Now solo dad

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As my wife (who has schizophrenia) has left without warning, (and I don't know if or when she will come back) I think probably because our 17yo son's problems got too much for her, I have been forced into a direct hands on role with our son.

It's been going quite well so far. I couldn't find the book Smart but Scattered to read (and my wife may have taken that) but my main aim is to simplify things. He and I did a big clean out of his room, and I am getting him to label his drawers, and put things away in the drawers not throw them on the floor etc. I have previously filed all his videos and DVDs and put away a lot of them which would not fit in this drawers. The basic intent is that once he uses something (a DVD, or video, or book) he is to put it back where it comes from. If that is not done, everything becomes a huge muddly chaos.

I'm also going to be checking his room everyday for now. Clothes are not to be put on the floor but hung up or put in the washbasket. (I'm also going to get him to start doing his washing).

I want him to stick to a routine in the mornings even though it is (study break) holiday before the exams next month.

I'm also trying to let him see it's not all bad with dad. He was a bit oppositional but we went for a nice walk on Sunday with the dog, then the kids had subway and fish and chips and I even got him some beer (which I don't think he's tried before) and chips to watch a big sporting event which is on here now.

Oh wow....I don't even know where to begin. I can't imagine handling the schizophrenia issues on top of the autism. Now that you have time to focus on just your son, maybe it will give you a bit of a chance to breath. You must be worried about your wife....too much stress!!

You are doing great. Trying to regain control of daily living is a great place to start. Routines are extremely important.... especially when such a big change is happening.

If you need to vent or talk, or need ideas....we are here!

I am so sorry to hear the latest, but also encouraged that you're digging right in to pull through for your family. You're obviously really strong and dedicated. But, wow, not what you wanted to have to be doing, I'm sure.

I hope things will be OK for your wife.

And ... Don't forget to take care of yourself. You are going to need to have some of that built into the plan.

Thanks for your thoughts sc_2010 and DW_a_mom.

Yeah well its both better and worse that you might think.

Firstly after a couple of days not knowing where she was (and concerns she might be somewhat suicidal) my wife resumed contact, texted she was staying with friends and was fine. So that was a relief. (I'd contacted the police to report a missing person and cycled past midnight through the wind and rain, even being stopped by a cop for no light (!) as apparently it had to be reported personally). My wife has since returned our only car, so that makes things a lot easier logistically. We are also all going to meet her on Thursday. I actually think this time out will be good in a way for my wife, as she cannot cope with stress at all. She is also (rightly or wrongly) not happy in the marriage. I just wished if she does wish to leave she discussed it first and made it easier for me by arranging a transition instead of just leaving me in the lurch. (She half ran the household and did all the admin at my work).

Both my wife and son would be considered relatively high functioning for their respective illnesses (schizophrenia and ASD/ADD), but, although my wife has a lot more common sense and a drive to complete things, largely lacking in our son, schizophrenia is far worse than ASD in my experience. Especially when as with my wife for all her good points there is a degree of abusive behavior. This is an ASD forum not a schizophrenia forum so I won't say much more here except that at least ASD's thinking is not disordered like a schizophrenics and also at least persons on the ASD spectrum don't suffer serious delusions, which all in all make living with a schizophrenic very difficult. (As an example when unwell my wife made a statement that all my numerous concubines - all incidentally imaginary - were to pay us $4,000 each, to solve our money difficulties).

George Bernard Shaw said that poverty was a crime, and in that relative sense I am a criminal. It is worrying when you are not too sure how you are going to pay the mortgage, or even food bills, despite my having a professional position. (I have a mild toothache but haven't been to the dentist for years, as the recession has had a very severe impact in my line of work). so it is doubly unhelpful for my wife, as is par for the course for her, to always opt out when things get tough. (To be fair to her, it is not her fault, she simply cannot cope), My wife has also gone to an attorney about separating, which would be disastrous for us as to give her her share of assets now would require selling the home with a lot of disruption to in particular our son. I think I have a good chance of getting an occupation order if need be however seeing I am looking after the kids.

Our ASD son is coping pretty well with his mother's disappearance, (although he is close to her and upset to a degree) perhaps because he has seen this sort of behavior a number of times. (She pretended three months ago to take him to school, but instead without any warning to him or anyone drove him four hours to another city where her parents live, to start a new life). How disruptive is all this to him, and how much the blame for his problems this year? I think probably only partially. It is more his ASD difficulties allied to improper coping mechanisms that have led to his difficulties in failing half of his subjects this year. I know his mother did try her best and contacted the teachers regularly, but basically with her schizophrenia she just cannot properly cope with any real difficulties, and so was not able to adequately guide our son.

