Single parent aspie of an aspie?

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Sooo...just about to leave my partner (1 week to go) when my son is diagnosed and then I am also diagnosed. I had a pretty chaotic younger life which stabilised dramatically when given prozac. I later met my ex and had our son. I guess I'm afraid now that the stability I enjoy is illusionary. I wouldn't matter so much if I was alone, but I have my son to look out for - to keep his life as stable as possible. I don't take anything from him - I'm there for him not the other way around

I pretty much pass as a NT. It's all internal these days - but I manage it. I guess I'm just afraid I'll mess up when I can't afford to. Are there other single parents out there who have done this?? Or is it better to stay?

Difficult to say, why are you leaving?

If your leaving because he's abusive or uses you, then leaving is absolutely the right thing to do. Getting away from an abuser is always the 1st priority.

If your just not happy, it's still ok to leave, but you need to be mindful of your child. You and your ex will need to remain on good terms, and he will need to remain involved in the child's life.

Either way - if your child has been diagnosed, it's very likely you qualify for respite care. Start looking into what services you can get now, before everything is final. Load up on services now while you've got a diagnosis in hand and needs coming down the pike.

I can't imagine that if you've gone this far into leaving that there would be a good reason to stay, unless you think the knowledge of your disability and how it affected your relationship will change it for the better. Leaving won't be easy, but the fact that you decided to leave knowing that it wasn't easy shouldn't be ignored. You should make sure to get a very good lawyer who also has a handle on disability rights, though.

leaving just because I'm - we're - not happy. In light of recent events though, I'm more scared than I was. Now sure if I am now just utterly deluded. Ah well, time will tell. Got to bite the bullet

Either route will be hard, but are you willing to stay with a man you aren't happy with for the sake of stability? Humans are clever creatures... regardless of being an Aspie or not, if you are as high functioning as you say, you will no doubt survive and also flourish!

I'll try to explain what I mean better.... I'm happily married with a 9 year old daughter that I had when I was 19. I was very young and in an abusive relationship, so the biofather isn't around. I'm bad with children. Not in an abusive kind of way, but I'm just not able to connect with them as a person should. Because of this (and because of my physical disabilities) my mother and step-father have raised my daughter since she was 5. I see her every other weekend. She exhausts me and I miss her and love her... but I can't raise her even though I'm married.

In my eyes, the fact that you are able to raise your child while married without dealing with the struggles I've dealt with makes me think that you'll be just fine on your own. Really, I envy you. I wish I could raise my daughter, but it's healthier for her to have a more stable home than I can provide her.

Well, my dad managed to do it. He inherited a grieving, half-feral, rather spoiled eleven year old undiagnosed Aspie. He was himself an undiagnosed Aspie. He couldn't make marriage work-- at least not with my biological mom, who had too many issues of her own to contend with a spouse that couldn't compensate for them-- but he made a hell of a father.

I came to his house-- bearing in mind that I'd seen him every weekend of my life since I was 2-- accustomed to run wild, to eat only what I wanted (chicken drums, hamburgers, buttered macaroni, and lettuce pretty much covered it), to sleep when I pleased, and to have no responsibilities whatever.

I left seven years later extremely depressed but basically functional. After 13 years of fear and rejection in the public school system, I think anyone would have been depressed. I was less depressed than when I came.

He helped me find my way out of that. Other people had to do the ground work, but he taught me a lot about liking myself and being myself. I still don't like myself, but I hate myself a lot less than I used to.

He was a good father, a good friend, a really great granddad. He's been gone for two years and I still miss him absolutely every day. He was the best damn parent I had, I can guarantee you that. My NT mother tried to be perfect and though she did her best she was actually a pretty crappy mom in a lot of ways. Not bad but more like a sister than a parent. My AS father never had a perfect day in his life. He had his failings, as all things with bipedial carriage and opposable thumbs do. We had some real bad days. But by and large and on average and when the bottom line was all tallied at the end of his days, he was a pretty dang good dad.

Whether you'll make it?? Well, if you can keep yourself from completely falling apart-- living in filth, having serious truancy issues, getting the utilities shut off often, moderate to major substance abuse, not getting medical care, getting suicidal and/or beating the kid-- I'd say you've got as good a shot as a neurotypical single parent.

If you can keep what you know is in the kid's best interestes uppermost in your mind and put yourself some kind of a high-functioning support network together, you might be a few laps ahead of some NT single (or married, for that matter) parents.

Your situation is the very one I live in terror of. Good luck. Let us know how it goes.

And, for the record, I don't think staying in an unhappy relationship if it cannot become a happy one is in the best interests of any child, regardless of the neurotype of either or both parents.

Thanks guys. Sound advice. Thanks for sharing your stories

I am a single mom with ADD and some Aspie traits. My son has NVLD and ADD and my daughter has mild autism. I left a year ago January 1. At the same time, I moved to a new town where I knew nobody, and started a new job. To say that my life was in an entire upheaval is a very major understatement. But it is what had to be done.

I will be honest and tell you that it is very hard sometimes. I struggle a lot with disorganization and am a bit of a recluse, which makes meeting people very hard; it certainly doesn't help my kids socially. I have a hard time keeping on top of my own life. Now I've got two other lives to keep on top of and sometimes it is a challenge.

But it is completely doable.

What I have found helpful is that I am on very good terms with the kids' dad. So much so that we sometimes still do family things together and sometimes we talk on the phone for no real reason. This is helpful because even though the "burden" of parenting falls on me (we live 25 miles away from him...he sees them every other weekend), not having the stress of an adversarial relationship has made things much better. I have friends who have had adversarial divorces and I think I would have fallen apart if things would have gone that way. Another benefit--and this will likely sound HORRIBLE to many people--is that every other weekend I get some time to myself. Don't get me wrong...I love my kids dearly. But time to myself is a luxury that I had never had for the first 10 years of being a parent.

Do your best to keep things amicable with your ex, find strategies to help you stay organized, give yourself permission to be imperfect, and do your best to take care of yourself.

It is scary. But it is doable. I'm doing it and I'm no one special. I also have a friend who's kids are much more impaired than mine, and she is diagnosed on the spectrum, and she is doing it.

What specific things are you concerned about? Finding strategies is going to be very important for you.