My daughter (my eldest) turns 15 today and it’s hard not to be reflective of how much the last 15 years of motherhood has taught me and changed me.

My daughter has always been headstrong, defiant and knows what she wants (much like her mumma!) and that has meant we have butted heads and had dramatic stand offs as I have tried to shape her with what I thought was my best approach to parenting her and trying to teach her right from wrong.

What I now know is that she was never someone I could control or shape in the ways I thought best and in fact.…she’s had to teach me how to parent and teach me about myself.

As a younger married woman, I never wanted children (I was scared I wouldn’t be a good parent and didn’t have that mushy maternal feeling when I looked at babies like my friends did) but eventually something told me to accept the lesson that motherhood would be and we decided to try for a baby. My daughter came along 9 months later. She had been there patiently waiting for me to get brave and grow a pair obviously and was conceived first try.

As soon as she got here, I finally felt that mushy maternal feeling (thank god!) and knew that I would never let anything harm this precious thing and I would do all in my power to give her everything she needed and everything I could provide her to give her the best life she could have. I knew she would be so loved and felt confident that I would be the best mum she needed.

What I didn’t realise is that she actually needed me to let go of everything I thought was best and the fact that she would teach me more about myself in the last 15 years than I had ever learnt or knew about myself in the previous 33 years.

I’ve always struggles with trying to control things - especially my environment and the outcomes of things to feel safe due to my childhood. I wanted to make sure my kids had the safest environment and I would protect them from everything scary or anything that I felt wasn’t good for them. This extended to what food and drinks they were allowed, what they were exposed to, how much screen time they were allowed, how they needed to learn responsibility and respect, be kind to others and work hard at school. You know, all the usual things you think is good parenting (and it is usually!) unless you are unknowingly parenting a highly masked high functioning Autistic and ADHD girl.

I did wonder why things felt so hard sometimes but as a first time parent I just assumed this was what parenting was like and that I had to double down and try and ‘control’ and enforce better. Little did I know that was the worst thing for my daughter who kept trying to please me even though so much felt unnatural and wrong to her.

We made a great advancement when she was diagnosed with adhd in year 5 as that meant I understood so much more and was able to learn how to help her more with the things she was struggling with as well as understand her better…but what still lay undiagnosed was autism with a PDA profile and trying to control things for someone like that is the worst thing you can do.

Then puberty hit. We clashed more and more until eventually she withdrew and all sorts of issues started bubbling away underneath.

I kept trying to understand her and my role in things and my usual fortnightly psych appointments always focused on how I could be a better mum to her.

But of course we needed a crisis for things to really shift and that was my daughter developing anorexia at the end of year 7. There were many contributing factors like being undiagnosed and masking 24/7, puberty and starting highschool at an all girls school….but it’s too obvious to ignore that she developed a mental health condition based around ‘control’.

We chose to do her re-feeding stage at home which was one of the worst periods of my life and was like being in hell every day for 3 months. Sometimes we would be at the table all day trying to get her to finish the previous meal at the following meal time. So breakfast still trying to be eaten at lunch time and lunch still trying to be eaten at dinner time...

She did end up having a few weeks in the children’s mental hospital to work out what medication she would need going forward and that was her hardest, darkest, most traumatic time.

With hindsight, this was the worst thing we could have done. We took away all her control and she went into what we now know as a post traumatic burn out.

She was still undiagnosed but I now knew there was something else going on under the adhd…her mask was slipping and I wanted to help her in whatever way I could.

Just to give you an idea of how well these girls can mask high functioning autism, she was under the care of psychiatrists and psychologists in hospital for 3 weeks and that diagnosis wasn’t picked up on despite me trying to voice that I thought that it might be there. She was treated for depression and adhd and after being discharged we were still none the wiser.

We had a lot of down time at home and we kept her distracted as best as we could. Our household was now so far from what it once looked like. Our fridge and pantry was filled with packets of processed foods as I’d been encouraged by all the health professionals to allow high calorie foods that would be easy for her to eat. She was watching tv a lot and I was allowing as much screen time as she wanted as it was the best way for her to be distracted and regulate.

