Albatross
Well-Known Member
HAHA! Well it was a nice view, no matter which thread you meant it to be in!
The truth comes out...maybe
- Thread starter Lil
- Start date
Jabberwockey
Well-Known Member
Sorry, should have mentioned that I have to wait till tomorrow to get the police report.
SuZir
Well-Known Member
Your son really does seem to give out some aspie vibes. Of course, even if he happened to have some aspie traits that would not excuse his behaviour. But it would suggest that there is quite a lot of hope of some later maturation in future.
And maybe familiarising yourself with the topic would help your communication with him, if you after finding out about it would see something you recognise in your son. I of course know very little about him, but those letters you quoted and also some earlier things you have mentioned have hit my 'is this kid an aspie light?'-button.
And maybe familiarising yourself with the topic would help your communication with him, if you after finding out about it would see something you recognise in your son. I of course know very little about him, but those letters you quoted and also some earlier things you have mentioned have hit my 'is this kid an aspie light?'-button.
Jabberwockey
Well-Known Member
SuZir, we've wondered for YEARS if he had some degree of aspie's. He had just evened out enough for so long that we didn't bother testing. By the time of his launch into GFGdom it was too late to have him tested as he was old enough to legally resist. Our whiskers were twitching when he was 16 but the problems didn't fully emerge until he was 17 which is an age, in Missouri anyway, that can be a royal nightmare for the parents. When the child reaches the age of 17 in Missouri you, the parent, are still legally and financially responsible for them. The kicker is that you can no longer make them do anything. They run away, the police say "Oh, he's 17? We cant do anything. That would violate his rights." Cant force them to go see a counselor or psychologist either so yeah, he timed it perfectly to keep us out of the loop.
BusynMember
Well-Known Member
If you throw the idea out at him, maybe he'll allow testing. I recommend a neuropsychologist.
Lil
Well-Known Member
Yes, your only real recourse in Missouri when a kid is 17 is to have them declared uncontrollable, taken into juvie and placed in foster care or a group home. (Which would certainly make a kid love you to pieces.) Also, you'd have to pay support to the state and that could last to age 21, even if the kid isn't in school, so long as they're in the system. So, obviously, if they are 17 and you are having problems that aren't life-threatening, you're better off to try to handle it yourself.
At 17 for criminal law purposes, they are an adult here. But they can't sign a contract or buy a car or rent an apartment, etc., until 18 and the parent's can't kick them out, or it's child abandonment or neglect. You basically can have an person charged or convicted of an adult crime that you are responsible for supporting. Craziness.
Well see on the testing. I doubt he'll do it. He takes VERY great offense to a suggestion that he isn't "normal".
One thing at a time...we have a crime to deal with first. Hopefully we will receive a police report soon and can get a look at that.
SuZir
Well-Known Member
I well understand this is not your most pressing concern with him right now, but this is something that may well change when he matures a bit. Or even more so, when others out mature him and he is forced to notice that things are not working out for him like they are for his friends. That realisation is also the point he is more likely to accept help in trying to change things.
What you said about your son taking offence to a suggestion he wouldn't be normal, stopped me on my tracks. I'm not sure when that changed for us, but two and half-three years ago that was still very much true with my son. Now at 21 that has certainly changed. I mean, he is certainly not happy to have PTSD, dissociation disorder, hysterical conversion, moderate depression, self-harming issues and other miscellaneous issues, oddities and deviations of 'normal', and he certainly makes an effort to be just 'one of the guys', but neither is he offended when people have to discuss his issues with him, when he has to admit them to someone who needs to know about them (that he doesn't want to share much info with those who don't need to know is just healthy self-preservation I think) and he has also lately done well even in advocating for some sensory and auditory accommodations he needs to do better in his life situation. This change for him has been gradual but also very prominent and has happened sometime now around his twenties. And this is from the boy, who still at sixteen threw temper tantrums because I pointed out to him, that he should try extra tall pants, because he happens to be a half feet taller than most men (and he even plays sport, where being tall is an advantage.)
