Father with a beautiful son (longest introduction ever?)

Post Reply New Topic

Hello, I want to introduce myself after a few weeks of reading on this site. 37 year old guy from Sweden in a relationship with a Hungarian woman (34yo) and together we have our two sons, 29months and 4months old.

I'm right now in the middle of getting my life back on track and to help my son develop as much as possible. I have so much to write about this that I'm not sure anyone would be able to read it. Three months ago I had no insight of this world whatsoever and I could never imagine I would be reading anything about mental health for the sake of my son. I'm currently using anti depressive pills to cope and I'm sorry if this text is too unstructured. It's just that there's absolutely no other place in this world where I can actually talk about this and have people who understand it. I also want to add that I find the autistic world extremely interesting and fascinating.

My son had his diagnos one month ago, but we were aware of the fact that he had autism since april 2nd. He's moderate autistic, level 2. I should also mention that our second son was born one month before we received this message. The shock has done damaged to me that will probably never heal. I'm well aware of the fact that many of you don't think of autism as an illness, and it also makes me feel a lot more at ease with his condition when I read your thoughts and life stories. I just can't get enough of it.

My diagnosed son is really everything I've got. I often say that I'm in love with my little boy. He's always been absolutely gorgeous. People were constantly interacting with him, smiling at him and saying he's so good looking. Even people who didn't think we knew their language was saying he's really good looking. It even happened once that a woman wanted a photograph of him

So three months ago we had a social worker/lower range psychologist over to our house because my wife had blown the whistle on him because he was not listening to his name or learning any new words. She dropped the word Autism and I assume most NT people can relate to what happened next. The funny thing is my wife had been concerned with our son very early on, even when it's way too early to say anything. As a baby he loved looking at people and you could see he kind of had butterflies in his belly from people looking at him. From that perspective it feels weird he'd go on to hate looking at people. What made her worried was the fact that he didn't start crawling early enough, he'd only start doing it at about 11-12 months. She also once said he was fascinated by the wheel of the baby wagon as we took him out for his first trip (6-7 months old).

A bit more info on my beautiful, lovely son. He was quite early with using the potty. He'd be using it by 7months of age and he'd sit there and look at the pictures in books and point out things that I'd ask him to point out. He's always been a big fan of books (not interested in the letters though). He also started using words quite early. He's whispering daddy at about 4-5 months and says words like car and hello. He never managed to say anything more than that + he regressed at about 18-24 months of age to saying nothing.

He had a very tough time to begin with. He was constantly having a pain in his belly for the first three months, and I had to carry him around for almost every second of that time. You could never put him down. You would not even be able to sit down as you were holding him! Trouble continued later on as he'd be very tough getting to sleep. Each night I'd have to hold and sway him to music for about 30-90 min per night. This continued until he was 24months and my back couldn't do it anymore. The funny thing is sleeping is now his strength. He sleeps 1,5h in the middle of the day and sleeps trough the night as a prince. In the light of knowing autistic people have trouble sleeping, I find it interesting that he's so good at doing so - and I hope it will benefit his brain. Another thing that is inverted autism with him is the fact that he really likes eating. Having two parents who love eating and centers the eating to something religious probably has something to do with it. We always took our son to restaurants to eat as he seemed to like it just as much as us. He was just like bringing an adult! We often received great praise for his behavior and looks. One couple had to stop us on the way out to tell us what an amazing baby we have

Before our son was diagnosed we almost had to hit the news in with a hammer to our family. No one would believe that there was anything wrong with him, even when they saw him. Not a single person anywhere except for the people working with autism had a clue. What he's displaying is inattention to stuff going on. It takes something special to make him listen. He will react straight away if I'm talking to him from somewhere unexpected, like from the window when he's outside. He's also have a lot of trouble being around other kids. I'm not sure if it's the amount of kids that matters or if it's that they're loud. He don't seem to react to sounds in a negative way unless it's children crying or being loud. He's got not problem being in the same sphere as other kids, but if they try to approach him he'll get nervous and want out.

The playing is OK. He uses toys the way they're intended to be used. I've never seen him do repetitive kind of behavior in the classic autistic way like spinning stuff - but apparently playing with the eye of a doll for "a little bit too long" (could have been 1 minute) was enough for the psychologist. He rarely lines things up. The funny thing is it only happens when he's been at evaluations!! As I mentioned earlier he likes books. He's also started liking the trampoline and swing. He's especially happy about going with the car (something he wouldn't do as a baby).