When it was time to go back to school, we changed her to a co-ed school environment, and one that was less strict and had less pressure than her previous school as she was so anxious. We slowly reintroduced her to a school week by doing a couple of days and then a few days and building up. She managed school some days and some days she just needed to just stay in her room.

We got through that year (limped through that year!) but I knew she needed more support and after a very long wait, I got her into a psychologist that specialised in adhd and autism. After only few sessions, the psych confirmed her suspicion that my daughter may also be autistic with a PDA profile and that it wouldn’t be a waste of time to pursue that diagnosis. This was then all diagnosed by a psychiatrist and so my re-learning how to parent began.

I’ve written blogs on this already so if interested in what I’ve had to learn parenting autism and PDA, please read Part 1 HERE and Part 2 HERE.

But despite my daughter going through periods of hating me, feeling abandoned by me and pressured by me, she has been able to teach me about letting go of control and also taught me that I have adhd too!

Through all this I got my diagnosis as learning about my daughter helped me learn about myself. You can read more on my diagnosis during perimenopause HERE and HERE.

And throughout all the guilt I have felt, the confusion of things not going the way I thought they would, the shame of not getting it right sooner and the frustration of not having the answers sooner…my daughter has been my biggest teacher, my beacon of light and my redemption.

I also had a birthday this month and I want to share what she wrote to me on my bday card:

I feel so blessed to be where we are now and that I have a child that can teach me and then thank me so articulately…it does make it all worth it.

I hope this gives someone out there going through anything similar on their parenting journey the hope that things can and do get better if you put in the work in but no matter what, you are the mum your kids chose and you are there to walk alongside them whatever that journey looks like for you.

If you need any emotional support along the way for both you and the kids, please grab my Mum's Toolkit I don’t know what I would have done without it.

Yours in Health,

Alisha x

My daughter (my eldest) turns 15 today and it’s hard not to be reflective of how much the last 15 years of motherhood has taught me and changed me.

My daughter has always been headstrong, defiant and knows what she wants (much like her mumma!) and that has meant we have butted heads and had dramatic stand offs as I have tried to shape her with what I thought was my best approach to parenting her and trying to teach her right from wrong.

What I now know is that she was never someone I could control or shape in the ways I thought best and in fact.…she’s had to teach me how to parent and teach me about myself.

As a younger married woman, I never wanted children (I was scared I wouldn’t be a good parent and didn’t have that mushy maternal feeling when I looked at babies like my friends did) but eventually something told me to accept the lesson that motherhood would be and we decided to try for a baby. My daughter came along 9 months later. She had been there patiently waiting for me to get brave and grow a pair obviously and was conceived first try.

As soon as she got here, I finally felt that mushy maternal feeling (thank god!) and knew that I would never let anything harm this precious thing and I would do all in my power to give her everything she needed and everything I could provide her to give her the best life she could have. I knew she would be so loved and felt confident that I would be the best mum she needed.

What I didn’t realise is that she actually needed me to let go of everything I thought was best and the fact that she would teach me more about myself in the last 15 years than I had ever learnt or knew about myself in the previous 33 years.

I’ve always struggles with trying to control things - especially my environment and the outcomes of things to feel safe due to my childhood. I wanted to make sure my kids had the safest environment and I would protect them from everything scary or anything that I felt wasn’t good for them. This extended to what food and drinks they were allowed, what they were exposed to, how much screen time they were allowed, how they needed to learn responsibility and respect, be kind to others and work hard at school. You know, all the usual things you think is good parenting (and it is usually!) unless you are unknowingly parenting a highly masked high functioning Autistic and ADHD girl.

I did wonder why things felt so hard sometimes but as a first time parent I just assumed this was what parenting was like and that I had to double down and try and ‘control’ and enforce better. Little did I know that was the worst thing for my daughter who kept trying to please me even though so much felt unnatural and wrong to her.

