Where were the kids? God blessed us. Blue went out to spend time with his friend and his family...you know, people he can actually get along with. They had a blast! Dinner, bowling, games at his friend's house. His friend J's mom sends me pictures of him smiling...an expression I haven't seen since early Christmas morning.
Red...went off to a church function with his Pastor and family. Everything is all good until 10 p.m., when Red came home and started ranting about who knows what. Scratch!!!! Party's over! At least we had 3 hours of peace.
New Years Day, the anxiety about starting school sets in and Red is hell bent on fixating about it until the point of meltdown by the evening. We try to mitigate the situation by taking the family out to one of their favorite places, "Fry's Electronics" for a little shopping. Then off to Red's favorite restaurant for dinner, "BJ's". He sits at the table with the ugliest mug he could possibly put on his face...as if he was being water-boarded and tortured there at his favorite place. This was enough to make hubby want to walk out after we got our drinks. After dad threatens to walk out...he changes his attitude long enough to eat and order dessert. After that...it's on! Full steam ahead towards meltdown!
His mind is on school that would start the following day.
"I'm not going to school tomorrow! I hate that school! I hate my teachers! They treat me like I'm a baby! They don't give me any freedom!" etc.
"I'm not going to sleep tonight! I'm going to stay up all night playing games!"
A little tricky micky said otherwise. Gave him a little medicine to help him calm down and by 9:30 p.m. He was out like a light!
Now what idiot in our school district decided to start school on Monday, January, 2nd...I do not know. But it was a dumb move! No time for transitioning from the holidays. Families are traveling, etc. Every other school in the area and across the country, starts on the 3rd or after. I was really annoyed. Me not being a rule follower and all...I had half a mind to keep them out for the day. In truth, it doesn't matter when they start...Red and most teens with Aspergers, would have a hard time transitioning back to the school schedule. Besides, I'd had about enough of both of both of them and could use the break. You know what they say, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder!"
Now Blue...is pretty happy to be back to his school routine. However, what we used to think was a miracle in the form of Abilify...has now become a bad dream. It's not working for him anymore. We have increased it, added to it, and still he is a ticking time bomb...ready to explode at any given moment. It probably has something to do with hormones. The loose schedule and the anxiety of Christmas doesn't help...but geez! My "easy" child has turned into...I don't know what. He's almost unrecognizable...at least here at home with his family.
After a long first day back at school, Blue has a D.I. (Destination Imagination) meeting. He comes home and goes bananas on his brother who is "Not playing the game right!" "I'm just trying to help him...but he's such an idiot! He won't listen to me!"
I feed him and get him out the door because he insists that he has to do his homework at the library. He gets home at 9 p.m. I ask him to take a shower. He goes ballistic! "I'm not doing it! It's too late! I have to go to bed early! Did you think of that?!" He argues a good 15 minutes...in which time, the shower could have been taken already. He finally gets in, but he's banging on the walls. In hindsight...I probably could have let this one go. But it was just the belligerent tone, and disrespect that made me stick to my guns. I felt like...if I start letting him get away with talking to me like shit and refusing to do things...it will only get worse.
He has worked himself up so much...that he is now too angry to go to sleep. The easy answer here is that he hasn't had any downtime. It's been an excruciatingly long day. But these kind of meltdowns were not happening a year ago. And even with the tweaks and additions to medication, they are happening more frequently. He becomes frustrated with himself. He hates feeling so out of control and angry.
"I hate being a teenager!" he says. I don't think I like all that much myself.
Oh yeah...Happy New Year! I don't know about that. Perhaps it will be...but not yet.
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
Robots for kids
Robotic Online Classes
Robotics School Projects
Programming Courses Malaysia
Coding courses
Coding Academy
coding robots for kids
Coding classes for kids
Coding For Kids
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