It's not just one issue it's several issues that each and every person in this household is a part of and are affected by.
It's the toxicity that lives here. It's a bad chemical mix.
Red is the catalyst and we all are promotors, triggers that help stir the chemicals together for subsequent explosion.
It's me, the mom.
My lack of ability to make the hard choices.
It's my level of stress and lack of time to take care of myself.
It's my fear of making wrong choice and how that will impact his life.
It's my not being able to put the ball entirely in his court, because I don't think he really has what it takes to make the best plays for himself.
It's me making excuses for him at every turn.
He's not balanced on meds.
He needs hospitalization.
He needs behavior therapy.
Yeah.
Whatever.
Life doesn't slow down long enough for me to think things through completely.
Life certainly doesn't stop long enough for my partner to be completely engaged in the game with me.
It's my husband, my partner, the dad.
His big reactions, his anger, his fatigue, his short fuse, his stress, his disgust, his alpha maleness wanting to protect me at any cost from the catalyst.
It's him wanting me to himself more and me having very little left to give.
It's how little time we get to spend being us ...being adults, being a couple not just being parents and decision makers.
It's how hard he has to work to keep us financially afloat because he is the soul breadwinner.
It's how absorbed he is in work and travel which leaves very little left over for patience, understanding or complete, active involvement in solving this crisis.
He is drawn to the catalyst like a magnet.
It's the fact that they are boys, brothers, teenagers full of testosterone.
Both of them, jockeying for position, authority and superiority over the other.
It's my mom literally, constantly, sitting in the middle of everything, commenting on things that are none of her business.
Our drama is her hobby.
Today she asked, what happened to my good mood?
I said, "I spent 3 hours with Red taking him to, from and sitting through a meeting with his DARS counselor."
She said, "You shouldn't spend 3 hours with him doing anything. It doesn't do any good."
Boy did that piss me off!
What if she's right?!
It's her answering questions when my children are asking me, literally echoing from another room.
It's the door that she doesn't have to close or the apartment she doesn't have to go home to.
It's her screaming, engaging, sometimes even taunting, or teasing the catalyst like another child.
Did I tell you I caught her sticking her tongue out at him the other day?
It's her adding to my "to do" list, while she is either not capable or doesn't want to do for herself any longer.
It's my guilt trip for feeling like I'm blessed to have her. I should take care of her while I can ...even if it's killing me.
It's that a year ago we had our 20th wedding anniversary celebration.
We had to put our trip to New York on hold because my mother was sick.
We have yet to reschedule it.
It's the fact that in less than three weeks, I will celebrate my 50th birthday.
I wanted to finally go on that trip with my husband to New York to celebrate.
As of today there has been no time to plan any kind of celebration.
It's not one thing.
It's all of the things.
I just want someone to come and take over.
I want to disappear until all of these problems are solved.
I know that's not realistic, but that's what I want for my birthday.
I need strength.
I need guidance.
God are you listening?
btw God ...sorry about that F word at the top. I know you know how frustrated I am feeling in this moment.
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