Admitting your differences and challenges is the first step to dealing with them but it does take quite a lot of courage and is difficult for young people, who would just like to belong and be... well, normal. life may in fact be easier for those of our kids, who have grown with an idea that they are special and will likely end up having different life than 'normal' kids. For those who can hang on, even by the skin of their teeth, it comes as a nasty surprise then they can't any more. And after focusing all your efforts to appear normal, to be just on of the guys, you find yourself without plan B and having to come to terms, that you just can't pass as 'normal' any more, but have to re-think whole mess. And that requires some serious maturity!
Jabberwockey
Well-Known Member
This would be encouraging but for the fact that he has intentionally distanced himself from "normal people" and has surrounded himself with difficult child's so he is MUCH less likely to notice.
I take a different perspective: he has already noticed. He's given up on relating to "normal people". He believe he will never be one of "them". So, he seeks out whatever relationships he can. Because the alternative is utter despair.
Why do I say this?
been there done that.
Me. GFGbro. difficult child. It's a pattern.
Lil
Well-Known Member
I wish this made me feel better than it does.
It's the "giving up". He's said since about age 15 (prior to full-blown gfgdom) that people had to "not judge" and "accept him exactly as he is" and if they don't the it's THEM that are wrong. Not HIM. He's fine. He's right. If he has long greasy hair, if he smokes pot, if he doesn't do...whatever...that's fine. This shouldn't stop him from getting a job. It shouldn't make people look down on him. Because if they can't accept that he's just fine the way he is then THEY are the one's with a problem.
Pointing out that if two equally qualified people apply for a job, and one is clean-cut and neat and respectable looking, and one is...well...HIM, the OTHER one will get the job - he doesn't seem to "get" that.
Or he doesn't care. He doesn't want to be one of "them".
Not sure which it really is.
2much2recover
Well-Known Member
Actually this was an earlier sign if he was 15, but because everything else was not exploding, it must have been overlooked. I can't tell you enough how when he says these types of things about the rules being different for him, not accepting for himself what is expected of others, ETC rings bells for me of personality disordered. I.E. Narcissism, Borderline etc. He may not have the full blown disorder, but shades of it may color his personality. Especially the arguing until you are forced to give in or walk away - huge red flag (my way or the highway from someone who doesn't know squat to two college educated people uh-uh). That in itself is narcissistic behavior.
... or typical Aspie.
been there done that. I know because that was SO much me as a teenager. Including the arguing until you are forced to give in or walk away. (And I'm not a narcissist... )
The need to be right can be driven by the years of being told how wrong you are, by everybody in your life. Especially outside the home: school, coaches, peers, anybody else with significant access. We underestimate the impact.
Lil
Well-Known Member
There didn't seem to be anything TO overlook. You know, he was a teenager. He wanted to have long hair and wear black and it didn't hurt anything, so we let him. (Not Goth...more "rock and roll", he wore skinny jeans and owned like 20 black t-shirts with band logos...all that crazy "screamo" stuff or heavy metal.) He had one friend that was more Goth, with the dyed black hair and eye-liner. He had other's that were just kind of slobs, with the baggy pants 3x too big. We wouldn't let him do any of those extremes...he had a limit to how low his pants would sag (once he quit skinny jeans) and he couldn't do the hair dye (he didn't really want to do the makeup), but other than limits, we figured he was expressing himself and we picked our battles.
I have a bit of a problem with any "narcissistic" label...because he actually has pretty low self-esteem.
You know, he's had kind of the opposite. He's been told, over and over, how bright he is; how capable he is; how he could do anything he wanted if he just put his mind to it. I never attended a Parent Teacher conference where, "difficult child could have an A if he tried." wasn't said. And he COULD! He'd have an F and mid-term and bring it up to a C or a B at final. That shows he could have done better. Mostly, his problem was he'd do his homework and then not turn it in! His last semester, he had 2 D- grades. One he brought up from an F (and we're talking a score in the 20's!)...one the teacher just gave him, because he got an high B's and A's on every test...but was failing because he never did his homework and labs. He KNEW he could do the work. He knew our son knew the material. So he passed him.
