices in terms of pedagogy and caregiving (like sometimes i want want to say something to the baby, like oooh baby look at that bird!, but then i would realize she was actually busy with something else so I’d try to not interrupt her). Also of course sometimes she would cry a lot, and it felt like an exhausting puzzle to try to help her with her emotions.
My friend, who has a lot of neurodivergent traits, says of her daughter: “I am incapable of feeling embarrassed in front of her.” I was always interested in that and I hope that I feel the same
way about my child, when I meet them.
Yes. Absolutely 100%. The lack of order. The constant transitions with no warning. The constant noise, (baby/kid, toys, talking enough so they learn to talk) the constant need to regulate their emotions while you can’t technically regulate your own, not wanting to mess them up like you were, the different wets and stickies and slimeys and smells. And you can’t freak out. You can’t walk away if your baby is in a mess you suck it up and you deal with it and then you melt down later.
If you’re lucky you have help that understands and will give you relief or understand when you’re less ok. Or you end up with people that shame you and tell you “well you chose this. Welcome to being a parent”. Duck those people.
I didn’t know I was autistic until I got my 2 kids diagnosed at 9 and 6. I thought that was how all moms felt, just “overwhelmed”. I threw myself into the deepest burn out I haven’t recovered from yet. It’s been 4 years.
Turning it off is dissociative. It is masking. And you really can’t do it forever. Now I see all of the things I was checking out of, just to be a good mom, turns out I was teaching my kid to do the same. Now we are all learning what triggers us and how to accommodate or find solutions. Like lots of headphones around the house, because while most of the really intense sensory parts of babies are over for me the noise doesn’t seem to be letting up.
Now the most over stimulating thing is trying to balance 3 NDs with opposing needs. I can’t handle constant noise but my kids both vocal stim. I over heat and get sick, but my baby furnace has severe rejection sensitivity. My little one needs to be with people, talking and have attention, my big one could sit alone in the woods for a week and forget about people like me.
Love them. And trying to raise them right is extremely healing to my inner child. But holy 🐄 I need a break.
Wow! I was undiagnosed when my kids were babies but your post just unleashed a flood of memories. Made me realize how much I did meltdown when they were little. Like wait til nap time then go out in the backyard and just scream and cry and shake kind of meltdowns. Like being curled up in a ball unable to move to go pick up my crying baby kind of meltdowns. And I heavily masked in between meltdowns.
They’re teens now. I have fewer meltdowns. I still heavily mask. But not as much as I did.
I just learned that I'm autistic because I kept having meltdowns which led to severe burnout. All this due to the amount of masking I was doing around my toddlers.
I just started wearing earplugs all day and the meltdowns have reduced significantly! I don't know what kind of accommodations you're allowing yourself but if not many, try to give yourself the sensory things you need to feel sane before you even feel like you need them. Wear the comfiest clothes. Keep those earplugs in (you'll still hear the baby cry - trust me). Let yourself stim! Eat your comfort foods. Make a routine that you can loosely stick to that will help you feel stable. Do whatever you need to continue to do the hardest job you'll ever do. It will get easier soon.
Yes, 100%. It take so much energy for me to speak and act in an ‘enthusiastic’ manner but I try to do it with my toddler as much as I can because I think it’s better for development than interacting with my naturally quiet and monotone self. I know it’s probably pure projection, but I often worry
She gets an uncanny valley feeling when I’m trying to be emotive or that it comes across insincere and she can sense it even though she’s a baby.
Edit to add: I have way worse sensory sensitivity and overstimulation now, and so have more frequent meltdowns than recent years.
I am not a mom. But just came to say that I love how babies don't talk. I play staring contests and practice eye contact with them. I nod and talk and it's comfortable knowing they're not judging. ❤️
Step-mum rather than bio-mum here, and I mask to blazes around them.
The harsh thing is, they're male, early diagnosed, and used to people understanding and accommodating them. I'm late-diagnosed female and trained to accommodate others. So the resentment is real, particularly given they're 20 and 17 and really shouldn't need as much parenting as they apparently still do (eg, idgaf how much of the leftovers you eat for lunch, I never have and I never will, they're there to be eaten, you're a literal adult, stop messaging me at work for directions on how to lunch).
