Motivating a young adult

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Thinking about this brought back memories of a painful time.

When I was 17 I went off to attend a top university in Manhattan, look for part time work and live in apartment alone with no support of any kind. Toward the end of the first semester I developed a terrible, painful infection that required lots of specialist intervention and this disrupted my studies and dropped my typical grade from A to B+.

Everything was difficult for me that year. I had tons of sensory issues. I found life in the city a brutal shock. I needed lots of time in a quiet place to recuperate from the subway. It was bad. I found it very, very difficult to make friends and when I did, I seemed to lose them quickly.

I had the use of an apartment belonging to friends of my parents while they were overseas for a few months, but I had to look for other housing. I had the idea that this was something students were able to do, so I should be able to do it too, but none of the shared housing arrangements seemed to work for me, because I just didn't connect with the other students that way.

I knew nothing about autism and thought that the problems I was having were the result of some purely personal weakness or defect.

The next semester was worse and I had to drop out. I did not quite know what to do with myself next. My parents encouraged me to take some time and recover my health, then go back to school and I tried. I tried to get some jobs, but utterly failed to connect with the interviewers. I felt hopeless about that.

For a time I was homeless. I had some family in the city, but no one was close to me and no one wanted me to stay with them for more than a day or two. Eventually I found a room in an apartment--but that's another story. The worst day was wandering around the west side of Manhattan with no place to go and almost no cash while it snowed. I spent as much time as I could in diners, paying for a cup of coffee and then hanging out until they made it clear I needed to buy something else or move on... And sheltering from the wind in a partly enclosed phone booth (they still had those back in the early 1980s.) Not good memories.

I was interested in Japanese, so I began to teach myself Japanese during that period and I did a lot work on programming graphics on a small computer. I would work 14-16 hours a day on those projects and sometimes for 30 hours at a stretch.

In the middle of that strange period, I got a call from an elderly cousin, a sort of matriarch from my mother's extended family, saying she was in the city and I should come see her at her apartment. I was not close to her at all, but I had seen her at various times in my childhood and always liked her. When I got to her apartment, it was a kind of ambush. She told me that the family had been watching me and were wondering what I was doing with my life. They found my efforts unsatisfactory. I should be a man and get on with it. It was a shame I had a rough first year, but now it was time for met to get serious and get going.

Well I don't really know what she said after the beginning, because I felt I could not explain to her at all how hard things had been for me. Why was daily life hard for me when it did not seem to be as hard for other people? Weakness of character? Lack of grit and fortitude? These were people who believed in throwing the kid in the deep end and letting him sink of swim. Unfortunately, I was sinking and their idea of helping was to say "work harder" otherwise, they were just going to watch the bubbles rise.

I just shut down. She was more or less shouting at me and I could not speak or understand what she was saying, I just sort of pulled into myself. When there was a lull in the tirade, I just walked out. I remember hearing that she was angry, but I was just numb.

I think that my mother and her family thought that her tough ways would set me straight. The actual effect was that I never spoke to her again. She died about 10 years ago and my last memory of her was that horrible day. I felt completely betrayed. I had always been an outsider in my mother's family, but that day made it 10 times worse.

It took me years to get my stuff together and I was more alienated than before from that part of my family. I told my uncle about my diagnosis and it's pretty clear that he told other people on that side of the family because they have been somewhat friendlier than before. But we are still very far from close. Acquaintances, Facebook friends.

I relate this here as a cautionary tale. I could have used a mentor and guide and I think I would have done much better if I had some support--but what I got was a hamfisted attempt to motivate me through being tough. It made things worse, not better. If you are trying to help a person with ASD get through that difficult part of becoming independent, please be careful, pushing the wrong way can do more harm than good and I can tell you that it is very hard to forgive what felt like betrayal.

It really seems like you went through some tough times-yet persevered despite them. It would be interesting to read your subsequent story. I'm in NYC, Borough of Queens. You must have learned much about compassion, especially in retrospect. There's lots of logic in what you say.

I was not advocating throwing her son into the "deep end" without knowledge of treading water LOL. He'll still live at home. He receives support from their government. He'll be allowed to make his mistakes with a safety net under him. The goal is EVENTUAL independence. For him, it's attainable.

Adamantium, that is awful. I don't understand people at all.

Adamantium, that's purely awful. I can also imagine how it happened. I've seen it play out more than once.

I doubt very much that there's anything you could have said to your cousin to make her understand, even if you'd known what was going on and had the language for it. I also understand the business about being left to wander around Manhattan with no money and nowhere to go -- as a child, really. (I was left to figure out my own college plans and housing at 15; I picked a small private university, though, so by accident I had a lot of things taken care of for me.)

Unfortunately by the time we figure things out, it's often no help for us, but it can be help for others. I was just thinking today of how harmful my grandma's stance towards my brother was, and how much he'd needed her help. If I were able to go back in time as my current self, and meet her then, I think I could've talked some sense into her. Just as, today, I can see what my mom's doing in bunging my grandma into an old-age home where she doesn't want to be, and can see how I might do something to improve her situation.

I'm sorry that happened, though. Being kicked out of a Soup Burg with nowhere to go is no kind of a memory to have.

From what I would gather, he and his mother get along; it's just that he is not motivated enough, from the viewpont of his mother.

Adamentium: I did not mean to minimize your experience; I know it was lousy. I"ve had some similar, yet less intense experiences. However, my viewpoint is that it's in the past; I'm sure you have "moved on," though.

After reading the OP's replies, it does sound like her son is trying.


I had a boyfriend who was unmotivated to work and getting his driver's license and I tried to help him but he didn't do it. Sometimes I wonder if there was another root of this but I will never know. My husband said it all sounded like depression. Because I have never had that kind of depression where I don't want to work or do anything, I cannot relate or even understand it. Back then I just thought people used it as an excuse to be lazy while I was told I had it but still continued going to school, still worked after I graduated, still did my normal life but I was also on pills too and he wasn't (he wouldn't take any anyway if they were prescribed). Even on my bad days I would still go into work because work means you have a responsibility and you have to go to work no matter how you feel and you can't just call in sick because you are too unhappy. But yeah I was rough on him and did tough love and none of it worked and then I dumped him because I got tired of the crap he was doing. He thought I gave up on him while he told me he will not change and he was being himself and turned down my advice when I would try and help him and come up with excuses for not doing things. I will never know if they were genuine or excuses and it doesn't really matter IMO because it's in the past and we are not together so no point in over thinking this and doing the what ifs and trying to figure it out. He may not have been ready to be an adult and he was also 20 at the time. It felt like I had a teen living with me I was raising than a boyfriend. My parents described him as a 13 year old stuck inside a 20 year old body but yet they still didn't like him and thought he was a jerk despite knowing he had problems and my mom knew he had more than just ADHD going on. But it was very stressful being with him and it affected my mental health until I wasn't with him anymore.