Aspies For Freedom

As someone who did NOT have the godsend of a diagnosis at a young age, I have to disagree with Louise about its necessity.

A diagnosis would allow access to resources.  It would provide a platform on which to stand when trying to get school accomodations, when dealing with teachers who like to single out the "odd kid" for unfair treatment.  This is absurdly difficult without one, especially in schools that turn a blind eye to bullying.

A diagnosis at an early age, rather than during the teenage years, provides a female child with a chance to adapt to it before she hits the notorious adolescent self-esteem crash.  If it's not presented to her as a huge disability, odds are she's not going to regard it as one at her current age.  Half the problem a lot of kids have is that their parents find out their child is on the autistic spectrum and immediately commence with the wailing and teeth-gnashing and tearing of hair like it's a diagnosis of terminal cancer or something.  If it's handled better, presented as a difference for which coping strategies are needed rather than as a hopeless, permanent handicap, it doesn't have to be a horrible, intrusive, crushing thing.  

Kids aren't stupid.  Yeah, this means you shouldn't lie to them, but it also means they tend to know at a fairly early age that they don't fit in.  For me, a diagnosis -- or even acknowledgment that my difficulties weren't just the result of petulant childish stubbornness -- would have been a massive relief.  I could have spent time as a child learning the coping strategies I need to get by in the world as an adult, rather than having to play a horrifically stressful game of catch-up in college, rather than having spent my teenaged years in a miasma of "what the hell is wrong with me" depression.  

I'm not discounting the fact that many parents handle the diagnosis process in an extremely inappropriate manner.  However, I don't think this means that no one should get one at an early age.  It's certainly easier than trying to get one later.

My parents were authoritarian to the extreme, and their intentions were certainly not always benign (as they have more recently admitted), so I share concerns about honesty with one's children and about the idea of parents' intent always being for the best of the child being utter crap.  In an ideal world, that would be true.  In the real world, it's not, and people's assuming that's the default case is dangerous for those children who are in abusive (especially emotionally abusive)  situations.  But just because there are a lot of truly awful parents out there doesn't mean that there aren't any who are concerned about their child's being able to gain the skills he or she needs to actually be able to live an independent life later.

Just my personal perspective.  *shrugs*

Yeah, my post was incredibly mocking.   I can totally see how someone would get that from it. -_-;

I'm sorry, Lousie, but I cannot support what you say in those first 3 paragraphs.  Especially the second and third.  It is beliefs like those that keep moms from seeking help with issues like depression, make them feel insanely inferior, and drive them to desperate, destructive, acts.  Our society needs to drop this unrealistic, perfectionist attitude.

IT JUST ISN'T POSSIBLE!!!!!

Nothing makes me angrier than the assertion you shouldn't have children if you can't be the perfect parent.  As if ANYONE knows what kind of parent they will be.  They don't.  They may think they know, but God (or luck, depending on your beliefs) has a way of handing parents exactly the one type of child they never expected and have no clue how to deal with.

It is IMPOSSIBLE to know how you will deal in a situation until you are in it.  Remember my friend the super star nanny?  Surely she had a right to believe she would be a super star mom, as well, didn't she?  I think the fact that she discovered she wasn't, and that it went so far against her expectations, and the expectations of those around her, was the biggest problem she faced.

If you ever walk in a parents shoes, you will come to understand that, that your expectations for parents are IMPOSSIBLE.  Hopefully.  Or, all the worse it will be for your child.  Parents blind to their own needs by necessity becomes blind to the real world around them.

Teaching my child my culture is NOT the same as forcing him to adopt it.  Most children long for roots, a road map, and an understanding of where they came from.  Those who don't are free to discard it, at least in my little world.  I know adults who grew up with none of that, and they wish they had had it.  Almost universally.  It only becomes a problem when the parent INSISTS the child adopt it, and disciplines the child when they try to discard pieces.  Yes, we do have to realize that our children are to make their own choices, and that we are to give them wings not chains, but that does NOT mean we don't teach them what we believe.  The absense of that would be severely and negatively felt by the child.