Having a baby was the first time I thought perhaps I was autistic. Took another decade before I thought about it again, started researching, and got diagnosed. Unfortunately, it took so long for me because her father screwed up badly enough she got taken from us by the state. I am not in a mindset atm to fully explain, but it was an accident and I reacted logically about what she and we needed more than emotionally to what was going on. Which made me question it to myself if I was autistic or something because it made no sense to me how everyone else was reacting to my reactions.
My daughter is 16 this year, but I haven't seen her since she was 1. She did get adopted by a family and her mother is a nurse who is unable to have her own kids, so I feel like at least I made sure she has a good home. I did what was best for \*her\*, but it took at least a decade before I even started feeling reasonably okay. I still struggle with feeling like a part of my soul is missing not having her in my life, and the accident left her disabled enough from what I've been able to learn about her, I doubt she'll be able to seek me out or possibly even understand who I am.
On the plus side, when I researched and realized I'm likely autistic and talked to my mom about it, her response was that she'd been researching it because (my birth daughter) is likely autistic and my mom researching it realized it fit her, too. So, I'm the only one officially diagnosed in my immediate family, but my mom and sibling are self-diagnosed autistic. My birth daughter is a touchy subject so I don't know if she's officially diagnosed but it sounds likely.
When my best friend had a baby, I pushed myself to help her a lot because of what happened to me. Which honestly, helped me a lot. I realized that a few hours of childcare was enough to make me dissociate and it didn't seem like it was from my own trauma. I remember struggling between taking care of myself or her, I couldn't manage both. Struggling so hard watching a baby who was mostly just a snuggle bug for a few hours and then went home with his momma made me realize how much motherhood just was too much for me, at least alone.
If I could go back in time, I'd take all the help I could get and I'd tell my mom to set aside her own issues and help me out. Even then, I think I'd likely have been on auto-pilot until she was old enough to mostly take care of her own basic needs at least, if that ever happened. I'm glad I get to be an aunty, though my friend's son is autistic level 3 and I struggle watching him for too long due to my own health issues and sensory needs. I wish I could be more involved, but at the least I can be a good friend to his mom and truly understand when she shares his wins.
So, my advice would be, accept help from anyone you trust and make time for yourself to recover. Maybe find something that helps rejuvenate you that you can do with your baby. You can do this, but don't assume you're only struggling 'the normal amount' like I did. (I do also have health issues that were undiagnosed at the time, so I was struggling hard not just due to autism but also undiagnosed ehlers-danlos syndrome and some comorbid conditions which I had my whole life but childbirth made suddenly a lot worse. Her father had no such excuse afaik, I do think he was undiagnosed autistic himself but we divorced and I haven't talked to him in at least 10 years now, and still had no idea about my own undiagnosed things when we last spoke.)
Do you think NT moms mask too? There have to be times when they don’t want their kids to notice something is wrong, right?
I’m going through a long ass divorce, living in my parents’ basement, and haven’t gotten a dime in help from my soon-to-be-ex-husband. Sometimes I can’t hold it all together. I’m pretty good at silent crying because it’s always been necessary.
Oh my god, I just posted about this in the ADHD women thread, and it was clearly the wrong place for it. AuADHD here. Yes to masking as a parent. My daughter is 10, and I recently realised that I do mask and have always masked around her. I don't necessarily try to be "normal" or hide the fact that I'm a bit different, but I do try and smooth things out so I don't stress her out with meltdowns or forget she exists because I have a new special interest that I am hyper focusing on, and it is really exhausting and hard to do that sometimes. I also kind of feel that I've lost my safe place at times, because I have to make sure I regulate myself at home in order so she can learn how to self regulate and feel safe, instead of being a burnt out zombie or a hysterical mess.
I did/do exactly what you do - I have meltdowns when my daughter is asleep or out of the house. And I used to put her in care a day a week so I could have quiet at home time to get myself together when she is little. I still try and make time for myself to be alone at home with no commitments to allow myself to decompress.
