Moved Again

I can't believe what motivation I lost with my writing projects such as my articles and blog. Perhaps its because we have moved again...this time to Utah. Its so cool to be able to ski whatever day we want to while homeschooling my kids. I enrolled my daughter into the 3rd grade in public school here in Park City. After 3 weeks of school my daughter started to tell me that she had no one to sit by at lunch and sometimes no one to place with at recess. She did have her best friend Michael to place with, which brought back memories and an understanding of why an aspie girls best friends are many times boys. Boys are typically low on drama. Even in the 3rd grade girls can be especially mean and aloof. After speaking with my daughters teacher I was told that Ellie had been invited to play with some of the other girls, she just didn't want to because the girls didn't want to do what Ellie wanted to do...which is to play "wolf". My daughter has this fascination with Wolves, probably because we have a husky 1/4 wolf dog named Kanek. He is much more wolf than dog. He grew up with the kids and is the most loving animal one could have. Getting back to my daughter though, she will not accomodate other kids interests or wants if they don't match her idea of fun. She also had her best friend and neighbor "drop her" for no reason. This was her only female friend and I myself couldn't understand what went wrong. I tried to reach out to her mother only to be shut down yet again. After this I have hidden, unable to understand or accomodate any friendships in my life. So my plan is to continue to post on my blog, further my writing career and help out in the field of autism in any way that I can. I appreciate your perspective on my ideas and goals.

No motivation has kept me away

No motivation...keeps me from writing and even thinking of writing, updating blogs, etc. At first I feel as if I can obtain the world...write a book, finish my articles, write for the autism society...but then I crash and I can't manage to do anything but the minimum self care and mothering. The kids are more difficult now then ever. New revelations about myself and my daughter. Not only do I have AS, I also am bipolar I. Trying to seperate each disorder's symptoms is confusing and frustrating...there are so many overlaps. So many well meaning doctors telling me that they suspect Bipolar and a personality disorder because I don't fit the "typical characteristics of AS". This speaks to the fact of what us AS adults must contend with; both for us and our children.

Wow is all I can say...

Wow. I will never doubt my AS diagnosis. Yet a new revelation into myself. I went to a new doctor. A doctor that has been here forever, a very well respected man. We started talking about my Asperger's diagnosis and the amount of medication that I have had to take. He said that he is very suprised at the amount of Seroquel that I take, and as such, and in his reviewing of my file, and after a long string of questions and answers, he told me something that I never would have guessed. He thinks that I have co-morbid bi-polar disorder. Usually I would dismiss any doctor that makes light of my AS diagnosis. See, when one doesn't suffer from very low depressive states, they assume that they aren't bi-polar. However, he stated that the AS characteristics are there, however, the night terrors and continued anxiety that I face, despite the high doses of ssri and antipscyhotics proves that we are dealing with more than just AS. True, as in my last post, AS can be manifested in many ways, many that are very similar to bi-polar. But as we started going over my apparent cycles of ups and downs, it seemed to fit. I do have periods of mania that have led to impulsive situations. Overspending, bad relationships, fights, starting things when I feel "up", stopping things when I am "down". It fits, and for some reason, the signs have been hitting me lately, very strong and all around me. I could never understand why I was so up and down, but mostly down. TThe biggest of his concern is that we get this handled or diagnosed, if it is what it is along with AS...because I explained my often thoughts of suicide that intrude my thought patterns. I told him "I would never do it, I coudln't do that to my family". His answer made sense, like my grandmother, after the kids were raised and gone, she killed herself. She was bi-polar. What if one day I did do it? I think of it all the time...but I love life too much. I just know that I need to keep on towards my goals. As my doctor said, I should be functioning in society. And then he told me I was adorable. Gee...that was nice of him. So...I am exploring the idea that this is co-morbid for me. We will see how the medication helps me. I am cautiously optomistic. I will keep you tuned.

Its been a little while since I have updated my blog. I could say that it's because I have been busy, which I have, yet truly it is because I fell into a "non-blogging" funk. Sure, I had two kids in school, one who is in the process of getting an individualized education plan (IEP), I also had a lost and then found dog, lots of paper work due to moving from ID to WA, and a couple of ski days. Yet, really, if I had wanted to blog I would have. Today, though, something motivated me to catch up in my blogging world.

