Trigger warning:  discussion of suicide.

Once again, I haven’t posted for a while.  This is because Deeply Beloved Daughter is doing badly.

She’s in her senior year of university now, and very successful academically, but the last six months have been a total disaster emotionally.

She was sexually assaulted (to her credit, she pressed charges and the guy is now in jail, but it was super hard).  Her sister developed a life-threatening illness, which really scared her.  Her grandmother, whom she felt very close to, died.  And one of her best friends from high school committed suicide.  One trauma after another.  And all through this, she maintained her mask of being “normal”/neurotypical (her choice, not her parents) and worked hard at school  But the additional pressure of final exams did her in.  She began self-harming and talked about suicide.

So here she is, in her third week on a psychiatric unit where no one understands anything about autism (we had to explain meltdowns to them), where she can’t escape the fluorescent lights or the noise, where the staff are constantly criticizing her, and where she’s being heavily drugged with useless and potentially very harmful stuff.  Two days after Christmas she goes before a judge who will probably commit her to a state hospital.  (Yes we have lawyers and expert opinions, etc., but we are not very hopeful).

Those of you who pray, please pray for us.  Everyone else:  fight like hell for better psychiatric care for autistic people.