We made a great advancement when she was diagnosed with adhd in year 5 as that meant I understood so much more and was able to learn how to help her more with the things she was struggling with as well as understand her better…but what still lay undiagnosed was autism with a PDA profile and trying to control things for someone like that is the worst thing you can do.

Then puberty hit. We clashed more and more until eventually she withdrew and all sorts of issues started bubbling away underneath.

I kept trying to understand her and my role in things and my usual fortnightly psych appointments always focused on how I could be a better mum to her.

But of course we needed a crisis for things to really shift and that was my daughter developing anorexia at the end of year 7. There were many contributing factors like being undiagnosed and masking 24/7, puberty and starting highschool at an all girls school….but it’s too obvious to ignore that she developed a mental health condition based around ‘control’.

We chose to do her re-feeding stage at home which was one of the worst periods of my life and was like being in hell every day for 3 months. Sometimes we would be at the table all day trying to get her to finish the previous meal at the following meal time. So breakfast still trying to be eaten at lunch time and lunch still trying to be eaten at dinner time...

She did end up having a few weeks in the children’s mental hospital to work out what medication she would need going forward and that was her hardest, darkest, most traumatic time.

With hindsight, this was the worst thing we could have done. We took away all her control and she went into what we now know as a post traumatic burn out.

She was still undiagnosed but I now knew there was something else going on under the adhd…her mask was slipping and I wanted to help her in whatever way I could.

Just to give you an idea of how well these girls can mask high functioning autism, she was under the care of psychiatrists and psychologists in hospital for 3 weeks and that diagnosis wasn’t picked up on despite me trying to voice that I thought that it might be there. She was treated for depression and adhd and after being discharged we were still none the wiser.

We had a lot of down time at home and we kept her distracted as best as we could. Our household was now so far from what it once looked like. Our fridge and pantry was filled with packets of processed foods as I’d been encouraged by all the health professionals to allow high calorie foods that would be easy for her to eat. She was watching tv a lot and I was allowing as much screen time as she wanted as it was the best way for her to be distracted and regulate.

When it was time to go back to school, we changed her to a co-ed school environment, and one that was less strict and had less pressure than her previous school as she was so anxious. We slowly reintroduced her to a school week by doing a couple of days and then a few days and building up. She managed school some days and some days she just needed to just stay in her room.

We got through that year (limped through that year!) but I knew she needed more support and after a very long wait, I got her into a psychologist that specialised in adhd and autism. After only few sessions, the psych confirmed her suspicion that my daughter may also be autistic with a PDA profile and that it wouldn’t be a waste of time to pursue that diagnosis. This was then all diagnosed by a psychiatrist and so my re-learning how to parent began.

I’ve written blogs on this already so if interested in what I’ve had to learn parenting autism and PDA, please read Part 1 HERE and Part 2 HERE.

But despite my daughter going through periods of hating me, feeling abandoned by me and pressured by me, she has been able to teach me about letting go of control and also taught me that I have adhd too!

Through all this I got my diagnosis as learning about my daughter helped me learn about myself. You can read more on my diagnosis during perimenopause HERE and HERE.

And throughout all the guilt I have felt, the confusion of things not going the way I thought they would, the shame of not getting it right sooner and the frustration of not having the answers sooner…my daughter has been my biggest teacher, my beacon of light and my redemption.

I also had a birthday this month and I want to share what she wrote to me on my bday card:

I feel so blessed to be where we are now and that I have a child that can teach me and then thank me so articulately…it does make it all worth it.

I hope this gives someone out there going through anything similar on their parenting journey the hope that things can and do get better if you put in the work in but no matter what, you are the mum your kids chose and you are there to walk alongside them whatever that journey looks like for you.

If you need any emotional support along the way for both you and the kids, please grab my Mum's Toolkit I don’t know what I would have done without it.

Yours in Health,

Alisha x