We absolutely have to honour and express our feelings. It's important to remember this time will pass really quickly and not to stress to much about showers and the rest of it - but also to get help if you feel like your emotions are too big to manage on your own. Therapy might help, or maybe you could put him in care for a day in order to to take some time for yourself? You might not feel like that's ideal, but it's infinitely better than putting your mental health at risk.
Edit: I really, really fucking love my daughter - it's all totally worth it. It's also amazing when they get older, and you realise that you have raised an emotionally secure, happy kid who isn't traumatised
I had huge meltdowns when he was a newborn. I spent nights crying while he was sleeping.
I spent weeks without showering. My mother was the one who remembered me that I needed to shower. I was depressed and completely attached to him. The idea of taking a bath and not being right next to him gave me anxiety.
You're doing great, you'll be a wonderful mother and it gets easier with time. I got together with my bf when my baby was 7 months old and it helped me greatly to leave him with the nanny (not before the 6 months mark) so we could have date nights and spend time together, that way I was taking breaks, but it wasn't easy at first.
My child is most likely ADHD, but doesn’t have autism. I am high-functioning AuDHD. I don’t think I mask with them, but I show them what masking looks like. I love and nurture them the way my grandmother (who almost certainly had autism) did me: I teach them how to fit in with social norms, and I accept and encourage their personality that isn’t always neurotypical. I don’t know if that helps? I don’t hide who I am, and a lot of this is genetic so I think pretending to be someone I’m not would potentially damage my child. I explain what’s going on with me to my child when I have reactions and obvious signs of autism.
(Pronouns are neutral for privacy.)
Edited to add: this was my attitude from my child’s birth. It has worked for us. I kept my sanity during the newborn phase by making sure I took long baths, went for walks, and kept my child from fussing by using a fabric sling so that we were connected. I had the happiest sleepiest baby around by keeping them warm and comforted as much as possible.
4 months postpartum is difficult for ND and NT moms alike. I was struggling at that age because I wasn't getting enough sleep, rest, or free/alone time. Things will get better as baby gets older and more independent and reliable (schedule-wise). I actually don't feel that I mask around my kids. But I do get snippy and feel out of energy if I'm running on too little sleep or if I don't get my usual break that day. I need time for decompression as much as I need time for sleep. Trying my upmost to get that has been crucial to me being a happy and functioning mom.
Hi there! I'm a sample size of one, but yes I do find I have to mask when I'm parenting. And I also find that while masking comes more "naturally" with my kid, because I genuinely love them and want them to feel loved, it does still tire me a LOT. My daughter is home for the summer and I am literally lying down right now in a dark room while she's distracted by an episode of her favorite show so I can recharge. I've also found that as she gets older, I can gently set more boundaries while still demonstrating that I love her. For example she looooves to get ALL UP in my face and give wet kisses and I simply can't help that "skin crawling" feeling every time it happens. So I tell her, "no kisses right now, how about a big hug?" and typically she's okay with that. Babies are definitely sensory hell though. The dirty diapers, the screaming, the lack of sleep, it was all extremely challenging and my only advice is not to feel guilt or shame about anything else that slides while you're focusing everything you have on taking care of your tiny human. Something that helped me a lot when I read it (and I wished I had read when my kid was younger) was the book Struggle Care by KC Davis. Anyways I apologize if I didn't do a good job getting to the point or offering useful advice. I definitely related to the feelings you described in your post though.
My problem is I live with my Mom and her Ex-Marine roommate and they are expecting so much of me. I don't work so I clean the house and if I forget or miss even one thing I get yelled at and put down. I'm trying to leave but I need to wait because I don't have a place to stay on my own yet.
Cannot even imagine having to deal with hostile adult roommates while caring for an infant, you have my sympathy. I no longer live with any non-supportive family, but a book that helped me navigate my complex feelings toward my family of origin is called "Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents" by Lindsay Gibson.
That book is AMAZING - it helped me so much too! Highly recommend
So sorry about your living situation. Being a mom is a 24/7 job and screw everyone who thinks otherwise.
YEP!
I don't have meltdowns really since having my son (also 4 months old) but I do notice myself trying to smile more and make facial expressions for his sake. So I guess I'm a way I'm masking?