My wife and I had developed a system of each of us taking on particular responsibilities in the marriage, given that we did not tend to see eye to eye on how to deal with matters. She had mainly dealt with our son's schooling. It may (in my view doubtless will) help for me to have an input now instead of her. That assumes she will not return. She has in the past but I somehow think this time is different.

Our son who is on holiday now today thought up a clever pulley arrangement for turning the light off without getting out of bed. The materials he used were wrong, but the basic idea was sound so I commended him on this. He also rang a mile or two to the local park where we took the dog for a walk this evening. His room was in good shape. So he is doing the basics and enjoying himself I think at least this stage of the holiday and things are going ok with him for now.

I'm sorry to hear of your wife's departure. It sounds like you are doing a phenomenal job of coping and stepping in wherever you are needed. I am very impressed by your energy and by the stability that you seem to be able to create in your household.
Wishing you continued courage and energy.
J.

Sounds like you`re making a lot of progress! You even got him to do stuff i don`t even do!

I still throw my clothes on the floor, and only collect them when the laundry is done. I have no idea what are in my drawers. (I found my old N64 in one!)

I think you`re doing great, keep it up! i`ve been wondering, where are you from?

Thanks postcards57 and Basagu. Actually dealing with my son and the family situation is a lot easier than dealing with my work, except it takes quite a lot of time, so is making me more behind in my work. Basagu - we are in Australasia, so it is spring here and more flowers are out and birds singing more than usual, which is nice.

I am a bit concerned that I cannot monitor our son during the day, unless I make him come into work with me, which I probably will need to do, at least over the weekend.

The good so far - our son cooked dinner all on his own volition last night (maybe because he was tired of dad and his sister's cooking! but whatever). He has also labelled his clothes drawers as requested and kept his room clean (Basagu, when cleaning the clothes drawers over the weekend I also found a lot of things like books, pens etc!) He also rang and left a message for me as requested.

The not so good - he has been tardy in following the written instructions and the schoolwork he did (his vacation is a study break) did not seem to do a lot of schoolwork - he re-did one poster which looked similar to what he had already done (he should have done at least 4-5 hours work but I think did 20 mins). Also he does not seem to have a good idea what schoolwork he needs to do and as it is vacation time I can't contact his teachers. (We got his interim school report back and it was as expected pretty much of a disaster, but I was careful to avoid being negative about that. The classics teacher thinks he will fail his externals; I am hoping with the help of his sister who got the classics prize at her school we can surprise them there! His media studies teacher thinks he can pass his externals, so we need to work to ensure we don't let the teacher's faith down. He has failed three of his four units for Art which is all internally assessed - I pointed out to him that although he is in all likelihood the most talented artist in his class he obviously does not know how to meet the school's art requirements, which include written work, and I am thinking he should as a damage control measure concentrate on his Media Studies and Classics (and basic English), and maybe forget about Art and Graphics for now, given he has failed 3/4 of his Art and the teachers seemed to indicate he is too far behind in his Graphics to have any chance of passing that).

We will meet his mother tomorrow and I'm sure he is looking forward to that, although he did say that her taking him up the country without warning had led to him failing his Art internal, as it happened at the "crunch time" for Art. I do rather doubt this as he was only away for about four days, but his mom's erratic behavior (not basically her fault, but the fault of her illness) has obviously not helped things in what has been a difficult year for him. But he is going ok for now.

I think the best you can do is to let him alone and figure some stuff out himself, you don`t need to monitor him. You just need to find a way to make him feel responsible for. So he`ll behave and do stuff that is asked of him. If that is possible. Because if he is responsible for something he`ll feel like hes useful and actually contributing. You should not only let him clean his own room, but also clean some things in the house or something. Or let him get you a drink. That way he`ll feel like he actually contributed.

And if he feels that way, he`ll feel more responsible.

Off-topic: I`m giving advice about how to handle a guy the same age o.O
Don`t take my advice for anything useful because i`m 17 myself and i have no idea what i`m really talking about in the end.

We frequently have this problem, too. I don't know why teachers can't write instructions clearly and hand them out so we have them to refer to. Have you had a chance to go through his bookbag / binders / agenda or whatever he takes to school to check? Maybe the instructions can be found in bits and pieces, if you have the time to go through it.
Does he work well on a schedule? If you can figure out what needs to be done, and divide it into work sessions (maybe two hours in the morning, two hours in the afternoon, tell him the start and end times and, if he is like my kid, what he can eat during each time!).
I know that's asking a lot of you, but I find young people with ASD find organizing their time very difficult.
J.

