I am just so tired.....

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Sisters, I, too, am tired.
Each time I lament raising three boys, 15, 14, and 10, the older two with AS+, I thank the Lord that, even though I may not have a partner to help me, at least I don't have a partner making it harder (the financial support would be nice, though).
Every week for the last few months, we've had at least some kind of disciplinary situation (school, police) with one of the two with AS. All of them due to neither one of them being able to assess a situation or another person's words or actions appropriately. Thankfully, so far all parties have been understanding, but I know that isn't going to last forever.
They just do some stupid, stupid stuff that can be seen as threatening or harmful. I surely don't blame the other parties. God knows if I would be as kind or patient in their shoes.
I struggle daily with the problem of excusing or being soft on behaviors associated with their diagnosis. If I treat them like fragile baby birds, they will inevitably see themselves as such. It is a constant concern that apart from AS and their other diagnosis, they learn to quickly and accurately be able to gauge theirs and other peoples words and actions as right or wrong. Sounds simple.
I do nothing but these boys, all 3 of them. I don't drink, date, go out or socialize. I'm not complaining, just stating a fact. I'm just too old and too tired to try and explain things to someone new, like how we handle noise, crowds, sibling problems, etc, not to mention autism and Asperger's in particular. I see on a weekly basis: the doctor, their counselor, the principal, my mother, my ex-mother-in-law, and the people at church on Sunday. That's it. I'd go crazy if I had to deal with more. I read every parenting and Asperger's book I can get my hands on. We do not have television or internet. We use the computers at the library. And I still cannot get a grasp on it.
I'm beginning to think that I'm not supposed to--that the boys are the way they are for MY benefit, for me to learn and cope and grow. Maybe that's horribly narcissistic, but I have the overwhelming thought that I might not be equipped to teach them what they need to know. Perhaps that's what a lot of parents think.
If anyone comes up with any answers, let me know. I pray I'm not spitting in a well.
Should the Lord be so kind as to send me a burning bush of knowledge, I will do likewise. Until then I guess I'll be one of the 'hangers-in-there'.
At least we have an abundance of information to draw from, unlike generations who've gone before.
If anyone has a particular book or books that they've found helpful, I'd be happy to read it. I've read a lot, easily over 100 since their diagnosis in 2000, but that's not to say there isn't one out there with something in it that would aid me in being a better mom (maid, taxi-driver, mechanic, plumber, warden, jailer, conscience).

Hello there Mamabear

First off, welcome to wrong Planet, I hope you enjoy your stay.

Secondly, for future reference, you may want to start a new thread if you would like to ask a new and unrelated question that isn't directly related to the original post. There is nothing wrong with posting in somebody else's thread, but when you are the 32nd response, people tend not to read all the way to the end, and thus may miss your question. Which of course isn't good as you would like a response.

Thirdly, as long as you are asking for a good book, I have to shamelessly self promote my latest work, "Congratulations, your child is strange". It is about 181 pages, so it isn't the largest book on the market, but it has a good bit of info. You can download it for free off my website at http://www.ASDStuff.com It comes in PDF or Doc format. If you don't have a computer at home, then you may need to print it out in order to read it. I think Kinkos will print out and bind books for about 10 cents per page, so thats 18$. That or you could borrow a friends laptop for a day or two. I am not sure what your computer access situation is. In any case, the information is free, and you can always sit at the library and read it on their computers.

Anyways, the book itself is basically an 'insider's guide' to understanding the world of autism from somebody who lives with it. While I have nothing against doctors with degrees in psychology, they often don't really understand what is going on, or what is causing the perceived problems. This causes there to be a lot of speculation, and downright false information out there. There is also a tendency to focus on all the wrong things. For example, most therapists want to work on properly analyzing and understanding facial expressions, but in that isn't the most important thing to learn. Far more important is learning things like remaining calm, and not allowing stress and panic to make a situation turn south.

I really can't explain the entire book here because it is 181 pages long, and packed full of info. I should tell you that the book is designed for parent's who are relatively new to ideal of AS. It is supposed to act as a first read, or foundation of useful information. If you have read 100+ books, then some of it may sound familiar, but keep reading,once you get past the first few chapters, the rest of the book is original material.