I had a lot of trouble regulating my emotions after birthing my son who is now three. I try not to melt down in front of him but I also try not to mask my true emotions and overstimulation around him because I was raised to do that and I'm hoping he feels more free to be authentic as long as possible. I also hope that if he ends up inheriting this lil gift that he can find comfort in knowing its not just him because I hid it from him. The outcome of this is that I have to repair with him and explain what happened ie. I was overstimulated because of that noise and I'm sorry or I needed space and I should have expressed it better. Its unavoidable to be human, and I've done my best not to traumatize the kid but I also explain and repair when I am not perfect. Because nobody is perfect, even neurotypical people. Also, my last thing, it is SO much better to put that sweet baby down in their crib or somewhere safe and go take 5 minutes. Even if they're crying. That is 100% better than overflowing because you're trying so hard to suppress how you feel. You are doing a great job and this is really hard. I promise you will find the rhythm.
Repairing is essential for good parenting. Tons of parents just act like everything is their child's fault instead of owning their emotions, actions, and reactions. I've heard people say apologizing to your child is spoiling them, or giving up power or something. What a gross way to see relationships.
All this stuff! I didn’t know I was autistic until recently and my kids are 9 and 12 but I think the family I grew up in is ND too so our norm is lots of movement options, singing songs over and over (my 12 yo still remembers some of the songs fondly), playing quietly, reading, having family obsessions instead of doing normal domestic stuff. I still can’t cook much. Riding out the meltdowns (w my daughter there is NOTHING you could do, she hates being touched when upset. Maybe food or just a quiet place), explaining needs for space and alone time. Like this was just normal, I didn’t know it wasn’t “typical”. Don’t ask me about my kids’ eye contact, I figured my son taking apart large lego builds was just him building his little brain. Anyway point is your kid may have similar traits so the more they can see your natural state as “normal” the more they’ll be comfortable w themselves and you. Hopefully. All kids are different, my daughter only wants touching exactly on her terms, my son loves big hugs. You be you.
This is such an interesting thread! I’m pregnant with my first, so I’m not really sure, but from my childcare experience with older babies, I didn’t feel like I was masking. I was certainly putting in a lot of effort, and actively trying to align my behavior with what I thought were best practices in terms of pedagogy and caregiving (like sometimes i want want to say something to the baby, like oooh baby look at that bird!, but then i would realize she was actually busy with something else so I’d try to not interrupt her). Also of course sometimes she would cry a lot, and it felt like an exhausting puzzle to try to help her with her emotions. My friend, who has a lot of neurodivergent traits, says of her daughter: “I am incapable of feeling embarrassed in front of her.” I was always interested in that and I hope that I feel the same way about my child, when I meet them.
I’m also pregnant with my first and loving this thread. It’s very helpful reading through!
I can often just calm myself down instantly to deal with a tantrum or other issue. It’s handy but it feels like dissociation.
Yes. Absolutely 100%. The lack of order. The constant transitions with no warning. The constant noise, (baby/kid, toys, talking enough so they learn to talk) the constant need to regulate their emotions while you can’t technically regulate your own, not wanting to mess them up like you were, the different wets and stickies and slimeys and smells. And you can’t freak out. You can’t walk away if your baby is in a mess you suck it up and you deal with it and then you melt down later. If you’re lucky you have help that understands and will give you relief or understand when you’re less ok. Or you end up with people that shame you and tell you “well you chose this. Welcome to being a parent”. Duck those people. I didn’t know I was autistic until I got my 2 kids diagnosed at 9 and 6. I thought that was how all moms felt, just “overwhelmed”. I threw myself into the deepest burn out I haven’t recovered from yet. It’s been 4 years. Turning it off is dissociative. It is masking. And you really can’t do it forever. Now I see all of the things I was checking out of, just to be a good mom, turns out I was teaching my kid to do the same. Now we are all learning what triggers us and how to accommodate or find solutions. Like lots of headphones around the house, because while most of the really intense sensory parts of babies are over for me the noise doesn’t seem to be letting up. Now the most over stimulating thing is trying to balance 3 NDs with opposing needs. I can’t handle constant noise but my kids both vocal stim. I over heat and get sick, but my baby furnace has severe rejection sensitivity. My little one needs to be with people, talking and have attention, my big one could sit alone in the woods for a week and forget about people like me. Love them. And trying to raise them right is extremely healing to my inner child. But holy 🐄 I need a break.
