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Category: autism in marraige
I’ve been doing some light research on autism etc. for various reasons and I came across something that disturbs me. There are so many people being told their children and themselves as well will never be able to exist on their own, to live their own lives, to love someone or be loved by someone. That they and their children, their loved ones are doomed to a life of perpetual supervision and loneliness.
It makes me ask one question among the hundreds that flit through my ADD brain…ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME???
PLEASE stop pushing this garbage on people, and children especially!!!
My wife grew up without ever being diagnosed. She is high functioning, and struggles in so many areas. And she struggled without ever knowing she was autistic. Along the way, she had too many bad experiences to count but she developed into an intelligent, driven young lady, who despite all the challenges she faced persevered and is still fighting today!
She was living on her own at age 14 and raising her 3 brothers in lieu of parents who were there but didn’t make any of their kids a priority. She worked several jobs at once, maintaining a place to live that her brothers could come stay at whenever they wanted. She went to school, she went to church, she dated, got hurt, dated again, got fired from jobs, quit others, but always came back.
If anyone reading this has ever been told they have no hope of ever being loved or loving someone let me tell you right now that is LIE!!!
I didn’t know my wife had autism till we had been married for around 10 years. There was plenty about her that I could not explain, but you know what? Because I loved her I let them go and kept at it. Our marriage was ROUGH the first 10 years. Mostly due to my immaturity and stupidity, but dealing with the issues which arose because of her autism (though we didn’t know it was autism) was not easy on either of us.
But I have to say this, without my wife’s devotion to family, her drive to make our marriage work, and her ability to forgive, I would not be the man I am today. I most likely would not even be around to type these words, I would have given up on myself and ended my pain, but SHE gave me reason to hope, reason to change. She inspired me, she showed me how to truly love someone and how beautiful love could be. My children, and myself are so lucky to have her, autism and all. Her autism doesn’t make her less…it makes her more…more than I am …more than anyone else I know.
So keep the faith. There is hope for you. You are not doomed. You can and will lead a full satisfying life. There may be some limitations you might have to adjust to, but just don’t give up.
My wife put her heart and soul into our marriage. She put her heart and soul into her book. And though she’s stuck with a husband like me, tonight at least she was honored for her hard work and dedication on one front. Tonight was the Awards ceremony for the Reader’s Favorite Book Awards, which she took second place in her category.
I am so proud of her. She deserves recognition for so much more than this but at least she is being recognized for her work on this book.
Congratulations Jeannie. I love you and I am so very proud of you.
As you may know my wife decided to write a memoir about her growing up with undiagnosed Asperger’s Syndrome. If you’ve visited my blog you’ve seen the picture of the book on the right hand side. It looks like this…
2013 Readers Favorite International Book Awards Silver Book Award
Well some interesting tidbits for you who are interested is that this is my wife’s first published book . (OK so it’s self-published so what?), and she not only wrote it, but she designed the book cover completely on her own, (I had some slight input), and she then formatted it for e-readers all by herself as well. We did hire an editor (any one who is writing a book needs one),
Now for the good part, (yes it does get better), we entered her memoir in a book contest, and she WON! She came in 2nd place in an international book contest!! The name is the 2013 Reader’s Favorites International Book Awards!!!
I am SO proud of her!!! AND she is taking Aspie Teen with her to the awards ceremony in MIAMI FLORIDA later this month. I wanted to go, but with the time I took off from work for the birth of the baby (who is a humungous chunk by now BTW), and the trip to NYC to bury her father, I don’t have the time on the books at work to take off. PLUS taking Tantrum Tot and the baby and Monkey Boy and Aspie Teen to FL right now is just too much….
To be honest, she is kind of freaking out about going without me. And I’m very nervous about not being there for her as well, but I insisted that she go. She doesn’t get nearly enough accolades for doing the job she does raising the boys, saving their lives when the communication differences between me and them flare up, maintaining a blog, being the Autism expert on Answers.com and writing her articles, and having the gift she does to learn…she truly is an amazing woman and now finally she has an opportunity to stand up and be recognized for all she does.
So thank any of you who have bought the book, or read the book. And if you haven’t left a review on Amazon, would you please do so? And if you haven’t bought it, go ahead, Christmas is coming…treat yourself and splurge on the e-book! It’s only $3.99…and if you have an Amazon Prime account, you can borrow it for free!
And would you please go to our Facebook page and add/like us? You guys are the best!
This is an ongoing frustration for me being an NT dad & husband. I’m kind of old school in a lot of ways. Dealing with my kids is definitely something that I keep jumping back to my old ways of thinking, (before I found out my wife and kids were Aspie’s.) With.
It frustrates me having to explain everything I say to them. I’ve never liked having to explain my reasoning and motives for every little thing. Especially to kids. I mean I’m the dad right? Shouldn’t “Because I said so” be sufficient reason for a 9 year old?
