Aspergers/ASD support thread

blue_monkey_2

Hi shazrobo ((((hugs to you too))) Do you have people to help you out with your son? Sometimes what annoys me (yes, I think that is what I am looking for) is that we don't really have any support so I can't do anything else. I go out about twice a year cos if he wakes in the night he won't settle for anyone else and will scream blind until I am there. I think that a lot of the time he is not awake, does that make sense, he just seems so vacant. I often wonder how it will be when he gets older, how do you deal with things day to day, do you give your son drugs or anything to calm him down? Does he have anywhere to go so you get time as a family? I've just told my husband that after next week (he is going to be on call til then) he will have to have Ryan for the morning so DD and I can get some time away frm Ryan and just have some peace to do whatever, be it go for a swim or go to the conema. I can't do either with him and certainly not on my own. I guess it is not going to get easier by the sound of things. How is your son at school now, have they managed to control his temper there? There are so many things to think about for the future. I don't think you are a bad person at all for thinking what you do, Ryan is only 3 and I have had days where I have had enough and could easily go for a walk on my own and leave them to it. My DD has the same sort of traits, I wonder if she has a touch of it, I am not sure, but she can be a little madam and the other day I had to stop myself from slapping her face as she was being so vile and nasty and it was constant and just a few inches from my face. This is why I sit and wonder, is there something I am doing wrong. I guess that it is just a taste of things to come. Did you say that his brother has it too? Is it not as bad?

Do you think it gets worse in the holidays, the routines are so disrupted and my kids are with me all the time. Do you find the same? xx

You know, in the summer we went to a wedding, now COH Mum lives a way away and we don't see her often, most nans will help out with the kdis, take notice of them, etc... but everyone just blanked the kids and I just thought, just half an hour on my own would have been nice but no-one even offered until OH took them outside to run in the fields and get some steam off. Someone said to her 'ah, you can do your nanny bit today' and she said 'no way, I don't think so'. Sometimes I think people only want to know kids if they are 'nice' and 'well behaved'. Do you have the same problem? I can't leave Ryan with anyone as he is so unpredicatable, but I wonder if I have made him like that because he would just go around and trash peoples houses if I left him with anyone.

shazrobo

i split up with the boys dad, my ex hb, long time ago when they were babies, and had no contact from him. spent many years on my own, met a guy last jan who seemed really nice, but we just broke up before xmas, long story, so done most of it on my own with no support from nowhere especially in the school hols, cant take them anywhere, cant leave them anywhere.both boys have severe ADHD, and conduct disorder, and attend seperate special schools,since being excluded from mainstream secondary school within the first week. thankfully joshua is slightly better behaved than daniel, not as violent, still has his moments. everything is a battle, fighting for school places, fighting social services for support which we cant get, we dont meet their criteria.
daniel has tried ritalin which made him worse, so scary was unbelievable, so the paediatrician refered them on to a pychiatrist who prescribed them resperidone, and it has helped a lot

Miss-spent_2

Hello, i'm new to this thread and it is hard to take it all in.

I have a son who has Aspergers and dispraxia. He is at university studying Maths. Numbers are his obsession.
What upsets me is that he has no friends. He seems to make them but can't keep them. Those he does make use him for lifts,loans etc. His self esteem is very low and I think he is close to depression.
I have spent 20 years trying to make life 'good' for him but i can't live his life for him now he is an adult.
Good to find this thread

PasturesNew

Miss-spent wrote: »

Hello, i'm new to this thread and it is hard to take it all in.

I have a son who has Aspergers and dispraxia. He is at university studying Maths. Numbers are his obsession.
What upsets me is that he has no friends. He seems to make them but can't keep them. Those he does make use him for lifts,loans etc. His self esteem is very low and I think he is close to depression.
I have spent 20 years trying to make life 'good' for him but i can't live his life for him now he is an adult.
Good to find this thread

I love numbers! Always have. I used to count everything everywhere, I still count most things. Even tiles on house roofs and bricks on walls.

Been there done that: Lifts/loans. Yep

Seem to make friends, can't keep them: yep. I think now it's me. I don't know how to initiate an event. I don't know how/when to contact people and get any interest going.

I have realised recently that because of my condition and subsequent body language, I have probably been attracting the wrong people to me. People looking for a victim. I cannot simply say "no" to people - I think one of the reasons is when people hit you for a favour it's one of those "surprise!!" moments, an "unexpected change"... and there's no time to stand and work it through mentally 2-3 minutes before answering!

So now I realise I've spent the last 10-15 years slowly withdrawing from contact with anybody that I am unsure about. Which with aspergers is, of course, all of them!

Good luck!

Miss-spent_2

Yes, yes all so true

I have tried so hard to make his life 'normal' and to 'normalise' him. I have alos tried the 'tough love' by sending him off to uni but that didn't work.
I just want him to be happy.
Pasturesnew are you happy?

MyUserNamesTaken

Miss-spent wrote: »

Yes, yes all so true

I have tried so hard to make his life 'normal' and to 'normalise' him. I have alos tried the 'tough love' by sending him off to uni but that didn't work.
I just want him to be happy.
Pasturesnew are you happy?