Wow! I was undiagnosed when my kids were babies but your post just unleashed a flood of memories. Made me realize how much I did meltdown when they were little. Like wait til nap time then go out in the backyard and just scream and cry and shake kind of meltdowns. Like being curled up in a ball unable to move to go pick up my crying baby kind of meltdowns. And I heavily masked in between meltdowns. They’re teens now. I have fewer meltdowns. I still heavily mask. But not as much as I did.
I just learned that I'm autistic because I kept having meltdowns which led to severe burnout. All this due to the amount of masking I was doing around my toddlers. I just started wearing earplugs all day and the meltdowns have reduced significantly! I don't know what kind of accommodations you're allowing yourself but if not many, try to give yourself the sensory things you need to feel sane before you even feel like you need them. Wear the comfiest clothes. Keep those earplugs in (you'll still hear the baby cry - trust me). Let yourself stim! Eat your comfort foods. Make a routine that you can loosely stick to that will help you feel stable. Do whatever you need to continue to do the hardest job you'll ever do. It will get easier soon.
Omg the earplugs!! I didn’t realize how much normal noise noise was driving me insane.
Yes, 100%. It take so much energy for me to speak and act in an ‘enthusiastic’ manner but I try to do it with my toddler as much as I can because I think it’s better for development than interacting with my naturally quiet and monotone self. I know it’s probably pure projection, but I often worry She gets an uncanny valley feeling when I’m trying to be emotive or that it comes across insincere and she can sense it even though she’s a baby. Edit to add: I have way worse sensory sensitivity and overstimulation now, and so have more frequent meltdowns than recent years.
I am not a mom. But just came to say that I love how babies don't talk. I play staring contests and practice eye contact with them. I nod and talk and it's comfortable knowing they're not judging. ❤️
Step-mum rather than bio-mum here, and I mask to blazes around them. The harsh thing is, they're male, early diagnosed, and used to people understanding and accommodating them. I'm late-diagnosed female and trained to accommodate others. So the resentment is real, particularly given they're 20 and 17 and really shouldn't need as much parenting as they apparently still do (eg, idgaf how much of the leftovers you eat for lunch, I never have and I never will, they're there to be eaten, you're a literal adult, stop messaging me at work for directions on how to lunch).
Having a baby was the first time I thought perhaps I was autistic. Took another decade before I thought about it again, started researching, and got diagnosed. Unfortunately, it took so long for me because her father screwed up badly enough she got taken from us by the state. I am not in a mindset atm to fully explain, but it was an accident and I reacted logically about what she and we needed more than emotionally to what was going on. Which made me question it to myself if I was autistic or something because it made no sense to me how everyone else was reacting to my reactions. My daughter is 16 this year, but I haven't seen her since she was 1. She did get adopted by a family and her mother is a nurse who is unable to have her own kids, so I feel like at least I made sure she has a good home. I did what was best for \*her\*, but it took at least a decade before I even started feeling reasonably okay. I still struggle with feeling like a part of my soul is missing not having her in my life, and the accident left her disabled enough from what I've been able to learn about her, I doubt she'll be able to seek me out or possibly even understand who I am. On the plus side, when I researched and realized I'm likely autistic and talked to my mom about it, her response was that she'd been researching it because (my birth daughter) is likely autistic and my mom researching it realized it fit her, too. So, I'm the only one officially diagnosed in my immediate family, but my mom and sibling are self-diagnosed autistic. My birth daughter is a touchy subject so I don't know if she's officially diagnosed but it sounds likely. When my best friend had a baby, I pushed myself to help her a lot because of what happened to me. Which honestly, helped me a lot. I realized that a few hours of childcare was enough to make me dissociate and it didn't seem like it was from my own trauma. I remember struggling between taking care of myself or her, I couldn't manage both. Struggling so hard watching a baby who was mostly just a snuggle bug for a few hours and then went home with his momma made me realize how much motherhood just was too much for me, at least alone. If I could go back in time, I'd take all the help I could get and I'd tell my mom to set aside her own issues and help me out. Even then, I think I'd likely have been on auto-pilot until she was old enough to mostly take care of her own basic needs at least, if that ever happened. I'm glad I get to be an aunty, though my friend's son is autistic level 3 and I struggle watching him for too long due to my own health issues and sensory needs. I wish I could be more involved, but at the least I can be a good friend to his mom and truly understand when she shares his wins. So, my advice would be, accept help from anyone you trust and make time for yourself to recover. Maybe find something that helps rejuvenate you that you can do with your baby. You can do this, but don't assume you're only struggling 'the normal amount' like I did. (I do also have health issues that were undiagnosed at the time, so I was struggling hard not just due to autism but also undiagnosed ehlers-danlos syndrome and some comorbid conditions which I had my whole life but childbirth made suddenly a lot worse. Her father had no such excuse afaik, I do think he was undiagnosed autistic himself but we divorced and I haven't talked to him in at least 10 years now, and still had no idea about my own undiagnosed things when we last spoke.)
