I (45 F) have a daughter (19 F) Layla who is profoundly autistic. She was diagnosed as a young child and due to the efforts of her speech and OT (and her own hard work) she has been able to gain a lot of independent daily living skills over the years. As she started hitting the teenage years though we started facing an extreme struggle with her period. Due to her diagnosis she is estimated to have the developmental age of a 3 or 4 year old child. This makes her month cycle extremely painful and confusing for her. She does not know or understand why she is bleeding or in pain. She suffers from bad cramping, which is difficult to treat as she has a hard time communicating when she is pain. Aside from the pain, the hygienic side of her cycle is very difficult for both her and me. Due to the painful nature of her cycle, keeping things consistently clean is extremely hard as there is a negative association there and she does everything she can to avoid dealing with her period.
After trying different OT therapists and plans, both me and her father, her OT therapist and her pediatrician have decided the best thing for her is to be put on birth control so her cycles can be managed. We safely have her skip the majority of her cycles during the year, and it has been a blessing for us. It has been 4 months, and not only has she been able to avoid the pain she goes through every month, but her general mood and demeanor has improved as well. Her therapist believes her irregular cycle was causing her a lot of anxiety.
The issue comes with my SIL Ashley. She was over at the house yesterday having lunch with us when she asked how Layla had been doing recently. I told her that she was doing very well and explained to her the changes we made in the last few months. Ashley was horrified. She started ranting about how I am taking away my daughters autonomy by putting her on birth control without her consent and that the long term affects could hurt her fertility. Layla will never have children, and will never have an intimate relationship with others due to her developmental age. I tried explaining this to SIL but she held firm, I honestly don’t know if she has a very good grasp on autism or developmental disorders at this point. I ended up asking her to leave as she was getting louder and I didn’t want her to upset Layla. I let my husband know what had happened when he got home from work- Layla had already texted him trying to shame him for allowing Layla to be put on birth control. She has now involved my MIL and has even reached out to my own mother over facebook, claiming my husband and I are taking away our daughters autonomy. I really think that the birth control was the right choice for our daughter, but the constant barrage of insults is starting to make me question things. AITA?
