Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi I am new to this site and would welcome your comments and help. My son was finally diagnosed with aspergers at 21 after a lifelong battle with our GP who refused to acknowledge his differences and labelled me an over protective mother not willing to accept that he was just badly behaved. I won't bore you with the tedious details of the lengthy battle to diagnosis, I am sure this is familiar to many of you.
The diagnosis was a huge relief to us as parents, and his sister as we always knew that he was special. For the last three years we have researched, read everything we could, and tried to put in place the best support possible to help him live an independant life. We have had some success, he is well capable of holding down his job as a carer, but periodically, he will crash and burn. Usually something will trigger him to believe he is useless, and he will walk away. It is tough to try and always understand and accept some of the situations he gets himself in to. Continuous bad debt pay day loans phone contracts, we have paid off thousands over the years. And yes I know we should let them fail, so he learns. There is an account currently that he is being pursued for that we are not going to settle. A bad credit rating would be a godsend to put an end to them.
our main problem is whilst we try so hard to understand him, he doesn't understand himself, and doesn't accept that he has aspergers, he may say he does to placate me but he doesn't really. He was deeply hurt when I pursued the diagnosis as he said I was trying to get him declared 'mental'. How does one accept having aspergers, does it help to know and try and understand it? How can I persuade him to talk to others and share his feelings? Would it help if he had a mentor or someone outside of the family he could talk to? We love him dearly and want him to be secure in his adult life, and to recognise his many positive characteristics. He is funny, loyal to his friends, clever in ways he does not recognise, different and individual, and much loved by his family and friends. We would like him to go back to our GP (thankfully a new one who has been great) for an updated assessment, but I am scared to broach the subject in case he feels I am again trying to label him as mental. Apologies for length of this post but it is so good to be able to put all my thoughts on paper. I would appreciate hearing from you. Thank you for reading this.
An asperger diagnosis has several implications to consider here: it sets out patterns of behaviour which can account for personal characteristics - a rather frightening prospect of reading about your self as a type in a book. This might seem to take away any sense of self determination or independent personality. Put yourself in his position - you've suddenly acquired a persona you can read about in a textbook.
Secondly this is still a massively misunderstood condition. A lot of health and social services people are still presented with a picture, based on classic "types" referred to psychologists, of someone who has tantrums, behaves immaturely, will lash out at people for no known reason, may make inappropriate sexual advances etc.
A few years ago I met a professional who had a deep set aversion to people on the autistic spectrum because she knew someone who had been groped by a person described as autistic in a care centre, and that for her was sufficient proof that all such people were sex perverts. I bet she knew plenty of people who had been groped by the boss or the office flirt, but that's different apparently.
A diagnosis will help, but it can feel like a life sentence.
Most of what you describe is financial imprudence - someone who takes on credit they cannot pay off. Now that could be one characteristic of having aspergers, but its only one facet in some people. If all the people who got into debt and opened accounts they cannot sustain did so purely on account of aspergers we'd probably have had a lot more attention to curing aspergers!
I don't think it is fair to use an asperger's diagnosis as a "solve-all". And what is more important here? You being able to say "I told you so"? Or your son being able to get his life on track.
The causes of difficult episodes may combine poor social communication and sensory issues. Amongst these can be an overly protective and intrusive family that undermines his self confidence and self esteem and wont stop going on at him.
If any benefit is to come out of this asperger diagnosis family has to realise that the ability of individuals to cope with "lecturing" is to shut down, and confidence building is crucial to survival.
All I can see in your posting is he's not listening to you. When he crashes and burns, as you put it, are you contributing to his distress? Is his financial imprudence down to trying assert his own independent personality without you ruling him?
Sorry if you take aversion to my suggestions. But my perception is you need to step back from this a bit, and see him as an adult, not the person with aspergers you spent 21 years trying to get diagnosed.