I am sorry that your mom caused you so much stress in the little things.  I wonder, did you ever tell her?  I am discovering that many things small to me are large to my child, but as I pay attention I learn what they are.  Good parenting isn't about perfection, but it IS about paying attention.  Wondering when the child acts out if something is wrong that you aren't aware.  Knowing not to trivialize your child's issues just because they wouldn't have been issues for you.  CONSTANT REPITITION of the same mistakes most certainly must be avoided.  A good parent WILL avoid that, learning as they go.  But it is an entirely different concept than expecting that any mistake never get made at all.

I don't know your mother, and I don't know if she is one of those horrible beasts who really never should have had children, but perhaps it would be healing for you if you tried to look at things from her point of view, and spent time thinking about all the things she did right, and less about all the things she did wrong.  How aware is she of the mistakes you believe she made?  Has she ever expressed that she wished she could have understood you better, so that her choices for you could have been wiser?  If she has, can you see that she really TRIED to get it right, but was sadly as human as the rest of us?  Can you stop wondering why you weren't assigned the perfect parent and decide if you were at least assigned as good as parent as anyone else got?

I once told a friend, as she was off on a trip to apologize to her son for having messed up his life by being a severe alcoholic, "well, at least you gave him something to talk about in counseling.  You could be his scapegoat."  But, you know what?  He didn't blame her for a thing.  As much as he could have, and maybe even should have.  He saw her for the mix of good and bad and failed effort that she was.  At her wedding (2nd, obviously) he gave the most wonderful speech.  He recognized her history, but he accepted it and talked about the path it created towards her current love.

What a gift that child gave himself.

We don't forgive for the sake of those who hurt us.  We forgive for our own sakes.

ANYWAY, with Berit gone this conversation really isn't about the choice to diagnose or not anymore.  I appreciated your insights there, I really did, and I'm not sure if I've said this but that has affirmed my decision NOT to add a formal medical diagnosis to the school assessment we have.  In part, I had been lazy, not getting around to it, and then I had started to wonder if it was better this way, and now because of your feelings I'm think it IS better this way.  So, see, you do have influence even when you're driving us mad!

But, what I'm seeing, is issues that go beyond the original question.  Maybe we should look at them.

I don't think you can know.  Everyone always told me I was going to be a great mom some day, and I believed that I would.  Well, I really struggle with it.  I never expected the struggles I've had.  I do think my kids will be OK, because I can see my weaknesses and we all work around them, but it strikes me at the core when people imply I should have seen all the issues coming.

It's a major cause of depression in moms:  the disconnect between expectation and reality.  The depression is rampant, becasue the disconnect keeps growing.  I can't stand seeing the myth be fed into, because I've seen how destructive it can be.

I'm curious, though.  How does your mom see herself and her choices in raising you?  What has she said?  Do you know?

Obviously you feel she has made some very destructive choices with respect to you.  I am curious how she sees it.

She can't change the choices she has made.

You can, however, work on healing the damage.

The problem with aiming for perfection is that no one knows what "perfect" is.

I don't see models as aspirational role models at all.  They only represent one idea of beauty; there are many others equally if not even much more valid.

Trying to force everyone to agree to one concept of perfection, which is completely unascertainable for most, only causes disconnect and upset.  Especially since it isn't valid.  A rainbow would be awfully dull with only one color in it, yet if there was only one concept of the perfect color, it would have to be just one color, wouldn't it?  You should understand this, as a member of this forum.  Would you really want NT's to hold you up to their concept of the "perfect" being?  And do you find that concept valid?  I don't.

The point of human existance isn't perfection.  Life isn't measured by the goal, it's measured by the journey.  It is in the journey that we gain wisdom, and if there is anything we should aim for in our lives, it would be to gain wisdom.

