My daughter and I have both been diagnosed with Aspergers. My daughter has sensory problems, one of them being the feel of clothing. Getting her dressed for a meeting is impossible especially if she has to wear appropriate meeting clothes. She was bullied at school by an elders child as well as other kids. We took her out of the school and put her into another school where she is not doing great, but is doing much better. We did not report the bullying to the elder regarding his child as they would say there were not two witnesses, which is true and they would say that their child is on the ministry school, answers in meetings, goes in field circus, etc., etc., etc. What is our child doing? Other kids in the cong shun her because she is a bit unusual and they are working toward baptism, so they are better than her.
The elders came about two years ago and once they knew what our problems were, they lost interest in us. A sister came to our house during door to door work recently and I was friendly to her. She brought me back one of the new bibles and I have not seen her since. My guess is that she told the brothers who she met and they have told her not to bother with us, we are in the "too hard basket".
My daughter and I are managing OK with help from mental health services. If my experience has taught me anything, it is that there is more to mental health issues than meets the eye. Depression, autism, bipolar, multiple personality disorder and other problems are a real challenge for the sufferer and their families on a daily basis. My husband's sister has multiple personality disorder and is disfellowshipped. She told the elders that she cannot study etc. to come back. We told an elder that and his response was that she could if she wanted to. I agreed at the time, this was about eight years ago. I cannot disagree more with him now. I have learned so much in the past two years about myself as well as my daughter.
Not attending meetings means one less stress in my life which is good. I was also on the edge socially in the cong as a child. I have never been great socially, but have found over the years that so called worldly people, generally are a bit more tolerant to imperfection than witnesses. That is my experience anyway.