My son has "a mild case" of Asperger's...but is there such a thing? He's highly intelligent, but he has the fits that make going anywhere nearly impossible....anything that messes up his routine causes a fight, with punching, kicking, and many attempts at biting LOL

I am always tired and exasperated to think that no one sees what I see at home because he's pretty good at school still, though his grades are starting to tank.

Sunday, he had a full blown fit in the car at BJs...his two older brothers are ready to kill him in spite of knowing all about the issues my son has, but they're sick of dealing with it and changing their lives to accommodate him, too.

God bless us, every one!

Mamabear, I am the same. I have only one child but everything else in your post reminds me of me. I don't date either because I feel there's no way anyone else would be able to take on this task I have in front of me. No one gets that. Thank you for making me feel like I am not the ONLY ONE.

i second Tracker in his shameless self promotion i read the book and i loved it.
it's ok to feel overwhelmed and there is nothing narcissistic in thinking about yourself a little, you also exist don't you?
One thing i can tell you is this much. I am AS myself and grew up in a very disfunctional family of alcoholics. I was undiagnosed, and treated like a dog. What did i get from it? i took it as a pure example of what not to do. i compared my mother's mothering with my friends'mothers', i read a lot, i made a file for myself in my mind titled: ethics and the difference between good and bad.
i picked my own ethics, put some token behaviours where i felt they belonged based on their effect on me. a child can learn from ANYTHING. don't beat yourself up if sometimes you need a rest, or if you think you've made a mistake, and don't give up on your own life for your sons'benefit.
They will still learn and grow, believe me, even if you go out see a movie with a friend once a week

My parents often say it is so hard to have me around because of my autism. I was born low functing autistic and got more ASish as a I grew. ABA wasn't around when I was a kid and my parents just used what worked with me. My parents tried to send me to school without a label with disasterous results. My mother has mintioned a few times that she thinks people with autism can feel empathy and that not being able to is just an excuse for selfishness. I know for a fact she is wrong. I had zero theroy of mind or empathy as a kid and both are concepts I will never master a hundred percent. My childhood was horrible but even worse before I had a diagnosis. My biological mother was low functning autistic and it was suspected I might have "problems" but my parents suspected I could also be "normal". They were wrong. My life might have been easier with a label but my parents sheltered me because they were afraid of my meltdowns. I was constantly told I was selfish and I didn'r really care because I didn't understand what it meant and eventualy I was told that so much "selfish" became a part of my idenity. My parents still tell me I am selfish but also tell me how selfless I am too. It's so confusing. Because of how often I was told I was selfish as a child, it will always be a part of my idenity even as an adult. I could be the next Mother Teressa but I will always consider myself a selfish person.

I'm glad I was easier on my parents than you guys. My meltdowns consisted mostly of curling up in a ball and crying uncontrollably. Until I was a teen and started having problems with depression, I got good grades and stayed out of trouble at school. My father (probably also AS) did everything by routine and got upset if things got messed up, so unless our routines collided, we were in sync most of the time. My mother was already used to dealing with it, and the older I got, the more I heard how much like dad I was. My parents, honestly, I think would have more trouble with a normal kid. They're both introverted, private persons, don't get out much, and are highly analytical and rational in their thinking. If they wanted me to do something, they just explained why it was they wanted that. I'd usually do it. Explaining stuff rationally just came naturally to them. Honestly, my brother gave them more trouble as a young child than I did because he was a perfectly normal, NT, kid.

When I was a teenager, I was depressed and my grades dropped, so they tried a hard discipline approach. When my grades dropped even further, they concluded this was ineffective, so opted instead to let me be and try to just emphasize how important learning was to my future. My grades improved. I still blew off some assignments and homework, but not as many, and once I got into high school, I started thinking about college, so I made a point to keep a B average in each class at least. Other parents would have tightened down even harder and tried to make me respect formal authority (which I didn't and in fact still don't). Had they done this, my depression and other issues would have gotten worse and I'm sure I would either be dead or homeless in some random city by now.