A conversation with my son

[islandria]

Hey. I'm new here but I wanted to post a little note about the conversation I had today with my son. I've always felt very close to my son (he's 26). Today he stopped by (he lives on one of the nearby islands so I see him periodically. He stayed 3 hours and we mostly talked about aspergers. I've been reading a little on the symptoms and contemplating alot on recognizing my own symptoms. It's a bit of a brain twister to do this for the first time in your life after being completely unaware for your whole life. I feel that educating yourself (at least this is true for me) on aspergers and what it means to be on the autistic spectrum (love that spectrum) will, although difficult at first will serve you (and others) in the long run. I'm already noticing wonderful truths in myself and it's only been a few days. There's so much to learn!!much

 

[islandria]

Sorry. If I touch my phone in a certain way I lose some of what I write. Now it's only giving me a few words per line. I hope it doesn't show up that way! Anyway - long story short. We have 4 grown children. When I went over asperger symptoms with my husband he said he thought our son also showed the symptoms. So when he stopped by today we had a long talk about it. He agreed with me and shared stories from childhood and recently. The thing I liked was that we both are sensitive to the outer world - noises, smells, what we put in our bodies, external stimulus (we find touching, stroking to be comforting as well as having the shower run on our face.) Our love of being in nature, our love of being alone. Our shsred sense of missing (not having a 'social' 'built in foundation'. Neither of us has been able to maintain a 'job' 'out there'. He got everything I was saying.

 

[islandria]

I wasn't planning on being long so I'm trying to break it up. Basically knowing that my grown son shares the same aspergers world as me makes me love myself more and makes me want to read up on it for him too. He's not much of a reader. I realized that the reason why I didn't like being touched as a child was because of my sensitivities!!! My mom is nt and doesn't have the sensitivities I've always had. But my son does!! I've always 'gotten' my son. He said he always liked my touch.IIt's because I always toyched him with or coming from my own sensitivities. I gave him what I wanted from my own mom. It's feels good to piece things together after so much confusion.

 

[mama_lotus]

I am in the same boat as you but in my mid-30s and my older son is 5. I am not sure if he's Aspie. He's so similar to me, and if he is, he has some communication and coping skills that mask it well, just as I did/do. If you could go back in time, or if your son was young now, would you have sought a diagnosis for him? My son is receiving OT for tracking issues, dyspraxia and sensory processing disorder but has not been identified as on the spectrum. He has a magnetic personality which can seem deceptively "social" but now that my eyes have been opened I see that he and I are on the same path as you and your son. Penny for your thoughts

 

[islandria]

Hey, thanks for asking. I think I would definitely try to get as much diagnosis as I could if my son was 5 today. I feel that the more information we have regarding diagnosis, the more we are better able to understand our sons - the better we are able to communicate - the better we can love, if that makes sense. My son was tested in school but got no conclusive diagnosis. I was just told that he scored very high with doing things with his hands, so I never worried about pushing him in academics. Today I feel that there is a greater awareness around diagnosis. I would loved to have taken advantage of that. (In hindsight I didn't trust the professionals enough to seek anything more, plus my younger son had way more 'going on' so I never saw Logan as even needing any diagnosis. I just 'got' him because he was so much like me.)

Hope this helps,
and thanks again for asking! That's awesome.
(Love 'em and kiss their face every day! Kids are so beautiful!)

 

[mama_lotus]

That is how I am with my older son, L. I just "get" him. Although my younger son's temperament is all me. Thank you for the advice and info. I am a preschool teacher and just had one of my students - a girl - diagnosed with HFA (since Asperger's isn't a "real" diagnosis anymore) and her mother brought up interesting facts that sounded like ME as a little girl. I taught myself to read at age 3. I didn't realize this could be a red flag. And on and on. So all of this AS stuff is brand new to me, but as I research I see a lot in my son. He's incredible with manipulatives, in particular Legos. He's about to start kindergarten and I'm terrified. I look back at my own life and feel like school was ultimately my downfall, at least what crushed my spirit. I fear that for him. But isn't it nice to have another human who says "I love watching the raindrops drip down the window and come together to form bigger drops?" and feel like "ME TOO! I'VE DONE THAT MY ENTIRE LIFE!" It's like coming home.

 

[islandria]

The bond you share with your son will continue your entire lives. Logan was so bonded with me that just before he was born he stuck his hand out first (well, I don't know if that had anything to do with bonding, but I love to tell the story). It was as if he was so aware of his surroundings that he was saying, "Hey, I'm going somewhere, I've gotta check it out before I arrive headfirst". Plus I never experienced what could be called labour pains with him as I did the others. He's always been 'in sync' with me and still is to this day. The year Logan started kindergarten I decided to homeschool. I taught him and his younger brother to read that year. (Plus I had a 1 yr. old daughter and a grade 3 daughter.) It was hard to put Logan in school in grade one but he always did fine because he was so observant. He always got high marks in neat hand writing.

I love the remark about the rain on the window! I do that too! It's so comforting.(Plus, and my husband pointed this out to me - my whole life II've loved to stand at the washing machine and stare at the clothes as the machine pulled them down over and over.)