He's standing over me and refuses to leave the room. He starts getting louder and louder because I continue to focus on what I am doing. I leave the room. I go to my bedroom where my husband is sleeping. I close and lock the door. He is on my heels. He knocks. I say, "You need to step away from the door. Your dad is sleeping." He doesn't move until my husband speaks up. He goes into his room and starts a chat with me on Facebook. I tell him that I don't appreciate the way he is treating me. He is being disrespectful and I will not help him under those circumstances. We go back and forth for a while, I hope that maybe seeing in print what he is actually doing will help him get it. He doesn't. He turns it back around on me and gets so frustrated that soon he is back at the door. This time refusing to leave and starting to scream, "It's NOT FAIR!" He screams like a heavy metal rocker.
He clearly wants us to feed into the hysteria. I decide to completely remove myself from the situation so that he can regain his composure. He tries to follow me to the car. "NO...MOM Don't LEAVE!" I drive away into the night wandering around aimlessly for a bit. I want to go have a drink. I don't really want to call a girlfriend. I don't really want to walk into a restaurant alone either. I option for the latter. I go to my favorite place, where all the waitresses know my name, favorite drink and appetizer of choice. They ask, "Is your husband joining you?" He is not. I just needed to get out for a bit.
After what I've been through the past two weeks. I just can't take anymore. I think about the fact that in a few days, I will also have an additional child in the house, their cousin. I will be in full-time mother, auntie, entertainment mode. I NEED A BREAK! "14's" antics have been relentless. Yes...I know it's the autism, but I appear to be it's target and before I get either A) become violent or B) have my own meltdown...I need to take a breather. (By the way...the violent part wouldn't really work for me. He's much bigger and stronger than I am.)
I pack my bag and announce that I am leaving the following morning after I drop "14" at camp. I make this announcement to everyone but him. I tell him, just as he gets out of the car at camp. "NO! Don't leave! Can I come with you?" Hell NO! I think, but do not say.
I am so exhausted from not sleeping the night before and from pure anxiety, I don't know how I will make the drive to Houston. I actually pull into the Central Market parking lot, park the car underneath a tree and fall asleep for an hour. I know...this is nuts, but I'm desperate. I wake up rejuvenated, go buy myself and iced coffee, a kolache, turn on my Ipod and hit the road! I jam The Police, and hip hop music all the way there to keep myself awake.
My best friend welcomes me into her home and suggests that I have a day at the spa and just rest. I sleep like a baby in her daughters comfy bed. In fact, I sleep until 11 a.m. the first day, and after a night of partying, I sleep until 12:45 p.m. the second day. I keep my phone on silent and refuse to answer the barrage of phone calls from "14". "11" calls me with words of comfort, "Mom, I hope you're getting rest and enjoying yourself." (By the way, he went out with Dad and bought my favorite flowers and had them waiting for me when I came home.)
"14" actually had the nerve to put disparaging remarks on my Facebook Page. He didn't appreciate me telling my friends that I was enjoying the peace and quiet. He posts..."MOM! Come back!!!! Stop Hiding like a little girl!" Totally inappropriate and disrespectful...and you wonder why I'm gone? I am embarrassed that my friends can see this, but at least now they know I'm not exaggerating! They can easily see exactly why I ran away.
I send a note to his friend's mom asking her to please pick him up for church, pray with him, pray for him! She did. That day, he wrote me a note and apologized. He also removed his negative comments from Facebook. He said he prayed for God to help him with his behavior and that he would do his best when I came home. At this point, I tend to believe that not all the medication or therapy in the world can help him. It's going to take a miracle...we definitely need God for that.
Logging you in...
Adelaide Dupont · 285 weeks ago
And for those of us who knew and appreciated these points in high school to a greater or lesser extent - always good to have a refresher and feel them through the current and future generations who we survived to be able to see.
I especially appreciated points 5, 7 and 10.
And young women not settling or settling down yet is a good thing.
"It's never too late to live our dreams" - but it may be too early for some of them!
And 8 of course.
nicole · 243 weeks ago
Risa · 230 weeks ago
LAH · 221 weeks ago
Maira L. Coral · 216 weeks ago
I was looking for information for my Multi-Genre Disability Research Project from my Early Childhood Special Education class on the web, when suddenly I came across your blog. I started reading this out of curiosity and I want to tell you that as you said yourself, you will not be Amanda Gorman, but you managed to make me shed some tears, perhaps because I felt totally identified with your words, especially in the part that you speak of your son. My son also has Asperger's syndrome, he is 19 years old and he is in the second semester of College. Also like yours, he takes classes from home, likewise my eldest daughter is also taking college classes from her room. At the same time, that I work as a preschool teacher from my kitchen through a computer, my husband sleeps in the room during the day because he works at night. Also in the afternoons I myself take virtual school classes. I am a 51-year-old Latin woman who began to learn the English language as adult, so maybe you find some deficiencies in my writing, however, I was very moved by how proud you express yourself about your son. Referent your mother, I liked the humorous tone that you give when your talk about her, so I did not want to miss this opportunity and stopped my assignments for a moment to let you know that your words do make a difference, since they reach the heart of at least those who have opportunity to read you. I want confess you that is the most long I have written to someone I don't know, because your words inspired me, thank you...
Gavin Bollard · 209 weeks ago
Thanks for this post. I've been very distracted of late and so this was how I found out about our friend Kate. Kate's struggles were very real but they were so constant and so wide-ranging that it was difficult for people around her to address them. I think it's going to take a while longer for me to process all this.
I learned so much from Kate because she was always quick to point out the many injustices in the world. In her glory days, she was very much a crusader and she cared for everyone. Over the years, as her situation took its toll, I came to realise that it was the fact that she couldn't be put in a single specific category, that made the system fail her. She needed help that they weren't set up to provide.
She needed more care and she needed to be less alone. I'm so sorry that this has happened.
For a long while we were corresponding almost every day but a couple of months ago, I realised that she had become so stressed that nearly every interaction I had with her was starting to trigger her. I backed away to give her a bit more space. She only had a little time that she could stand to be online and there were too many things that she wanted to do in that time. I thought that by taking a step back, she could reach out to more people who might be geographically closer and able to assist.
Kate was a beautiful soul and she will be sorely missed by all of us.
diyalabs6192603 11p · 192 weeks ago
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Spoil your cat · 121 weeks ago
Many of these living arrangement aren't good, and many of the people who run those places really don't have the residents' best interest at heart. Those places are like old age homes and foster homes, where you sometimes hear horror stories. They're hard to trust. But then there are good ones, of course.
The best thing for an autistic adult is either to go on living at home or working and renting an apartment and living independently, but that isn't always an option.
Duncan · 112 weeks ago