Coping With Grief After My Child’s Autism Diagnosis

My daughter received her autism diagnosis a couple of months before she turned six. For perspective, the first time I went to the GP asking her to be referred for an autism assessment, she was 2, maybe 3. I had battled for a long time to get to that point.

Now, from the title of this post alone, you might think that my grief will be along the lines of me being sad that she was ‘officially’ autistic. Or being sad that she might never be ‘normal’. Being sad that she might struggle in life, or miss out on opportunities that might have been available to her if she were neurotypical. But that is not what this is about.

Her Diagnosis Brought Relief

In fact, when I received the phone call to be told she had been diagnosed, all I felt was relief. I wasn’t crazy. I wasn’t imagining things. And — most importantly of all — I hadn’t been the cause of her struggles, no matter what her family, her nursery staff, or her health visitors would like me to believe.

So no. I wasn’t upset. I didn’t grieve her diagnosis. I’d already known for years at this point that she was autistic — even if I was still terrified that the people assessing her would echo the same sentiments I’d heard from others. That I was a bad mother — that my parenting had caused her to struggle.

My grief, mainly, was about how others hadn’t accepted her. How her family wanted to change her. They’d wanted her to get used to things she didn’t enjoy —…