And shouldn’t “because I want to”, or “because that’s the way I’ve always done it” or “just because” be enough reason for why I do things? I’m a grown man after all…(my teenaged six pack of a stomach giving way to a man sized 3 liter of a stomach is proof enough of that right?)
But these are things I daily have to remind myself of. My kids and my wife want to and need to understand reasons and motives. They can’t just grin and go with it, because without understanding, they feel lost and sometimes adrift. And though we all feel that way sometimes, my wife and kids really are effected very differently when they feel like that.
This may seem strange to other NT’s and sometimes it may feel like Aspie’s are control freaks…but it’s not really true. Sometimes it’s just that since their reasoning isn’t the same as ours, they feel extremely disconnected from us because they can’t understand why we’re doing what we’re doing and why.
This causes feelings of panic, anxiety, loneliness and isolation. And confusion! My kid can’t understand WHY he gets recess taken away when he forgets to have us sign a paper. “But I did my homework assignments !” But getting that paper signed was an assignment too…”But it’s not LISTED as an assignment!” (Even my wife has problems with that one).
So every day I have to take a deep breath, even grit my teeth when necessary…and remember…it’s not insolence…it’s not defiance…it’s just them being them. ..the way they are…and though I would spare them the difficulties they are going to have of I could..I wouldn’t change them for anything.
We are currently back in the doctors office for part two of Aspie Teens diagnosis. They were unable to complete the process last time. So here we are again.
I have Aspie Monkey Boy, Aspie Wife and of course Aspie Baby with me. Monkey Boy came home today near tears due to the fact that I apparently forgot to sign a quiz he had gotten an F on in school which was in his take home folder, which resulted in his losing recess today.
Now it makes no sense to me, that a child would be penalized for something a parent did or didn’t do. Perfect example is punishing the student because their parents got them to school late. Last time I checked a 9 year old couldn’t drive himself to school!
My wife is livid and can’t let it go and Monkey Boy is beside himself.Parent teacher conferences are next week and wifey is already planning her attack. Additionally, he left his homework folder in school again so I had to run him back to school to get it again, but when he got home he was near tears and throwing stuff from his book bag around.
Now we are sitting in the waiting room and Monkey Boy has his books on one little table and his bag is dropped in the middle of the floor. Now he has spread across the waiting room to where we are sitting. I told him to get back on his side and leave the empty spaces clear..to which he violently objected and of course his mother couldn’t see what was wrong with it.
These are the little things that drive me crazy being the only NT in the house. No-one understands why I object to certain things which makes me have to explain myself/reasoning which no-one understands let alone agrees with so my frustration level rises exponentially.
AND the doctor just brought Monkey Boy back to the waiting room because apparently they found him on the stairs going to the attic! He went to another waiting room to watch TV and apparently got bored!!!
Dear God I need a drink.
It’s been a long time…I shouldn’t have left you…without a dope blog to step to…
SORRY!!!! I wanted to open the blog with the statement “It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything here”…and the song “Make Them Clap to This” by Erik B and Rakim flashed across my head!! (Dangers of my AADD brain).
Anyway as you know my wonderful Aspie Wife delivered a wonderful baby boy (our 4th) amidst the usual drama which revolves around our lives. Mom is doing well and recovering from her Synthesis Pelvic Dysfunction with the help of this fantastic Chiropractor where we live (originally from Long Island NY), and plenty of bed rest, even though she keeps trying to over do it.
The labor went well with the use of an Epidural (the first time she’s used it), but the recovery time afterwards has been kind of insane. Despite all our repeated speaking to the doctors and nurses in the hospital regarding her paradoxical reactions to medication, they gave her Percocet, both before and after her delivery. Before she had the baby, we were regulating her intake at home and she was taking half a pill every 3-4 hours instead of the prescribed 1-2 tablets every 2-4 hours as needed. At first she was doing great on it. Then after the epidural, they increased her dosage at the hospital to a whole tablet every 3-4 hours. The day she came home, she continued that dosage, but almost immediately after started having EXTREME panic attacks. I’m talking about staying up till 3 am walking around the van in the parking spot in front of our house drinking a gallon of water, vomiting style panic attacks.
Well of course her being the Aspie minded individual she is, started researching the next day and lo and behold, found out that Percocet can cause panic attacks in those who are already prone to having them! Well my wife had severe panic and anxiety disorders earlier in her life, which we’ve told the doctors…AND I mentioned her reactions to the doctors and nurses at the hospital every chance I got. I’ve come to the conclusion that they just don’t know what these medications can do to people. That the sales reps from the drug companies don’t tell them, and they being the busy professionals they are, never get a chance to research it so they just don’t know before prescribing these meds. It’s the only scenario that makes any sense.
