I'm really depressed by other parents sometimes

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I think for most parents with kids with significant challenges (such as me, my son has no measurable receptive language at almost 5 years old) - our most pressing concern is, what after my time ?

I have since realized that there is a simple way to overcome fears of our child's financial destitution and have implemented it. My husband & I took out large life insurance policies and named a special needs trust as the policies' beneficiaries. That way, he won't ever have to work a day in his life, unless he WANTED to. The mandatory need to work is taken out of the equation. Of course, there is still the question of a suitable trustee and administration of trust funds. Eventually, we may just opt for an institutional trustee, such as a bank, so we know that trust funds won't be embezzled. Plus, with a trust, he may qualify for Medi-Care.

Now, I say all this, knowing fully well that 4 or 5 or 6 is too young to determine where a child will be, as an adult. Of course, if he gets to that point where he goes to college, establishes a career, finds a wife, raises a family, I would be doing the very happy dance. If not, I won't mop as long as he is in a situation where he can speak up if he is ever mistreated, in pain or in need. THAT is my biggest fear - the lack of an ability to communicate. As someone else said, marrying and raising a family is largely over-rated. We are 6 billion plus and pushing ... Our species isn't at risk for extinction if my son didn't mate and reproduce.

I also think working for profit is another thing that is just as vastly overrated. Many people are highly paid to do work that does not benefit a single soul - aside from themselves and maybe their immediate families. On the contrary, there are others who volunteer and give of themselves and lead very meaningful and productive lives, even if their "jobs" don't generate wages - care attendants at animal care shelters, for instance.

Anyway, I am blabbering now, but all I will say is that I am still in a place of fear, even after removing his financial needs out of the equation. I think if he progresses and gets to the point where he can eventually communicate enough to communicate mistreatment, needs, wants and pain, I will be OK.

At the end of the day, NO ONE's life is perfect, and everyone has a burden they carry (as philosophical as that sounds). Having to constantly worry about my son's challenges is my "burden". But I hope that voicing that doesn't make me a "depressing" parent who believes in "cure or dump". If I need a cure at all, it is to improve **his** quality of life, not to satisfy some fantasies that *I* may have harbored for him in the past.

I see, maybe this place hasn't changed as much as I thought it had. I'm going to hold out hope that there may be others that might understand. I'm disappointed, you would think after so much time people with more compassion and understanding like LtPinkCoupe would've found their way here.

I don't know...I'm sorry, I shouldn't have come back here.

I'm an aspie. I'm 50 years old and when I was growing up, nobody knew about AS. I was just shy, weird, awkward, etc. I learned not to be that way. It was hard, real hard. Luckily I met some people outside my smothering controlling family who decided to teach me to interact with society on it's own terms so I could end up the lady I am now and now the 50 year old who still lives with her crazy mother and a bunch of cats, which I would have been had I not been taught how to deal with life on life's terms. My mother was and is nuts. She loves the attention she got because I had some respiratory problems and allergies as a kid, so I was treated like I was the sickest, most fragile thing on the planet and she explained away everything about me because of that. If she had known about AS then, I would have been wrapped in bubble wrap, put on a shelf, and catered to my entire life and protected and never had a chance to live my life, only to exist through it on her terms.

Just because we have AS doesn't mean we can't learn. It doesn't mean we can't be taught how to change or control the things about us that cause us problems. I personally value the fact that I was taught what I was taught, and I know that the fact that it was painful to go through and force myself to learn those things is much less of a problem to me now than it would be to have been stuck in the horrible life I would have lived had I never had the chance to learn them.

I'm also a parent and grandparent. My kids are NT's except now I think my youngest son may be a bit of an aspie. He sure acts like it. In everything except the social skills department though. He's real outgoing and could sell iceboxes to Eskimoes but everything else about him makes me think he has it too. He didn't even talk till he was about 4. He's the one with ADHD too, who just went off his meds cause he's 19 now and we don't have Medicaid anymore for him and the only one he can tolerate is Vyvanse and it's expensive and he doesn't have a job at the moment and plus even if he did he wouldn't spend it on that, and his gf doesn't make enough to pay for the dr and the Vyvanse, which she would do but then they wouldn't have much money cause she only works part time at the moment. However, if there was something about my kid that was holding them back, I would want to do anything I could to fix that for them so it wouldn't hold them back any more. Whats so wrong with that? What is wrong with wanting your kid to fit in with the world instead of wanting to change the entire world to fit in with your kid?

What has changed so much that we must spare every kid, every little bit of discomfort and effort that they may not want to put forth to learn the same things we all learned growing up? I do know that some people have a harder time than I did. I know that some people have more severe AS and autism than I do or at least I guess mine is mild, no telling what it was back then. I wasn't diagnosed until I was in my 40's and only then because somebody else noticed it in me, who knew what they were talking about so I went to referrals and all. It didn't change anything for me, it just explained a lot about me to myself, which actually did help.

I mean look at the world we live in now. People are so overboard about sparing every kid, NT's too you know, any inconvenience or disappointment or discomfort that we even have sports teams they join which accept everyone and let everyone play and also don't even keep score! Whats going to be next, not grading papers because not being the best little sparkly snowflake out there could possibly lower some kids self esteem by a degree, rather than make the kid decide to work harder on something to be better? What happened to us that the concept of being better than we are is such a bad thing? Cause it implies that you aren't perfect from the first breath you draw? Guess what, we aint! Nobody is. Kids who are taught nothing more than to make themselves happy that the world is wrong for not catering to them are going to just ruin the world when they grow up. If we have a generation of them, just imagine the hell that will break loose because of it.

We are human beings and we have to function with other human beings. Can we all do it perfectly? No. Can we all do it even good? No. Can we all try the best that we can and be told what it is we aren't doing right so we can try to fix it? Yes.

Unless people plan on moving to a commune and spending your life holding hands and telling each other how wonderful and special they are and really doing nothing more in life besides getting by and composting, then I'd suggest learning the fact that we all have to have a thicker skin than we are born with to survive. It hurts getting it, but it's worth it. Take it from somebody who has seen both sides of the tracks and been run over by the train from both sides too.

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I'm giving it another shot. We will see.
My forum is still there and everyone is welcome to come join as well. There is a private women only subforum there if anyone is interested. Also, there is no CAPTCHA.

The link to the forum is http://www.rightplanet.proboards.com