Is anyone happy? How many NTs can say they are truly happy. I think most people would settle for content. It's only natural that you would want your son to be happy.


Don't try to "normalise" him. He is different and should be made to feel loved, wanted and appreciated for who he is, not who he pretends to be. If you try to normalise him, he will be in for a much bigger fall later on in life. The best thing you can do for him is praise him for being him. Boost his self-esteem as much and as often as possible. I should explain that there are introverted aspies and extroverted aspies. My boy is an extrovert. He's loud and obnoxious. He will talk to anyone and everyone. He is as far from shy as you can possibly get. He wants friends, but has trouble keeping them (he has a couple who have known him since he was 4, but they are still friends because i am friends with their mums). He also has a problem with attracting the wrong type of friend, but I am !!!! hot on this one. I've gone overboard in reinforcing the rules in terms or right and wrong behaviour, and what's criminal and what's not. He has clear rules and knows not to break them - even if people ask him to. He knows that people who ask him to break those rules are not his friends, as they are trying to get him into trouble. He's learning slowly about people who use and take advantage of him..and is slowly beginning to spot users and the such like (he's just dumped a friend of many years after realising the kid was only using him to play with his toys). I told him many times before that the kid was using him, but he had to work it out for himself. When he did, he ended the friendship. His school is aware that he could become the victim of bullying by stealth (people pretending to be his friend purely to laugh at him and use him for their own personal entertainment), and is making sure it's not happening. When/if he goes to Uni, he will go to the one near by so that he can live at home. I won't make him leave until he is totally confident that he can cope on his own..and even then, I'll be here should he need me. One thing you could do is try to see if there are any support groups or social groups for Aspies/Autists in your son's area...see what the Uni has to offer in terms of support groups, etc.


BM....many people with autism have a much wider personal space around them than NTs. They can be fiercely protective of that personal space and don't like it being invaded (as they see it) by anyone, including those closest to them. Many will react in a violent way if they feel their personal space is being invaded, hence the hitting, etc. It's not that your boy doesn't love you - he just can't cope with the invasion of his personal space. His violence is a show of just how anxious he feels when his space is invaded. Most negative reactions you'll see from autistic people stem from anxiety. Please don't take your boy's actions personally, BM. I know it's hard, because you're his mum. However, he does love you. If you watch carefully, you'll see he does express his love for you, just not in the same way an NT child would.

BM, get in touch with Social Services about respite care. They may be able to help you. Also see about a befriending service in your area.

Miss-spent_2

Thanks, a lot of what you say makes sense. He is an introverted 'Aspie' (never heard that term before) but we know someone like your son. The two get on well actually.
Will watch thread with interest

MyUserNamesTaken

Miss-spent wrote: »

Thanks, a lot of what you say makes sense. He is an introverted 'Aspie' (never heard that term before) but we know someone like your son. The two get on well actually.
Will watch thread with interest

The introverted and extroverted thing applies to all people, really - it's a personality thing. Having autism is separate to your actual personality. It does affect how you behave, but your personality is something else entirely. As said with my boy, he's loud and obnoxious...he's also very domineering. He is a very strong personality and seems to boss people about - he doesn't mean to come across like that, but that's his personality mixed with his autism (his inability to read body language, etc). You should be able to find adult befriending services in your son's area, too. Drop me a PM about where your lad is based and I'll see if I can find anything in his area for you.

Introverted aspies get on well with extrovert aspies because the extrovert will take the lead , clearly telling the introverted aspie what to do...and the introvert will simply follow. Don't put two extrovert aspies in the same room, though - that will cause a lot of problems. Both my son and I are extrovert aspies...we have fireworks in this house. Two bulls locking horns....

PasturesNew

Miss-spent wrote: »

I just want him to be happy.
Pasturesnew are you happy?

I don't know. I think I am, I've always tried to make the most of everything - just never understood why things weren't working out for me like they do for other people. Why I was having a crisis when others just coped with things (e.g. got no mates, find a social club and force myself to go to make friends, attend, find it too hard, struggle through the night, get in the car, drive up the road, pull over and cry because it was pants and I didn't know why).

I am not lonely. But I just can't reach people. I can't be like them. And that hurts. And sometimes I just cry, like now, thinking how it's not fair and I just want to be able to feel I wasn't in a bubble. I want to experience life like others do.

But happy. I don't know. I am not sure any more I know what it is. Happiness to me is "being left alone", nobody wanting things from me I would have said - now I can see that this was because people wanting things means the unknown, the unexpected, changes.

I just don't know. I am not unhappy, but I have a screaming frustration inside me that I can't reach the real world. I am always alone - even when with others. I am never part of anything, it's like a slightly muted bubble.

You know in films, where somebody's, say, dying and fading away and the camera pulls away from the people, putting a fuzzy edge on them - and the sound track deadens and a silence seems to surround the now distance image/voices. When I am with people, it's like that. I can observe but there's a muted distance.

Happy. I don't really know what the word means. It's like I am blank. I am not unhappy, just most of the time I flatline that emotion.