Anyway, we’ve more or less gotten through that stage as the meds left her system. The new baby is doing well, and I’ve had enough time on the books to take off till the end of next week to help her recover. It amazed me that the size of a newborn pamper is about the size of my smart phone!
I’ve been able to do SO much clean up in the house to get ready, although I still haven’t built up the strength to go into the Cave of Aspie-ness which is the boys room. it took me 3 days to clean out the baby’s room! (remember the a/c hasn’t been working up there all summer so it’s been throw it upstairs and I’ll deal with it later all summer). The a/c STILL is not working but now at least once I go through the Aspie Cave with a blow torch and a light saber, I can get to the point where I can call someone to take a look at the a/c unit without being MORTIFIED about the state of the house. I’ve been doing laundry for about a week and am finally at the end of the tunnel in that battle. I fixed the shower in the upstairs bathroom so the boys don’t have to use ours downstairs anymore (go me!) and I went through the dark vortex which is our laundry room and you can actually walk in there again! I went through the linen closet and still have a large bin of crap to go through and decide what’s staying and what’s going to the laundry room …and I still have to go through my closet and drawers and throw about 80% of my crap away. Also MAJOR victory the Thomas the Train bed is GONE from my living room! I was finally able to get it upstairs and Tot’s asleep in it now! Let’s hope he lasts the whole night up there!
Luckily the boys all love their new brother, especially Tantrum Tot. However, we’ve hit a snag. (You just KNEW that was coming didn’t you guys?) Tantrum Tot has become increasingly more and more difficult. His meltdowns are coming more frequently and he starts screaming and fighting me and his mother and brothers for the slightest provocations. He gets mad and starts throwing things around (with uncanny accuracy and strength for a 2 year old), and he’s been physically attacking us while screaming at the top of his lungs. The other day after picking him up from day care, we went through the drive through pharmacy (those are COOL, they don’t have those in NYC), and next thing I knew I was hit in the side of the head with his toy phone! He knocked my blue tooth device smack off my head! My wife of course busted out laughing even while in shock…thank GOD I wasn’t actually driving at the time!
This is what hit me on the side of the head!
The frequency and the intensity of these episodes is VERY concerning for us ESPECIALLY with an infant in the house. It’s been emotionally draining for both me and his mother. The boys don’t/can’t understand what is going on. A trusted Psychologist we know told us to physically restrain him during the more violent outbursts while verbally trying to soothe him. I had to do that the other night and it left him in tears being comforted by his mother and me near tears because I HATED to have to do that to him, but he was really getting out of control and his new brother was in the room and we had to act immediately to ensure Aspie Baby wasn’t hurt.
Today we had to take the Tot with us to Walmart to go grocery shopping since we don’t have a sitter anymore. We HAD to go to Walmart even though we both can’t stand that place…because it’s the only place where they have electric scooter/chairs my wife can use due to her pelvic issues. While he was well behaved for him, he still had a few tantrums (not meltdowns) and caused some more of the hair on my head to go gray. When we got home, even more meltdowns and another violent episode. I gotta tell you I’m getting very very concerned about this. They seem to be increasing and my emotional ability to process them is decreasing. If any of you could steer me towards any good articles on dealing with this I’d really appreciate it!
Anyway I’m going to go try and lay down in between feedings. I can’t wait till this one’s schedule is right!
My wife, who is an Aspie cannot take meds that are supposed to put her to sleep. Instead of going too sleep and staying asleep she regains consciousness and jumps up in a panicked state.
Meds that would put me out for hours (and have) , merely induce a mild state of relaxation in her followed swiftly by the onset of panic.
During dental procedures the novacaine fades almost immediately after her being injected. Which causes no end of trouble.
I am wondering if any of you have similar experiences when taking such meds?
Our theory is that people with ASD metabolize these chemicals differently.
Please share your experiences with us?
I just wanted to go on record with something. My wife is a truly amazing woman!!!
Many of you have come to my blog because you follow her blog so you have an inkling as to how bright and brilliant she is.
But you know what?? I went to take a minute to brag about her because you just don’t know.
She is one of the bravest women I’ve ever met. And one of the smartest. At any given time we have some major things going on in our lives. Things we don’t talk about here on our blogs. And misty off the time its her tenacity that inspires ME to action.
She will not back down..especially when defending our kids. In many ways she ids the watchdog of our family. Our kids love her to death. (And some days I think it might just be her death). Despite all the SPD issues she battles with, she continues to allow them to be kids, more than even I do. A lot of Times,I ‘m trying to reign then in because I know how much the noise sets her on edge, but she’ll yell at me too leave them alone.
