barefoot wend Report post Posted October 2, 2006 Dear All I have known for some considerable time that my niece (21) shows many traits of AS. She's very bright - all A* GCSEs. all As at A level and is currently doing a degree course. She hopes to go on and take a PGCE and teach ICT at secondary school. Things have not always been easy at school. She doesn't have many friends, is over-crtitcal, out spoken, often suffers from depression, poor eye contact and social skills. She's also quite heavily into religion. My problem is that my sister is, yet again, worried about her at Uni as she tends to be a loner and shut herself away. Unusually she'd been neglecting her work (don't think it helps that she only has a couple of lectures all week!). My sister says she 'clings to the past and won't move on' which is why she was so loathe to go back to Uni last week. I'm pretty sure that my niece perceives herself as diifferent and is quite negative about herself generally. She was premature and had some problems early on which caused my sister huge amounts of stress - so much so that she suffered, quite severely, from OCD for a number of years. I have never broached the subject with my sister as I have always felt that it would stress her too much. My dilemma is that I feel I'm leaving my niece floundering when she could be getting some help. Further, if it meant my niece changed her plans because of a diagnosis then my sister would never forgive me. I feel rotten. Barefoot Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Bagpuss Report post Posted October 2, 2006 Barefoot, We are in a very similar situation with our neice. She's always been a loner, very quiet, even as a child. Shes recently left uni, incredibly bright, did well academically, but socially has always had HUGE difficulty. Throughout primary she seemed ok and had friends, but once she hit secondary school she lost her friends had found it so tough to make new ones. At Uni she didn't have a single friend, lived alone, and just concentrated on her studies. Now she has left Uni and finds it impossible to go for job interviews, becoming physically sick. She is in tears alot with her mum, saying she can't talk to people, she doesn't know how to talk to people and when she is out with her mum (the only person she does go out with) and her mum tries to include her in conversations etc she clams up. Her mum was recently up here visiting us, and was asking what she should do, what would we do..........I did mention that maybe she could try taking her to the GP and explaining the difficulties she is having......I also mentioned AS, but in a way of "oh, it maybe a possiblity...have you considered this...etc etc".....really along the lines of "might be worth finding out more, but also could be many other things" sort of thing....But Barefoot, they came to us and asked us our advice, not sure I'd of offered it otherwise, so I think your in a really tricky situation. Whatever you decide, I hope it turns out ok, take care Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