Hi Hoegaandit
Sorry you've been going through a tough time, but you sound like you're doing a great job handling it and your son looks like he's rising to the occasion too. I feel a connection to you 'cause we're both South African living somewhere else (I guess theres lots of those about !) plus you sound like a nice guy who is so caring about his kids. So, just to say hang in there , things will get better

Off the current topic but as I reading you talk about your son I was wondering if he had ever tried something like cake or cookie decorating. Not a high paying field, but it is a field, and if he's comfortable in a kitchen and artistic, well ...

And on topic:

Glad to hear she seems to be OK. Glad you are keeping strong. Still sorry you have to deal with the situation.

Last edited by DW_a_mom on 11 Oct 2011, 11:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

How's it going OP?

Been thinking of you. I hope you can protect your assets so you can provide for your kiddo. Mental illness sucks....it sucks when you love someone but cannot help them.

I hope you are hanging in there. *e-hug*

Hi all

Basagu - I get what you are saying about letting him take some ownership of being responsible, and can try running with that to a degree, but the problem is I do really have to monitor him, as he lives in his own world. You'd expect a young person of seventeen to realise when he was just not coping at school and take some corrective steps. Our son is very behind in his work and is on a study break vacation before the exams next month, but despite being instructed by me to do four or five hours work each day, he has done respectively I believe about 20 mins and 1 hour respectively the past two days (while at home alone). I think today he was working on an animation which is all well and good, but there is a time and a place for everything.

postcards57 - it is frustrating that he does not know exactly what needs doing. He does know about half of what he needs to do, but the other half does not have any real idea. If I don't know where I'm going, I'm not going to get there! I think he will work with structure, but I have to be there to monitor it, otherwise he will leave things till the last minute if he does them at all. I did buy a timer and when I was there he had to sit down and do work for 50 mins, then had a 30 min break. He did not keep concentrating for the 50 mins, and would get up and run around, but at least then things were getting done!

Hi catbalou - yeah I am actually half enjoying the challenge of this, and to some extent our son is rising to the challenge, although only to a limited extent. Not sure if things will actually get better in the more immediate future, as if my wife decides to contest matters and try and force the sale of our home, that will cause real difficulties. We have a dog who is a family member and who our son is very attached to (even though he does not look after him properly), so if we are forced out of the home would need to find a rental which takes dogs, difficult to do here. I did see eg a very nice rural property which allowed dogs, but that was rural and would cause real disruption to our son, as transport would then become a real issue. I think I could probably get an occupation order allowing myself and the two kids to stay in the house, but this would likely be for a maximum of a year. That would however give some time to organise matters.

DW_a_mom - well, it worked for Justin in the NY Times article! I am adjusting myself to the fact that our son is not academic, but I'm still hoping he can get it together and find something better than that though. It might work for a temporary job though.

sc_2010 - thanks; it's going quite well at the moment, although should my wife get aggressive in pursuing her property rights, that would change. It is very hard to deal with a schizophrenic spouse, I have to say. My hat goes off to those who can manage it. The problem is that one of the voices she hears in her head is mine, saying nasty things about her. So I get turned into something of a bogeyman, which, despite my undoubted faults, has little to do with me. I have been trying hard the past few months to get her medication right, and it was looking a lot better, but then the stress of our son's difficulties seem to have tipped her over the edge. Anyway we are going to see her later today (1.30am here now!) and we'll see what we will see!

Our son said he is looking forward to seeing his mom, and he probably would like her back home. I've told him to make her a card as he is a really talented drawer - and he said he would - but not sure if he will remember! He is being proactive about doing things and today asked about his Wacom Graphire Tablet. This epitomises the problems we have though - a couple years ago I bought this expensive tablet so he could draw straight onto the computer. But he promptly lost the pens (which are about $70 each here) and now has apparently lost the whole tablet!

Anyway, he seems to be quite enjoying himself and is being much tidier than when his mom was in charge!

Flowing on from DW_a_mom's idea I'd thought I'd throw in signwriting and screen printing as a couple of other potential artistic trades.

These things don't have to careers. They could just boost confidnence and direct career ideas.

On the not getting things done, I don't remember if he's also ADD? It doesn't have to have the H part. My daughter (my younger, non-AS one) is ADD and needs a variety of reminders. We've talked about it with her to agree on what they will be because she is also really touchy about feeling nagged, but as I've told her, if that is what she needs, it is what she needs, and the best we can do is try to be nice or funny about it. I usually say a simple, " try to stay on task" now; she seems to handle that better than, "finish your homework." My husband, being the funny one in the family, comes up with the funny reminders.

Last edited by DW_a_mom on 13 Oct 2011, 8:57 am, edited 2 times in total.

What kind of work he has to do?