For the past week or so, she’s been in so much pain. I’m talking tears in her eyes, pain worse than labor pain, can’t walk further than the drivers seat of the minivan in front of the house and back. She alternates all day between the sofa and the bed and still is in pain 24/7.
And through it all, she still is taking Tantrum Tot to daycare (with Aspie. Teens help), helping Aspie Teen navigate the new online school he’s in, doing school work and trying too write articles for answers.com to help bring money in to the house.
Last night she let me pass out since I had been awake since 3:20 a.m.. even though she was in pain.
Today, she’s been feeling sho depressed and scared, and she still sends me a text apologizing for feeling down!!
Listen ladies when your pelvis sound like rice crispies and your body is gearing up to push a Volkswagen out an opening the size of a silver dollar you can be freaking anxious all you want!!!!
I love her so much and I’m so proud of all she’s accomplished since her diagnosis…
I am so lucky too have her!
You know you are in an Aspie relationship when your significant other can say this to you and you just roll off the pillow and go to sleep.
My wife has a very appropriate nickname in my house. The Princess of Pillows…(among other ones that won’t be listed here) LOL. This particular name stems from the fact that every night, she is surrounded by a mountain of pillows. One behind her back, one in front of her stomach, and two in between her legs. Not to mention the one her head sits on.
So needless to say this mountain of pillows leaves not very much room left for me! And then the kids come in. Aspie Teen is almost as tall and wide as I am. He is flat out not allowed in the bed any longer! Aspie Monkey Boy is around 4 foot 5. He loves to burrow under the blankets and pop his head up the other side and try to stake a claim to a spot in the middle.
Tantrum Tot will go to bed and halfway through the night come in my room and smack me in the head with either his hand or his sippy cup and make me put him in between us. Only there’s one catch. Once he’s settled, I can’t stay! He’ll either kick me in the kidneys till I get up or he’ll point imperiously and say GO! And since I don’t want him to stay awake, I’ll go to the foot of the bed or to the sofa. Just until he falls back asleep, (or so I tell myself). The problem with that is I usually end up passing back out and not waking up till it’s time for me to get ready for work.
But through it all my wife remains buried in her fortress of pillow-tude. I realize she needs this fortress. She has to have it. She cannot sleep without it. But when you’re in a king sized bed and there’s no room for Daddy, it can sometimes become a bit ridiculous.
I’ve even threatened to trade up the king sized bed to a queen sized bed. LOL Not that I’d ever do it. Most guys would love this facet of her Aspie-ness. She does not have an overwhelming need to cuddle. In fact she’s very guy-ish about not needing to cuddle at all. Even after intimacy….it’s lke wow, ok now get off my pillows! LMAO
Life with an Aspie partner is never dull. Never quite normal either, but never dull.
In all the madness dealing with Tantrum Tot’s diagnosis and the trip and the in law, I didn’t have a chance to post this. But I need to make sure I don’t rob the credit that Aspie Teen is due.
We have been watching Master Chef with Aspie Teen (14) every week. Aspie Teen has been developing his skills in the kitchen and this show is encouraging that. I have got to say that we are hoping this is a special interest that he continues to go after. To that end we are trying to encourage him to pursue it and he’s been learning how to cook.
I don’t usually like doing a lot for my birthday. Besides always being short on cash for the special events in our lives, it’s just too much drama trying to get a sitter for the Tot. The only one we can trust is usually the monster in law…and most of the time she makes it SO not worth it. We might go out, but more often than not just end up either making a dinner or cutting a cake on birthdays and special occasions. But this year Aspie Teen got an idea into his head that he wanted to make me a Master Chef Dinner.
So while I was at work, wifey took him shopping for the necessary ingredients and the pan that was needed to do what he wanted. He searched the Master Chef website, and watched YouTube videos on how to do what it was he wanted. He devoted his time and energy to making me something special. I am so proud of him. He did such a great job. I LOVE that he expended the energy he did to show me he loved me as only he could do.
After all the arguing, after all his pestering me every week for a new video game and getting yelled at for it, after all the oh my GOD how did this kitchen get this trashed AGAIN…he took the time to research, to watch, to talk to his mother…and produce THIS
Now I’m a guy…which means I’m a carnivore. I LOVE meat…Steak especially. My wife took Aspie Teen to buy New York Strip steaks…and he LEFT THE FAT on them…(WHICH I LOVE)…and he made mashed potatoes and green beans with butter, garlic and lemon juice. The steak was one of the BEST I’ve had in a LONG time. I’m not just saying this because he’s my son…this steak was SUPERB…he made it medium rare just the way I like them…it was tender, it was juicy and it was EXCELLENT. Nothing says I love you Dad like steak…unless it’s your son taking the time to investigate, research and purposely execute cooking said steak! Well done Aspie Teen…Bravo…
myaspiewife 