Just needed to be heard for a little while

seven-day-weekend

I don't know whether I have ever mentioned that my son, who is nearly 35, has Asperger's Syndrome. It wasn't known of when he was little, (although we always knew he had problems), but since he has grown up and the condition has been recognised, it has become apparent that he ticks most of the boxes, certainly when he was a child, although as he has grown up he has learned coping mechanisms. He has been unofficially diagnose by a person who knows about autism. He chose not to be formally diagnosed as he didn't see any point.

His girlfriend also has AS, further along the spectrum than him. She was formally diagnosed when she was 18.

They are both very intelligent, but require more help and support than other people their age. He works almost full-time at Morrisons and she has just started Uni as a mature student, after working full-time for six years.

Anyway there is a piece of writing that always helps me, especially when he was younger. I'll put it in white text in case it's a PENGUIN: (but I don't think it is).

Welcome to Holland

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability – to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this…


When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip – to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum, the Michelangelo David, the gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.


After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."


"Holland?!" you say. "What do you mean, Holland?" I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy.


But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.


The important thing is that they haven't taken you to some horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.


So you must go out and buy a new guidebook. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.


It's just a different place. It's slower paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around, and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills, Holland has tulips, Holland even has Rembrandts.


But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy, and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life you will say, "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."


The pain of that will never, ever, go away, because the loss of that dream is a very significant loss.


But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland.

Written by Emily Perl Kingsley

END OF PENGUIN.

Thought it may interest some people.

jobbingmusician

7DW - I think that is wonderful! And it relates to lots of different things in life (It also relates to being married to someone with a disability, although to be fair thought I knew what Holland was like when I booked that particular ticket )

codemonkey

It also relates to not being able have any children at all. Although I'm not convinced that's not true. DH just came into the bedroom where I'm still in bed, lifted the covers and farted under them. So I kind of have a child.

seven-day-weekend

Yes....it is appropriate to anything in life that isn't where you expected it to be and not what you signed up for. I think it's wonderful, and when (even now), when my son displays characteristics of his condition, I can still hanker a little for Italy, especially when my friends' children are all settled in Italy. But then I see what a good, honest and thoroughly decent place Holland is, even though the geology is very different

Pyxis

7DW, I thought your post was fantastic, and I doubt there's a shred of penguin in it!


(Not that I'm advocating shredding penguins!)





Just realised the time of the posts! Where is everyone?

Any sign of WaS?

23hours to R-day, WaS!

I remembered I had some photos from a holiday in Norway 3 years ago, which included a (very, very uncomfortable) ride on a 'sleigh', (think wooden pallet on runners), pulled by a reindeer in a convoy. I'll try and post ithem!

Voilà!





Do watch this! It's animals singing the 12Days of Christmas (my human gave to me.....)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=obGjx8Hry3M

whitewing

I have now broken up for xmas. And have just flopped. Spent the day either in bed or lounging on the sofa. Every noise feels magnified, and I'm so hot that I've opened the window. I don't feel that ill but I just don't feel quite right. (Baileys and chocolate overdose yesterday didn't help).

My friend phoned me in tears earlier. She has depression anyway but she overdoes it this time of the year and gets so tired that it gets a hundred times worse, bless her. Mind you, in the past she has actually literally driven 500 miles for me in a crisis so I don't mind a tearful chat.

My amarylis is growing very quickly over the past few days so it may yet flower for xmas. And I got given a most beautiful poinsettia - it is huge. Hopefully we will get the cards up later. We have to wait for littlewing to go to bed though as she doesn't want them displayed. She puts them in her shopping basket and makes me swipe them over the laptop mouse and beep like a checkout.

Pyxis

Be kind to yourself, Whitewing! Lots of hot or cold drinks, and flop!

Someone I met today told me that she was in a well-known department store recently, and the twenty-something shop assistant whom she asked for help, honestly, honestly did not know what blankets were.

A duvet? she asked. No. A throw? No.
The idea of a blanket protected by a sheet was completely unfathomable.
Interesting!

jobbingmusician

We are sort of moving back in (rather slowly). I have a photo of the new floor - down after 14 years in storage!





Now we have to work out how to get the sofa (and assorted other crap) from storage back to the house...

Pyxis

Lovely floor, JM! Will you be fully back in by Christmas?

whitewing

Definitely a floor for lying down giggling on, JM. After 14 years....there is hope/inspiration for us all then.