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.
Your comments have helped me to understand from an aspergers perception. If you re-read my posting you may try and understand what I am concerned about. Not for me but for my son. I have not spent 21years trying to 'label' him. I have spent his 24 years loving and trying to understand him. And trying to find a way to help him understand himself, and I did hope the diagnosis would help him to do just that.
I am sure that i do contribute to his distress because i dont always understand him but I can't and won't be here for the rest of his life and I want him to be confident in his best abilities of which there are many. The financial issues are only a small example of the problems faced by families, and minute part of the whole picture concerning my son, the overall concern is for his happiness and welfare. I didn't mention that also he is gay which is not a 'label' but a fact and presents him with other prejudices to overcome.
So forgive me for appearing to be an overbearing mum, and no I don't scream and shout at him or point out his perceived shortcomings, I applaud his successes, but I will continue to strive to help him understand himself it's what mums do. perhaps if you tried to understand your own parents reactions you may not be so harsh in your judgement of the rest of us.
i am disappointed by your response which is harsh and unfair and completely missed the point of what I was trying to say. Which is to be clear my son has aspergers, the diagnosis helped us a lot to understand him. but i want him to understand himself, embrace his condition, be confident, and recognise his many attributes and most of all know that his family and friends love him for himself because he is special.