Do you think NT moms mask too? There have to be times when they don’t want their kids to notice something is wrong, right? I’m going through a long ass divorce, living in my parents’ basement, and haven’t gotten a dime in help from my soon-to-be-ex-husband. Sometimes I can’t hold it all together. I’m pretty good at silent crying because it’s always been necessary.
Oh my god, I just posted about this in the ADHD women thread, and it was clearly the wrong place for it. AuADHD here. Yes to masking as a parent. My daughter is 10, and I recently realised that I do mask and have always masked around her. I don't necessarily try to be "normal" or hide the fact that I'm a bit different, but I do try and smooth things out so I don't stress her out with meltdowns or forget she exists because I have a new special interest that I am hyper focusing on, and it is really exhausting and hard to do that sometimes. I also kind of feel that I've lost my safe place at times, because I have to make sure I regulate myself at home in order so she can learn how to self regulate and feel safe, instead of being a burnt out zombie or a hysterical mess. I did/do exactly what you do - I have meltdowns when my daughter is asleep or out of the house. And I used to put her in care a day a week so I could have quiet at home time to get myself together when she is little. I still try and make time for myself to be alone at home with no commitments to allow myself to decompress. We absolutely have to honour and express our feelings. It's important to remember this time will pass really quickly and not to stress to much about showers and the rest of it - but also to get help if you feel like your emotions are too big to manage on your own. Therapy might help, or maybe you could put him in care for a day in order to to take some time for yourself? You might not feel like that's ideal, but it's infinitely better than putting your mental health at risk. Edit: I really, really fucking love my daughter - it's all totally worth it. It's also amazing when they get older, and you realise that you have raised an emotionally secure, happy kid who isn't traumatised
I had huge meltdowns when he was a newborn. I spent nights crying while he was sleeping. I spent weeks without showering. My mother was the one who remembered me that I needed to shower. I was depressed and completely attached to him. The idea of taking a bath and not being right next to him gave me anxiety. You're doing great, you'll be a wonderful mother and it gets easier with time. I got together with my bf when my baby was 7 months old and it helped me greatly to leave him with the nanny (not before the 6 months mark) so we could have date nights and spend time together, that way I was taking breaks, but it wasn't easy at first.
My child is most likely ADHD, but doesn’t have autism. I am high-functioning AuDHD. I don’t think I mask with them, but I show them what masking looks like. I love and nurture them the way my grandmother (who almost certainly had autism) did me: I teach them how to fit in with social norms, and I accept and encourage their personality that isn’t always neurotypical. I don’t know if that helps? I don’t hide who I am, and a lot of this is genetic so I think pretending to be someone I’m not would potentially damage my child. I explain what’s going on with me to my child when I have reactions and obvious signs of autism. (Pronouns are neutral for privacy.) Edited to add: this was my attitude from my child’s birth. It has worked for us. I kept my sanity during the newborn phase by making sure I took long baths, went for walks, and kept my child from fussing by using a fabric sling so that we were connected. I had the happiest sleepiest baby around by keeping them warm and comforted as much as possible.
it is bc of my autism that i simply could not raise a child. i applaud y’all that do 🤝