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.
While I was writing the above someone else made a similar posting, and one, to me, equally horrific. Who are you describing T1llyp0T? A person? or some creature you despise?
I was diagnosed with aspergers late in life, and grew up with it when it was little known. I had great difficulty thoughout childhood and teens and through my twenties. I got a handle on things as I developed stronger self identity, even though low self esteem and self confidence dogged me.
Much of my early experience was my parents' perhaps well intentioned but demoralising blame culture. My difficulties were down to something I was doing wrong, it was all down to laziness, obduracy, bad attitude, talking to much and being wifully odd. And this was something that had to be knocked out of me, most by shouting at me and subjecting me to long inquisitions.
Of course in retrospect I know that just produced overload and suppressed my self-identity. My self esteem and self confidence were permanently zapped by home, school, early work. I got clear of it by leaving home, albeit at 25 and to do a postgraduate degree, and strangely, contrary to predictions, didn't crash!
I think a lot of difficulties are created by parents, not helped. It might be well intentioned, but shows a lack of understanding of the difficulties faced by people on the spectrum, social understanding, sensory issues and overload.
Please talk about your sons as people, with humanity, not as specimens in a laboratory where you've put in time and effort, apparently to no avail. I can see why you are getting nowhere.
Thankyou for your post - it has really helped from a parent's perspective to understand the experience of how life is from the aspect of one with Aspergers and their experience growing up. My adult son is now 33 years and was diagnosed with Aspergers at 19. It has been very challenging for us from his birth until now and also for him having to face reality from a different perspective and having always been misunderstood as a schoolboy by teachers, peers and yes sometimes his parents. As parents we are naturally protective over our children and only ever want what is best even though we may not fully understand what that may be. Due to lack of support and the skills needed to enable to deal with situations, we try to cope and manage them in our own way which often ends up being more destructive than constructive but unintentional. At times parents find themselves overwhelmed, drained of energy and at a loss resulting in unfavourable reactions. Please understand, although not right when we reach breaking point and say things we later regret, our reactions are due to constantly having to pace ourselves and at times we just run out of stamina and crash, but I , like I am sure most parents, always make sure that my son knows he is loved by way of display and affirmation. We as parents must keep seeking and striving for ways to help our children find their way in this already challenging world as well as find help for ourselves to cope and manage in a way that we can all live in harmony and happiness. Sometimes a wake up call is needed such as your post to bring you back to reality and making some adjustments. Thank you again :)