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 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.