If somebody can show me what happiness is, I can tell you if I am that. But I really don't know.

But that's not a bad thing. If I have no emotion most of the time then I also don't have unhappiness. Except when I think and draw out every instance in my life where my condition has caused a negative effect. They are not good times. Those times made me unhappy.

I've rambled but I tried to think of the answer as I typed. And I don't know.

What IS happiness?

blue_monkey_2

Hi everyone, just a quickie this morning but I wanted to give you a hug PN,

Happy can be whatever you want it to be. What makes one person happy would not make another happy so I don't think anyone can say what happiness is. I have spent most of my life like you, I have never had many friends and I think every school, club or job I have been in I have been bullied. I would say the wrong things to people (how they came out was wrong) and they would not speak to me anymore, I went through school having very few friends and I think as you get through life you realise the things you have to do if you want to keep friends. When I was younger I used to go out clubbing on my own, I would just spend the night dancing, as although I used to know people that went I would never feel I could ask if I could go with them and then once there I would hate to feel I was imposing on people, and on the occassions I did ask I was made to feel bad for doing so. I spent a lot of my life fed up and lonely but that is down to confidence as well and this is a major part of making you decide to do the things you do everyday. There are a lot of things I have read that makes me think I either had ADHD/Aspergers as a child/adult and people take advantage of me as I am too trusting, they take advantage of me but next time it happens again and again. Would I do it again.... sure probably because that is who I am. I hate confrontations but sometimes I realise they are needed but I do try and avoid them where I can. I have had a group of friends for 5 years and we meet once a week and rarely will I ask if they want to meet more often for fear of them thinking I am needy but I don't do a lot else other than sit at home and I don't have anywhere else to go, I'd love to be able to sit in the company of others instead of watching cBeebies but there is nowhere wlse I can go with my son as he is. If I was more confident, could face them saying no, then I think I would ask but I don't like being rejected I won't ask. and so the vicious circle continues, I do realise it is just this though and I do only have to ask, but I won't and I accept that this is down to my confidence.

I know you are going to say it is about actually going and facing people and that you would not be able to, but I think you might want to think about trying a course for assertiveness or confidence as this would help you where you are right now and it might help you turn things around. You should not see Aspergers as a barrier or as an excuse (forgive me for saying so) for making life what you want it to be or to get the best out of it because only you can do this. I have had some dreadful things happen to me through my life - things not for a forum - because of the person I am because I am too trusting, etc... but I do not let them change who I am now - I used to but I had counselling and it has made me see that these things were not my fault, it has not happened overnight, still have fears, but not that anyone would know about them as I have learned to push them to one side. Don't get me wrong, it has taken me a long, long time to get to where I am now. Am I happy? I would say yes and no, some days I am happy, some I am sad - it depends on what is going on that day, what has gone on the day before. Surely no-one can be happy 100% of the time (well, I am not anyway). I think the question 'are you happy' should have been 'do you accept who you are' and if you can accept who you are then you'll get through life with whatever throws at you, if you cannot accept the person you are and the personality you have and you do not seek to change this, then you won't be able to deal with the daily problems you find yourself facing and then you need to seek help to find out why you cannot accept who you are. But only you can do this by talking to people - bottling problems up inside causes far more problems and I can tell you this from experience, counselling was a wonderful release and it made me realise 'who' I was.

You need to ask yourself whether you are happy/accept yourself in your job? Homelife? Friends and family? I don't think anyone can really say they are 100% happy (btw - this to me seems a little weird that someone can be totally happy depsite the problems that life throws their way) in all of these but these are what makes our life what it is and I can't say I am 100% happy but I am happy enough to get by and this makes me happy (most of the time anyway). Does that make sense?

I think a lot of people have been where you are right now, I think that you have been given Aspergers DX and it has left you a little lost, while it helps you explain the feelings and expereinces you have had through life you need to speak to someone to find out where you go forward from now. you sound 'in Limbo' and not knowing - and yes, I could well be wrong - but from your posts it does seem this way..... but...... I do think this comes down to confidence as well and acceptance. Acceptance of who you are and I don't feel this coming from you and maybe this aspect you need to get help with. There is a difference between being told you have a problem and acceptance of yourself as a person - whatever your problems. This is why I started going out on my own, I would need a couple of drinks to do so but I did otherwise I would have been sitting at home wallowing in self pity as I only had 2 friends and they had their own lives and I don't want to impose on people all the time, these friends are there when I need them to be now. I think the key is to find something you enjoy doing (not forcing yourself to do) and then going to a club or class to do this. If you make new friends in the meantime then that is great, if you don't never mind, don't wallow about it (and yes it is hard I have been in the exact same place you are now) but make the most of the class or club you are doing as it means you are doing something rather than sitting at home doing nothing.

I hope that helps somewhat, this was only going to be a short mail but it turned to a long one (phew, I got a bit carried away). But I hope I have made some sense as to what I have said, if I have not then please don't shout at me, I find it hard to say what I am trying to say, but I hope you have the jist!! If I offended you by anything then it was not meant this way so please don't take it that way, I am just trying to explain the best I can.