hello #actuallyautistic folks What do you do when because of PDA and maybe fear an elderly loved one is refusing medical care that would vastly improve their quality of life immediately, reduce and then eliminate their physical pain, and extend their life. 1/2
I know I can't force him, I just want to have the conversation, and he starts moving towards meltdown when we try to talk about it with him. Got experience? If it was you, what do you think would help? #olderautistic There's so little research on what ND are like and what helps us as we get older
I guess i want the conversation to result in him deciding to do this thing for himself rather than choosing pain and death, because that's what he's choosing and he doesn't want to think about it. And that's guaranteed, that's not just me worrying
and because i do want to persuade him, the PDA comes up strong and it's as good as it being physically impossible for him to converse about it once that happens
God I don't know but I feel for you. So often with PDA there's so much deep breathing, sitting back, skirting around the topic... but also steeling yourself for the sure knowledge that sometimes there's nothing you can do. I guess my only advice is ASK his opinion as much as possible. If you can
get him info dumping about his concerns or whatever, maybe he can talk around it enough to think about it in a non-demand context.
thanks very much and thank you for being understanding of both of us. it's very hard
My advice to allistics is always listen to autistic people. There's likely a reason you don't even know about/he can't explain to you.
i'm not allistic.
I understand how concerned you are, but you're explicitly stating that you think him being autistic makes it so he's not able to make decisions as well as allistic people, not even about his own consent. "I can't force him to do anything" isn't a platitude, it's the truth.
you don't get it. you've completely misunderstood. at no point did i think or say he was impaired. I have PDA too.
Autistic aren't impaired, elderly autistic people aren't impaired. If you have to put your mind at ease, respectfully ask him why he's made his decision.
You are making assumptions. of course i have asked him. of course i have been respectful. I know you've been treated bad by allistics, we all have, but I am not one of them.
Every time we even mention the word he shuts down and gets angry. He is dying by suicide in front of us, he is getting visibly thinner and sicker by the week and his pain is increasing and the more pain he is in the less he wants to talk about doing something about the pain
i'm actually just going to mute you for saying I said that we are impaired. I can't deal with this right now. I'm sure i'll come back and read what you have to say at some point if you have more to say, but I can do without having abelism put in my mouth when I'm trying to get help