I really don't like these passive interests so I'm trying my best to give him alternatives and learn new things. We are already getting started with the ABA. I know it's a controversal topic on this site, but we're doing it only with the purpose that we love our son and want him to develop. Believe me, I've been crying floods for having to do the ABA "to him", because when I see how unfocused he is and how hard it is for him to perform a task like clapping his hand, it really really hurts me. We have always said that we will not continue the ABA if 1.he's not enjoying it 2.not improving. As it is now he seem to be enjoying it because he's often coming to the table "for more". And he's also doing pretty good so I'm very glad he's not taking damage from the drills. We've been given instructions from a very fine company in Sweden where the owner knew Ivar Lovaas personally and was working next to him.

A little bit more info on me. I am of course wondering if I could be on the spectrum since many parents with kids on the spectrum also tend to be. I just have no clue to be honest. I can relate to tons of the things you guys say, but somehow I don't feel like i'm from another planet. I've done the online tests and they say I score 27 where the average person score 18 and the autistic score 34. I hate eye contact. I had special interests as a child (video games and music). I learned to play the piano on my own at age 9 and guitar on my own at 15. There were no youtube videos around in those days, just high focus and neglecting being with friends. As a child I had no delays in anything. However I could get extremely angry and sometimes hit my head against the wall. That anger lasted for about an hour or so.
I hate small talk and get awfully nervous from having to talk infront of others (real panic attacks). I believe it was in my teens that I started to enjoy being on my own. But it's really hard for me to relate to stuff that has to do with autism, like not being able to do imaginary play etc. I can't say that I had motor problems, on the contrary I was very athletic and would put any ADHD child to shame. My legs could always hit an extra gear and no matter how much I moved around I would never get tired - just more pumped up. So to show some respect to my son's condition I've chosen to call myself NT because I find it very disturbing when snowflake kids on youtube will self diagnose themselves with autism just because they feel different. Having autism is not something you should just throw around, especially when my son is looking like a 90 year old as he's holding my hand when I help him down the stairs.

A little bit of extra info on my family side. My father is someone I suspect is on the spectrum. He lacks social skills in a way that is unique. He literally have no friends and he don't seem to be bothered by it. He cannot behave when people are visiting and will always say something to upset people, just for the sake of it. He can push your buttons like no one else can. It's just unreal. Has claimed to have photographic memory - but he says a lot of things. Thinks he's the mr know it all regardless of subject. What makes that more irritating is that he never leaves his house to really experience anything.
He's also telling me to not do anything to help my son. He refuses to be part in anything. Before the diagnosis he was saying children develop so differently and I shouldn't be concerned about the lag of speech. He continues by telling me how his mother (my grandmother) taught herself to read at 4 by reading the telephone book. And another relative to him was mute up till 5 when she suddenly started to speak...
My cousin is another person who could be on the spectrum. I have not so much info on him because we've only met 6-7 times (he's 15 years older). He's still managed to make the biggest impression on me with his money collection. He had rows of money in nice lines that I can still see when I think of that one and only day that I was in his room. He is also a big computer wizard who's been involved with building up the 3G tele network in sweden for Ericsson. Been in high key positions within the tele mobile sphere (Ericsson, Huawei etc). Just really bright but seem to have trouble with making friends and keeping in contact with his mom. Only at 50 he had his first child, and he's complaining about the kid being very hard to handle... I haven't heard much more. A last side note is my youngest brother was tested for asperger on initiative from people in school (all my 4 siblings have dropped out of school at different times - only I stayed on and went through). I didn't know about this test, but my mom said they felt everything was just BS and they walked out on them during the test when they felt the questions where just being weird. So no diagnosis made. I don't really know if there's anything special about him. I think he's a nice person and we were really good friends when we were kids (11 years between us). He has got a job + is currently working on his 3rd relationship. Absolute last side note is my brothers have a really hard time eating anything but hamburgers and pizza. One actually ruined 2 relationships because he refuses to eat anything but 5-6 different child like dishes. Did I already mention one of my brothers have a son who's undiagnosed but certainly on the spectrum? Didn't learn to speak decently until this year (he's now 5) and can't do much but watch TV. When ask to get dressed he can still be sitting undressed on the bed after 15 minutes gone by. It's said that he's been trying to put on his jumper as pants... can't eat anything but cold hot dogs. Absolutely nothing else. Trouble learning. Can say unexpected things in the middle of a conversation like "I had a shower today"...

I'm really sorry if I have written a too long story here, but I'm in a real terrible condition and I'm really worried for my son and his future. I only want him to be as happy as possible. I will continue to read on the site and pop up here and there with questions. I'm especially interested in how your "autistic ride" has been in the developmental way, so I can get some kind of idea of what my son will have infront of him.

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

You came to the right place welcome

Welcome Jon! I think you will definitely find people who can understand you and relate to your situation here! Perhaps the Parents' Discussion section can be of help!

P.S. Don't worry I didn't mind reading the whole thing, I don't think there is anything wrong with long posts

Welcome Jon81!

Enjoy the forum!