....and I suspect I'm the wife of one too!
I live in Adelaide South Australia and have 2 sons, 17 and 15, both diagnosed with Aspergers. And the more I've read about it I'm pretty sure my husband of 21 years could be diagnosed as one as well.
It's a standard joke in my family that when I began a PhD I had a "normal" family but that's all changed. But even before I began the PhD, there were signs that my sons had issues and were different to all the other children in their classes. Both boys had significant delays in their speech which delayed entry into school until they were nearly 6 although nearly all other developmental milestones where reached early. Jonathan began speaking words at 6 months but when he was 18 months he just began to lose words and we were told it was because I was pregnant and he was reacting to it. Jonathan was diagnosed with Central Auditory Processing Disorder and was thought to have semantic pragmatic disorder. Christopher was given a diagnosis of Specific Language Impairment and PDD-NOS - which was never explained to me and I thought it just meant "we don't know".
Of course I was surrounded by well meaning people telling me not to worry they'd grow out of it. Going back through their early reports it was quite clear to me that this was all leading up to a diagnosis of ASD but at the time it was puzzling. At home the boys were almost perfect - they rarely fought, youngest was very affectionate, not particularly good at sports, loved puzzles, books and computer games, were obsessed by Thomas the Tank Engine (but wasn't every boy) and had funny sense of humour. Out of home and that was different. we'd turn up at restaurants to find Jonathan wasn't wearing shoes or had pulled off his clothes becasue they were itchy, or he'd do peculiar rolling of eyes and rocking but I wasn't too concerned - just thought he was being a boy. Christopher would clap his hands over his ears and yell "shut up shut up shut up" and that was very embaressing! eventually he'd hide under the table and I'd just leave him to it.
When they began school, it didn't take long for the birthday party invitations to stop coming and the traipsing through our door of little boys wanting to play with my boys never happened and I was puzzled and hurt by this. When the boys were at kindy they seemed to have friends but now I know that it was becasue i made friends with the mothers. I began working and the kids were left to make their own friends but it wasn't working out. Jonathan didn't care but Christopher was desperate to have friends and have a sleep over.
In Grade 4, it was Grandparents Day and my in-laws visited Jonathan's class and came home concerned by what they'd seen Jonathan do. I went to school to speak to the teacher and saw for myself Jonathan pacing and flapping his arms, rocking and rolling and removing himself from the other children and rolling his eyes as if he wasn't there. His teacher spoke to me about something called Asperger's Syndrome which his own son had.
Jonathan was diagnosed but as I'd take Chrisopher to every appointment, the specialists all commented that I should get Christopher assessed. One pyschologist claimed Christopher was the purest case of Aspergers she'd ever seen, something Christopher is very proud of. Jonathan was diagnosed at 12 and Christopher at 11.
It's been difficult, no t least because I've had to let go of my own dreams for the boys. I'd always assumed they were going to university but jonathan can't study and i was more upset about that than he was. Martin, my husband, understands them very well - he's a Dungeon adn Dragon master, model army re-enacter person, WOW warrior and computer nerd who drops everything when i ask him to help me with the boys. My PhD is suffering and I'm ready to throw it in - i've run out of scholarship money anyway. We've had to replace the carpet in the house with tiles so that Jonathan can pace as long as he likes. They are both at a wonderful high school that has bent over backwards for them. christopher finally has 2 friends that come over for sleepovers and traipse in and out of my house eating all my food, making a mess but I love it. he's still sensitive to sound but he wears ear plugs at the cinema so he's coping.
I've joined this site so that I can learn from the Aspie point of view and strategies they've found successful in dealing with situations as they arise (or unsuccessful ones too). I love my boys to bits and feel frustrated with them at times (sometimes lots of times) but they have taught me to look at life from a very different perspective. I've come to enjoy Red Dwarf, Bones, Dr Who, forensic shows and accept that Jonathan hugs me with his clothes but not with his arms touching me. I try to keep up with their obsessions - CHristopher is fixated upon bugs and is extrememly upset when I use bug spray. But I would have thought that after 5 years, I wouldn't need to tell them to put on deodourant every morning!
Sorry this is so long - think it's more an outlet for me!
03 Nov 2009, 9:30 pm
