I woke up this morning thinking, Wow! I thought the worst part was over. We made it through middle school. We made it through high school. It was torture for him. It was torture for me. It was torture for his teachers and administrators, but we made it!
I thought for sure the worst was behind us, but the reality of transition to adulthood has really just pimped slapped me in the face. Bam! This kid is kicking and screaming to hold on to childhood and it's just wearing me out.
According to Wiktionary.org this is the definition of pimp slap, in case you're not familiar.
Pimp slapping is carefully demonstrated here.
I thought for sure the worst was behind us, but the reality of transition to adulthood has really just pimped slapped me in the face. Bam! This kid is kicking and screaming to hold on to childhood and it's just wearing me out.
According to Wiktionary.org this is the definition of pimp slap, in case you're not familiar.
Usage notes[edit]
- For some English speakers, there is a distinction between a pimp slap and a bitch slap, in which a pimp slap is backhanded (delivered with the back of the hand), while a bitch slap is openhanded (delivered with the palm of the hand). For most speakers, however, the two terms are synonymous, referring equally to either kind of slap.
I sat in a meeting with his Job Coach, his Occupational Therapist, his Transition Teacher, the Transition Coordinator for the school district, myself and his father yesterday to discuss his goals for his annual I.E.P. He sat there with this scowl on his face like we were all there to persecute him instead of help him. He balked, and disagreed with every suggestion and offer of support.
I'm like wow! All of these people are gathered here to help you darlin', not hurt you! We all want nothing but the best for you. But the bottom line is you have to want this for yourself! We can't want it for you!
We left that meeting after almost 2 hours and went to an appointment with his doctor. He ended up yelling at me in front of her, right there, in her office. She was quite disturbed ...shocked even. I was like, Honey, this is normal. This is just an average day.
We had a third meeting scheduled after that appointment. This one was Person Centered Planning, another group of mentors getting together to help him work on short-term goals. I knew he wouldn't make it through that meeting without exploding. I had him contact his facilitator to postpone it.
When we got home, I got him to settle down, take a shower and relax a bit. We walked through some of the scenarios discussed during the day. He was able to come to terms with a few things and actually took some action. He actually contacted his job to open up his schedule with more availability for work. The busier he is, the less time he has to get into trouble.
That's just one of the changes that we are about to implement for him.
By the time I hit my bed last night, I definitely felt like I had been pimp slapped followed by a swift kick in the a**!
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