If your mom truly sees you as spoiled and using tantrums to get what you want, I don't think she learned much from your diagnosis.  If she didn't learn from it, or use it to understand how your mind works, I see why you are so upset that she put you through it.  Perhaps it is this more than the diagnosis process that has you more opposed to it?  If you could see the benefits, might you have eventually felt differently?

Either that, or you've totally learned how to take advantage of the situation ... but I don't think that is true.  I see in you the true belief that there is one right answer, which is very much how my son thinks, and something I see as common to Aspies.  My job, as a parent, is to work with my son on understanding the validity of all the shades in the world.  I know that is difficult for him, but I do hope he will learn it.  You limit yourself and those around you far too much when you lock too far into one position.

Thanks for being willing to engage in this conversation.  Maybe we'll all learn something.

---

PS - the comments about tantrums reminded me about a situation with my son a few weeks ago.  We had gone with my sister to mini-golf, and for some reason my son and I are still working out, my son couldn't handle the outing.  Eventually, when he felt someone had played out of turn, he went into a full melt down.  I pulled him away and tried to help him work through it, but after 20 minutes or so both him and I agreed that the only solution was to leave the place.  So, we found my sister and I told her that my son needed to leave, now.  Her answer was that she could see that was what he wanted, but she wasn't sure we should give into it.  I told her, simply, that we had to.  We had already tried to work through it, and now we had to leave.  It was difficult for her, and I could tell she wasn't agreeing with my parental choice on it, but she accepted it.

Because of promises to my daughter, we left my son and my sister at my sister's house and went out again with my daughter, which had me a little worried because I wasn't sure my sister "got" what was going on with my son.  During that time alone with my sister my son apparently, bless his heart, explained to my sister how things felt from his side, and how hard he works not to have these melt downs.  Once I had a chance to try to explain to her that these weren't tantrums meant to manipulate, but real reflections of an inability to cope, she had already come to that understanding from talking with my son.

Maybe someday he'll learn to mimic the behavior as a way to manipulate, but I doubt it.  I don't think he has the ability to be an actor in that way.  And, I would probably know the difference, anyway.  There is a look in his eyes when he can't cope that I don't think he could fake.

So, I would suspect that your "tantrums" are and have always been more cries for help than a desire to manipulate.  Has your mother EVER understood that?  If she hasn't, I think it's a real shame.  You can't parent an Aspie with the same perceptions you parent an NT child.  My NT daughter throws tantrums meant to manipulate; my Aspie son does not.

--- (edit below)

PSS - I now see a connection between the two above concepts in my post.

I've noticed that my son seems to strive harder towards "one true answer" the more disordered he finds things around him, when either he is having sensory stimulation issues or problems with things not being as expected.  It seems to be his defensive response to it all, to try to neaten it up and make it fit into whatever box he thinks it should fit into.  That pretty much always fails, of course, because life can't be controlled that way.  Which often then accelerates into melt downs ...

I am wondering if, perhaps, it is easier for you to believe there is one true view of perfection, even if you won't ever fit it, than to accept that the world is unpredictable and chaotic, and that is actually necessary to it's evolution?

Around here people call them Binkies.

My kids never were interested in them, and I often wished they had been.  Seems like it makes things a little easier for the parents ....

We've actually decided, as a family, to use a different word for those need driven melt downs.  Tantrum is such a negative word, and parents are taught to never give in to them.  So, my son uses the term "freak out" to distinguish what is going on.  If I were to ever think he was being manipulative, I would tell him:  this doesn't look like a freak out, it looks like a tantrum, and I don't give in to tantrums.

It also clarifies the difference for my 5 year old NT daughter, who really does throw classic tantrums in the hopes of getting what she wants.  She's pretty smart, though, and sometimes tries to argue that it's not a tantrum but a freak out.   Um, no.  I can tell  :wink:  Although, yes, she can freak out, too, much more midly, of course, it isn't when she SAYS she is freaking out.