Blogging to me represents what is great about community. While being in my own community I can join Asperger's support groups, or even go to the UW for my kids, yet I don't like to be pinned down to any one group, set of friends, or even a particular mood that allows me to make and sustain a friendship. I have gone into hiding, basically, to everyone but my family. Facebook friends can find me, and maybe I will end up hanging out one day soon, yet I feel better just being alone in my own routine, working on my family, writing, and helping my kids in school. Okay, to go back to the reason I felt like blogging, oh yeah, on Oprah today she brought back the CA family that has the 9 year old schizophrenic daughter. I feel for that family and little girl, because usually schizophrenia doesn't serface until middle age or at least the teen-aged years for the most part.

That show really made me think. I have heard that there are many similarities in disorders such as Schizophrenia, Bi-Polar, OCD, to Autism Spectrum Disorders such as Asperger's or "high functioning autism". Having lived my life with Asperger's Disorder, I truly can understand such similarities. The remaining blog is about how I found this out...

As a child I lived in my own world. Sensory issues bothered me greatly, yet when I could be alone out on the 10 acres where I grew up, I was truly in another world. This world was beyond what one could call imagination. I was so engrossed in this "other world" of forest, fairies, adventures, and imaginary play, that I lived it. Every day was the same thing, it was as if I was a part of this world, yet I knew the difference.

Still, my decisions in engaging in such long hours of imaginative play, sometimes brought negative consequences. Consequences that started small, yet moved to bigger problems as I grew older. What was first fun imaginative play became time consuming obsessive play, in which I had to be in my alternate reality. It seemed that hours and days were lost in such play. My ability to interact with others seemed to only be able to occur when my imagination was involved, dragging them into my imaginative world, and withdrawl pains if I was forced to be in the real world. How true this became when I was a teenager and my imagination turned to pain, as I couldn't really have what I wanted and obsessed about. Reality for me was a mix of imagination and real life, whereby in order to have some sort of a social life, I had to keep my "other world" secret. I wasn't ever encouraged to explore my imagination in my family, yet my first grade teacher helped to bring it out when I won my chance as an author. I won the "young author" award and was sent to a young writers conference. Sadly, no other teachers encouraged my writing, and therefore I didn't continue writing until I became an adult.

So where was I? Oh, I was explaining why these other disorders are so similar to ASD's. As a woman with Asperger's I struggle with obsessive compulsive disorder, I struggle with imagination vs. reality, wants vs. needs, and how to maintain a friendship. I can't control certain things that I am thinking, what I mean I can't always keep what I am thinking to myself. If you spend any fair amount of time with me, you will discover that you will generally hear every detail about my life within the first couple of hours. If someone says something that I don't agree with it, I will literally feel as if I will explode until I set them straight. I can only call or talk to friends at certain times, say after a strong cup of coffee. Otherwise I can't fathom the idea of being social. I feel paranoid often. All of high school I felt as if everyone was pointing at me saying I was a loser. If I say the wrong thing, or God forbid speak too soon, or shoot out an angry e-mail; well, I will obsess about it for days and not be able to calm the anxiety. It sucks! I hate it, however, despite years of hating myself, I have learned to love myself. How else could I understand my world, or my children, if I didn't learn to love myself and see how God could fill the empty space in my heart.

Finally, God did fill that empty space. I have thousands of bad decsions and situations that I have been in and still can't understand. The one thing that I have learned is that God loves me and fills that need. He has shown me that there is a world of people out there just like me, parents with kids just like mine, and women who have lived a life of hurt because they just "didn't fit in." So, if I say you are my friend and don't take the time to call you or email you, its not because I don't care, its just that I just can't always handle "people". Not specific people, but people in general.

More as I learn more about myself...stay tuned.

Nothing Compared to Average

I just went to the doctors this morning because I have had a cold that will not go away. My new doctor asked me what my diagnosis was that led to my taking Seroquel. I told him Asperger's Disorder. It was nice for once to not hear questioning or unbelief. Instead he said "I know a woman whose sister has Aspergers, and she finished graduate school, was very smart, but she did live with her sister for her entire life." Doesn't that sound familiar. Another Aspie woman who is either unable to live alone, or unable to function. Really, I can look at myself and say, "exactly!". I lived at home with my parents until I was 21, and then I was living with my husband for the past eleven years. Never really becoming succesfull at anything, and here I am, back at my parents house, living with my two children.