He never had any interest in sports. He'd do it one year, never try again. Maybe it was kids at school...our school was really cliquey...that's why he took up with the stoners. They were nice to him. He hated everyone. The jocks were a-holes. The nerdy kids were losers. All girls were wh*res. He wouldn't explain further.
I don't know where this stuff comes from. I really don't.
This is probably more accurate than you would believe. Not that "all" girls were wh*res... but rather, the only ones who would even speak to him, would be that type. Jocks... well, lots of NT kids will agree with him. The nerds, it's not a label you want to get stuck with, even if some of them are brilliant.
Cliques are deadly for Aspies. Kills any hope of associating with normal. Real fast.
The stoners are often the only ones that will accept our differently-wired kids at face value. It takes them down the wrong road... but they aren't given any other road to go down.
As far as the "could have done really well in school", well... unless you fit into the "prep" group/clique, you get really psychologically beaten up for being smarter than you are "supposed to be".
School is more toxic, for more kids, than most of us can imagine.
Jabberwockey
Well-Known Member
Not really. Even 30 years later I remember how much I hated school. Not the education part, I could do that for the rest of my life and be VERY happy! But the social interactions, the bullying, all the stupid crap in High School that, unfortunately, does somewhat help us prepare to survive in the adult world.
Went to my 30 year reunion in the fall and was really dreading it. It was really hard to remember that we weren't still in school and these weren't the same people who made my life a living hell for years. We had all changed, grown up. But then again, learning to deal with all the crap in High School also prepared me for my current career. I seriously doubt I'd have survived working in Corrections if I hadn't come....pre-jaded.
As I was reading along, I thought that when a kid is "different" for whatever reason, mental illness, conduct disorder or just a creative sort who has a different slant on life, school can be a nightmare for those kids. Even if they aren't outright bullied, being shunned in those formative, important teenage years has an enormous impact on all of us.
I arranged the High School reunion for my 40th class reunion and there were more then a few times when I contacted some of my classmates and they were horrified to think about coming back to such a painful time in their lives. One guy was a Psychologist and he said, "why would I want to return to the place that beat me up every day for 4 years?" That was not my experience but it was certainly a number of people's experience.
Some of us can use that experience as a learning experience like Jabber did, but some of us really don't get over it completely and it colors our lives in significant ways. I'm old enough to recognize that some of those feelings of alienation just don't go away, no matter how old you are.
For whatever reason many of our kids are "different" they seem to seek out others who don't judge them, whether it's the stoners, or the fringe dwellers, or whatever.........my daughter hangs out with homeless folks no one in regular society even sees, the 'invisibles." I think it's a natural choice people make to be in a place where they are not judged or compared and to stay away from places where they are. Including staying away from US, their parents who in many ways demand that they show up in the "typical" way. I know I did that with my daughter for many years. "Why couldn't she just stop this nonsense and be like everyone else?" I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but it's just what it is. For me, my daughter's strangeness and odd choices were a problem for me, but not necessarily a problem for her. She was and still is, in a world of her choosing. I don't understand any of it really. But I've learned to accept it as what is. And that freed both of us up.
I understand that when the kids are young, it's hard to think that way, our hopes and dreams are tied up in them and our fears for them are paramount. And, many of the younger kids change as their brains develop. But, if they continue with the behaviors well in to their late twenties, I think that is the time we as parents need to start accepting them for how they show up.
