I kindly ask him to remove himself from my room until he can have a civilized, respectful conversation. He is spinning things and what he is saying does not add up. He is not making much sense. It's crazy talk. I can't figure out exactly what happened. I ask him to leave my room until he calms down. He refuses. "But I NEED TO TALK to you!"
"I will be glad to talk to you once you have calmed down." After much coaxing...and by coaxing I mean, "If you don't leave my room now...I'm going to start swinging this belt! If you happen to be in the way of it's landing...then so be it!"
This boy is twice my size...I can not physically remove him, but he has to go! I can see that he is not completely out of control...just angry.
An hour later we have a more lucid conversation. It's beginning to sound like it was a good conversation with the Campus Resource Officer. The officer was just walking through the class saying hello to one of the teachers. He is a very friendly guy. Red walked in to the class, saw him, and they start talking. It was kind of a mentoring session...and yes, they do talk about the incident with the friend in the hallway the week before. He explains the law about following people, and making them feel "uncomfortable" and what the results of that can be. They go on talking for over an hour about a variety of subjects.
However, by the time he gets home, he has it turned it all around in his mind. His irrational fear of being arrested like they do on "Cops", pepper spray, beating the suspect, etc. settles in to his mind. What is coming out of his mouth does not have anything to do with what actually happened.
Lucky for me, I have leave to go leave to go to Open House at Blue's school. When I come into Red's room before bedtime we have this very lucid conversation where he tells me, that everyone at the high school is just trying to do their job. "You don't understand mom. They are all trying to help me. I have to take responsibility for my actions. I am a good person. I have a good heart and I come from a good family. There are no criminals in our family. No one is in jail...and I won't be either."
He goes on to say, "Mrs. Blank (his special ed. teacher) helps me a lot! I can't leave to go to a private school. I really need her to help me. No one else is going to help me like she does. I can't leave all of my friends there. I'm starting to make friends there. I'm not kidding Mom! I am not going to that private school!" He takes it a step further, and has the same basic conversation with his dad the following morning before school. NOTE: In his "responsible" state of mind he actually gets up ON TIME..on HIS OWN, and is ready BEFORE the bus comes. So it is possible!
20 minutes later...he arrives at school. Suddenly, the irrationality reappears. He walks into the classroom where his loving, helpful, teacher is and starts, "Why the HECK DID YOU MAKE ME TALK TO THAT OFFICER YESTERDAY!?" He goes on and on and on all day long...refusing to do any work. Mind you...she had nothing to do with his talking to the officer.
By the time he gets home yesterday, "Mrs. Blank is a liar! She's the worst person I've ever met! I can't go to that freakin' school anymore! Mrs. Blank just wants me to go to jail! That's all she ever talks about. She lies to you! She talks badly about you! And she lies to me!"
Whew! And we're just in the second week of school. There is no school for Red this morning. Instead, we spend the morning in the Psychiatrist office getting his meds adjusted...again. I think I may need to get mine adjusted. I just want to zone out and not feel every one of these crazy emotions that he goes through. If I feel this bad...I can only imagine what he is actually going through.
My Facebook status last night, "Forget the margarita...maybe I just just have a shot!" And trust me...I'm a lightweight.
If you are new to the blog...you are morally obligated to vote here before leaving. It is a requirement! And you regulars...you've been sleeping on the job! Get to clicking! Thanks.
p.s. I love your comments...
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 · 122 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