It doesn't seem to matter how hard I try or what my goals are, inevitably, I mess them up. Regardless of whether it is with my school, career choices, marriage, I will ultimately mess things up eventually. What do they call this? Failure to launch! However, I have launched many times, I just haven't landed! At least I have a husband that has many skills that make him employable. Still, we live on next to nothing and while we want more for our children, we at least know that they are loved and understood. So, my urge to attain something for once in my life will fall in priority to what my children need. They need their mom to understand them. I am their advocate. Understanding is something that I never really got growing up. I was loved and taken care of, but no one, let alone myself understood why I acted the way that I did. I have been longing for that understanding by people for years. It seems that it had become the goal of my life. Will anyone understand me? Truly? Who knows. I am too crazy to be understood most of the time, yet I blend in with everyone else. That, I believe, is what really makes it difficult. I blend in, so I don't fully have an excuse to act the way I do...so I hide it; the eccentricity, the anxiety, the jumping from one thing to the next like a teenager. Just being me is like being an 18 year old that must repress acting like an 18 year old...else I will simply look crazy. Does anyone else get what I mean?

A Big Move

Last week was a whirlwind for me. I had a big decision to make. Stay in Idaho where my kids could continue at their school, and raise the kids alone for the winter season, or move in with my parents in WA. There were many pros and cons to both, yet I knew that this decision would have to be one that was made out of humility as opposed to strength. I don't have too much strength you see, I barely function when put into difficult situations. I have always had my husband as back up. Finally, after weeks and days of going back and forth, should I stay or should I go? I went! I packed up the house and went through what seemed like thousands of papers and documents and put everything that I didn't need into storage. After I finally got everything put into its proper place, the kids and I, plus two dogs got in the car and began our new journey in life.

Now I remember why people in Seattle drink so much coffee. It has rained almost non-stop since we got to town. I unpacked most of our clothes and enrolled the kids in school. My daughter, the social butterfly, loves school. My son pretty much hates school, but the local elementary school has staff and a principle that take pride in assimilating children with special needs into their program. Halleluja! This means my son can be enrolled in a half day schedule. Half homeschool half public school. If I had that choice when I was young life would have been much easier! So on to new things.

The OCD in me wants me to continue to stress about my past life in Idaho. How do I catch up on the bills that I need to mail over? Will the house rent so that we don't need to pay for the house to sit empty. Will my health converage transfer into Cobra on time? I can't go without my Seroquel for even one night, I will turn into a fiending nut-case. I will start to go through withdrawls of no sleep, headaches, vomiting and anxiety. Its not a pretty picture. This leads me to wonder what would happen if there were some catastrophe where I couldn't get ot the pharmacy. Well, there kind of is a problem, I can't afford my medication without the cobra insurance kicking in. I pray that it will catch up soon.

A Broken Heart

This morning was a typical morning for me, my daughter refused to put her clothes on to go to school. She screamed and cried for a good half hour, and I finally had to dress her as she was crying and leaning in for hugs. Finally got her into the car and then she was as happy as can be. My son got himself ready, and typically, someone will throw a fit every morning. As usual, my son continued to say that he hated school and didn't want to go. On the car ride down, I could tell that he was waiting to let out the tears just before it was time to go to school. My daughter gets out of the car and the tears in Christian's eyes started flowing. And then he said what I knew I would hear at some point during the school year, "no one likes me, I have no friends, even the one friend I thought I had won't play with me at recess." My heart sunk. I knew exactly how he felt. I knew how the sounds, noises, smells, and social atmosphere can make any kid crazy, but a kids with Asperger's means its pure torture. At that moment I realized, I can't make him go in. I can't force him to stay in school. I needed to work with him one on one. Sending my child to school when it makes him feel how I saw him feeling made me want to cry for him. I remember, it wasn't fun, in fact, it was torture. As I went through the many options in my mind, online learning, one on one curriculum, skiing as a stress release...I had to do it, I have to homeschool him. I had previously home schooled him the past two years. I thought he needed to go to school to learn how to be social. What a joke. He is social and he has a group of best friends where we live. How would school help him any more? It just made him miserable and sad and angry. And then I realized the full extent to his problems with learning when I went to the parent teachers conference this afternoon. His teacher looked at me and said "he's failing, he needs special ed." She said that he does fine one on one, and he is bright, but he is kind of in his own world and so frustrated because everyone else "gets it" and he doesn't. I love my boy with all my heart. My heart breaks for him when I see him go through what I went through, socially that is. He has such genious and spark in there somewhere, we just need to find what brings that out. Of course, computers, video games, sledding, skiing. He loves all of these things, and he is pretty good at them. I need to show my boy the world. My daughter might be able to handle school right now, but I know what my son needs. I feel horrible that it has taken me this long to realize it, yet again. I am my sons advocate and I am his teacher. I know what he is going through, and only I can help him.