Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Parents don't agree although everyone else is on board

A couple days ago my wonderful Aunt made a drive out to our new house to catch up with me and talk.  She has been reading my blog and I have been asking her questions about my childhood and other instances and asked for some advice and to get her thoughts on how we are handling David's situation but in order to answer fully she wanted to get some more information.  She told me about when I was younger how sweet and caring I was and that she can't recall anyone saying "What's wrong with that kid?"  She did tell me about a time when I was in third grade when my mom called her because of something that I did on the bus and got in trouble but that's about the only trouble she knew of because she wasn't in the home with us and didn't know everything that was going on.  After speaking with her she sees some things from my past however I have been trying to explain David's and my diagnoses for the past couple of years to my family (parents and sisters) and they keep saying "I don't see anything wrong."  Every time I try to explain things to them they always try to belittle me and usually after a while of arguing I just get fed up realizing they will never understand and give up and leave.  They like to tell me about how I was when I was younger, I was cooking and cleaning and doing my own laundry when I was nine, mowing the grass when I was seven and fixing things and setting up electronics (VCR, computer and other small motor projects) by the time I was seven or eight.  I asked if they ever thought these were unnatural behaviors and they just say "No, we just thought you were advanced."  My mother was usually napping and my father was either working or drinking so needless to say my mother didn't really spend a lot of time monitoring my movements and when my dad was not working or didn't cap open his first beer of the day yet all I wanted to do was go out and play ball or toil in the garden and try to spend time with him.  The reason that I used to cook for myself was because I didn't want anyone else to touch my food because there was a certain way that I wanted it prepared, even though I ate what the rest of the family was having I had to make my own to make sure that it was prepared right.  I often cooked for the rest of the family too because I had fun doing so and I was proud when my work was done, as far as the laundry I had my own procedure that made putting the clothes away easier for me, I liked to mow the grass again for the reason that I was proud when the job was complete and I liked to make designs in the yard, each time was a different design and always with the push mower.  I'm not sure if I did it for the pleasure of completing the job or because my body enjoyed the vibration and jarring from the mower but either way I don't think any nine or ten year old child would normally volunteer to push a mower over five acres for fun when a riding one was available although I did enjoy the riding mower too for the same effects of the vibration.  With the electronics I just think that it's every boys curiosity to find out how things work so that's really no big deal there.  I raise other issues such as how I used to eat my clothes when I was younger, acting out in school, getting easily frustrated, Never having friends in my own age group (they were all either significantly older such as teachers, aunts and grandparent age or significantly younger such as my really young cousins, nieces and people quite younger.  Granted I did have a few friends in my age group but they are people that chose to reach out to me because I wouldn't reach out to them.  They like to tell me how I played football (I enjoyed the impact more than the game) and how I'm a Navy veteran (Administrative Discharge under honorable conditions) and I can get jobs.  Well it is true that I can get jobs, my problem is maintaining those jobs because of the social aspects of Aspergers.  They also tell me that they don't see anything wrong with David, sure his speech is hard to understand but he is reading at a seventh grade level.  I try to explain that aspergers doesn't ,mean stupid but it is merely a fact of social inability and struggles adapting with peers and there are many other aspects of the disorder.  They like to think that my wife and me fabricate the diagnosis (as we "did" with his food allergies) because we wanted an easy answer.  Well to be quite contradictory this is not an easy answer as it took nearly three years to get a formal diagnosis with much testing.  The problem that I am having is that other people around me that know me and have grown up with me such as aunts (both mine and my wife's), former teachers of mine and current teachers of David and former classmates and my two best friends can totally see that there is something going on with both David and me but I can not get my parents to see this.  Of all the avenues that I try I just can not get them to listen or understand, I try to give them literature to read to understand the condition, I try to ask questions of my childhood and explain why I don't think those are normal and try to reflect how David at his age is extremely similar to how I was at that age.  How can I get my parents to listen?  I have tried to avoid them at times because they make us feel unaccepted when we are there and they don't ever come over here however as soon as they call for questions or help I am always right on top of it because I am trying so hard to seek their approval.  Family is priority to me and I want to keep them close but they make me feel so distant so I want to stay away but I can't and I just wish they could understand the struggles that both David and me put up with on a daily basis, and most of all the struggles that my wife has to go through every day having to put up with both of us.  If anyone has any suggestions on this matter please feel free to let me know as I feel I have run out of options.

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