My son is 9, fourth grade, by the way.

It sounds like your mother has no clue on how to understand you, Louise.  No wonder you have so much anger.  But can you see, that unless she learns to see gray, and learns to see beyond the way she currently orders the world, she never will understand you?  I can see these things in my son precisely because I have pragmatism.  If I didn't, I don't know how I would ever reconcile his world with mine, and bring them into harmony.  So, I find it interesting that you would reject my world view, when it seems so necessary to raising a child much like you were ...

Not sure if I said that all right.  I'm not a philosopher or linguist!  But I do mostly learn by living, and that living has taught me to see the world in billions of shades of grey.

Perhaps you and I have a simple definitional problem.  I refer to shades of grey to indicate that there can be no one-size-fits-all answer; you seem to be saying of course there isn't, because each situation is looking at a different set of minute black and white dots.  OK, I can buy that:  for any one given situation, with only the one specific person, there may be one best answer.

It's when you try to take that answer and spread it out to others that it may no longer apply, and I start talking about gray.

True, no one else can see from another's perspective as well as the individual, but there are some mitigating factors to giving over maximum possible control:

First, by necessity children must live with others.  And living with others involves accomodating the needs of the others.  There are times I make decisions for my children based on what I need alone.  If the wheels come off from me, my children will be negatively affected.  So, while I try to be equitable and balance everyone's needs, there are times it just has to be my way, or the wheels come off and the whole family slides down the hill.  But, at least, I'm honest about it.

Second, there is value in the lessons parents have learned simply by walking on this world a long time.  There are things children are unlikely to know, because they lack experience.  It can be a very fine line to walk, to decide when a child's choice is wrong because it is made from an inadequate knowledge base, as v. simply not your own way of doing things, but there are times it applies.

Agreed, tenaciouscj.

It is the parent's duty to do their best to balance the needs and opinions in their families.  It has to fall to someone, and it falls to the parents.  For better or for worse.

Agreed.  I do recognize there are times my children have to have it their way, or their wheels will come off.  A lot of people consider me a pretty loose parent, because I do involve my children in most decisions, and do give into them quite a bit (more important than specific rules is consistency, so if the kids have my number on something, well, they have my number!).  I believe there is power in at least giving them the sense of self-determination, even if the actuality isn't always possible.

It's been so cool these last few months, seeing my kids take on responsibility out of their own choice.  I was terrible at teaching them to clean up after themselves, there was always so much else that seemed more important, and it's been a huge source of irritation for me how messy they've been.  But, they are coming to see the benefits of picking up after themselves for themselves, and initiating it.  And now they feel proud about it, not harassed.  They beam with pride when they do chores!  I LOVE it!!!!

If it comes to everyone's wheels coming off ... ouch, that's a tough call!  But, then, you probably have to keep on the parent's wheels, since they at least know how to pick up and put back on the child's wheels ... hopefully.

Sorry to hear that.

I knew my response couldn't be more than a "hopefully."

But it's like the oxygen on the airplane ... if the parent doesn't get their own mask on, odds are everyone will die.

If would be nice if life never handed us such difficult choices.

Do you feel your mom had nothing but bad choices, or that she was selfish, in those moments?

Mine's not, thank goodness!  But, then, she never was patronizing towards me.  She has always, and always will, let me know what she thinks, in a positive way, but she respects my right to think differently.

We all have to make difficult choices sometimes.  Your choice here sounds to me like a very reasonable one.

I know you hate your mother, but I sense hope for your some-far-off-day relationship in that you don't seem to find her evil, just unable to make wise choices.  That gives you a basis from which to someday forgive her.  And, also, strength to ignore her in the here and now when you need to.  That should lesson her power to hurt you any further.

I know it's difficult for you to share personal things, but I'm glad you've been willing to share some with us.

YOU are not a mistake.

If a mistake has been made, it has been by those who have allowed your life to be miserable.