In this last go around of parenting my granddaughter, in my determination to do this thing "right" I took parenting classes, read a lot of books, talked to counselors and school officials, therapists and anyone I could pull any information out of.........what I found out is that kids today are under ENORMOUS pressure in school. It is different then it was when I was in school, there are many more stresses on the kids. There are a lot of reasons for that, which can be researched and read about, but suffice to say that it isn't easy being a kid today. So, in my view, when you add in any kind of personality anomaly, whatever it is that makes a kid FEEL alienated, he/she is going to look for places and ways to feel accepted. Drugs will be a viable choice for them. "Different" friends will too. Being accepted is not only a problem for kids, it's a problem for adults as well. I believe we all want to feel accepted for who we are. It feels bad when we're not. Many of our kids are not accepted anywhere but in whatever community they decide to align themselves with, which is often not one any of us understand or agree with.
This may not be entirely appropriate for this thread because Lil's son is so young.......but the one very important thing I learned with my daughter is to really look at my judgments of her and to make every attempt to stop them. To try to really see her for who she is without my desires for her to be superimposed on top of who she really is. To really listen. To stop my incessant dialogue of the way I think it should be and to stop long enough to hear what it feels like to be her.
There are always the exceptions, as in 2m2r, whose daughter is a classic sociopath or MWM's adopted son who disconnected from her. Some of our kids are actually people we cannot be around, no matter what. Some are so invested in substance abuse, their real personalities are dulled to the point of being unrecognizable. That's a different story altogether.
I sometimes find myself feeling empathy for some of our kids who really in many ways simply seem to be "different" and being young, they don't know how to handle that difference or see the value in it. Instead they resort to weird behaviors which brings on more alienation and judgement and unhappiness. And, yet at the same time, if those very kids won't seek out help, try to change, or make attempts to examine the issues and find out more, then we parents have no choice in many instances, but to detach from their behaviors and allow them to suffer the consequences of their behavior. It's a real conundrum.
As always, take what you find valuable and leave the rest, this is simply my experience and my take on things........we all have to make choices that feel right to us.
I arranged the High School reunion for my 40th class reunion and there were more then a few times when I contacted some of my classmates and they were horrified to think about coming back to such a painful time in their lives. One guy was a Psychologist and he said, "why would I want to return to the place that beat me up every day for 4 years?" That was not my experience but it was certainly a number of people's experience.
Some of us can use that experience as a learning experience like Jabber did, but some of us really don't get over it completely and it colors our lives in significant ways. I'm old enough to recognize that some of those feelings of alienation just don't go away, no matter how old you are.
For whatever reason many of our kids are "different" they seem to seek out others who don't judge them, whether it's the stoners, or the fringe dwellers, or whatever.........my daughter hangs out with homeless folks no one in regular society even sees, the 'invisibles." I think it's a natural choice people make to be in a place where they are not judged or compared and to stay away from places where they are. Including staying away from US, their parents who in many ways demand that they show up in the "typical" way. I know I did that with my daughter for many years. "Why couldn't she just stop this nonsense and be like everyone else?" I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but it's just what it is. For me, my daughter's strangeness and odd choices were a problem for me, but not necessarily a problem for her. She was and still is, in a world of her choosing. I don't understand any of it really. But I've learned to accept it as what is. And that freed both of us up.
I understand that when the kids are young, it's hard to think that way, our hopes and dreams are tied up in them and our fears for them are paramount. And, many of the younger kids change as their brains develop. But, if they continue with the behaviors well in to their late twenties, I think that is the time we as parents need to start accepting them for how they show up.
In this last go around of parenting my granddaughter, in my determination to do this thing "right" I took parenting classes, read a lot of books, talked to counselors and school officials, therapists and anyone I could pull any information out of.........what I found out is that kids today are under ENORMOUS pressure in school. It is different then it was when I was in school, there are many more stresses on the kids. There are a lot of reasons for that, which can be researched and read about, but suffice to say that it isn't easy being a kid today. So, in my view, when you add in any kind of personality anomaly, whatever it is that makes a kid FEEL alienated, he/she is going to look for places and ways to feel accepted. Drugs will be a viable choice for them. "Different" friends will too. Being accepted is not only a problem for kids, it's a problem for adults as well. I believe we all want to feel accepted for who we are. It feels bad when we're not. Many of our kids are not accepted anywhere but in whatever community they decide to align themselves with, which is often not one any of us understand or agree with.
This may not be entirely appropriate for this thread because Lil's son is so young.......but the one very important thing I learned with my daughter is to really look at my judgments of her and to make every attempt to stop them. To try to really see her for who she is without my desires for her to be superimposed on top of who she really is. To really listen. To stop my incessant dialogue of the way I think it should be and to stop long enough to hear what it feels like to be her.
There are always the exceptions, as in 2m2r, whose daughter is a classic sociopath or MWM's adopted son who disconnected from her. Some of our kids are actually people we cannot be around, no matter what. Some are so invested in substance abuse, their real personalities are dulled to the point of being unrecognizable. That's a different story altogether.
I sometimes find myself feeling empathy for some of our kids who really in many ways simply seem to be "different" and being young, they don't know how to handle that difference or see the value in it. Instead they resort to weird behaviors which brings on more alienation and judgement and unhappiness. And, yet at the same time, if those very kids won't seek out help, try to change, or make attempts to examine the issues and find out more, then we parents have no choice in many instances, but to detach from their behaviors and allow them to suffer the consequences of their behavior. It's a real conundrum.
As always, take what you find valuable and leave the rest, this is simply my experience and my take on things........we all have to make choices that feel right to us.
wakeupcall
Well-Known Member
That's what my difficult child does....I try to talk to him about his probation, etc. and he changes the subject like wondering if you had an adapter. That's how I know he has no clue as to what's really going on or the seriousness of it. It's so very frustrating. I just want to shake him and tell him to WAKE UP AND GROW UP! He is almost through with a years probation for theft of a cell phone case $50. I SO want him to have learned how awful that punishment was....but I dunno, I doubt it. I keep waiting for another shoe to drop....
BusynMember
Well-Known Member
I could not agree more with IC if I were her...lol. That's EXACTLY what I was thinking. He doesn't hang out with "normal" people because he doesn't know how to act normal so he hangs with the fringes. Fringe folks are the least judgmental of anyone. They excuse lack of social graces, inability to read body language, and just different type of talking, thinking and doing. It's too hard to try to understand. It's like trying to understand a foreign language.
My son Sonic, on the spectrum, has a slew of friends and none are so-called losers in the eyes of the law and they all work, etc. but they are all people who are overcoming challenges and know it and are ok with it and each other. Sonic will probably never relate well to people at parties who are "typical" but it doesn't bother him...or me. I'm rather socially challenged myself and a room full of people "playing the game" not only doesn't appeal to me...like Sonic, I don't understand the game and don't like games. I am just a hair ahead of Sonic as I have neurological differences and a SEVERE non-verbal learning disability, which is a lot like Aspergers. It is hard to live in a confusing world and succeed in something you don't really understand. You know what others do, but you don't know how to get there...the "typical" way. Or at all. Everyone on the spectrum is different.
You can tell your son he may be differently wired neurologically. Don't make it out like he's "crazy." I think THAT is their biggest fear. A neurological difference is in no way a psychological problem. Apples and oranges. If he is on the spectrum, you WOULD need to try to protect him a little bit more than if he weren't. ASDers are notoriously gullible and easy to talk into doing things they may not even want to do, but they are very vulnerable, like much younger children. They also tend to bore easily, not listen to us if we talk too long, have obsessive interests (especially technology) and tend to break into our sentences and start talking about things we weren't even addressing. Or they just don't "get" what we mean. This isn't defiance in their cases. Your son sounds innocent and rather sweet, not like a normally rebellious difficult child who tells you how much he hates you...you may not have seen it earlier, if it is even there, because you had the monetary means to keep him afloat for so long. But now he is on his own and it isn't working out.
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