27 Year-old Son with Asperger's Rules His Mother's Life

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Oh, wow. OK. I didn't watch the video. This computer has trouble with video, and I don't know enough about computers to deal with it. But I've read.

Once again, I feel really lucky to have had Daddy. To have grown up before The Diagnosis (I was 16 in 1994, didn't even hear of Asperger's until 1998). All of that good stuff.

I was shoved out of the nest at 18. Daddy loved me and everything-- it wasn't as if it was, "Get the f**k out of my house, you're on your own!"-- but he'd done his time and it was time for me to test my little wings. Period. He was an Aspie too, and he wanted his space and his freedom from the responsibility of being a single father to this semi-feral, ill-tempered, hyperverbal kid he'd inherited at the age of 12.

I knew I could call home any time, come home any time, get a few square meals and even spend a few nights-- I had a room in my father's house until the day he died, have one still as far as my stepmother is concerned, would be living there now if I weren't determined to get along with her b***h of a sister.

I knew if it came to that, I could move back in for some nominal rent and contribution to the housework-- even after I married and had a pack of kids. When my marriage started to go sour, it was Daddy I ran to to talk. After we moved to Arkansas, I lived in my father's house for a month every year while visiting friends and relatives. I called him on the phone every morning-- and usually once or twice through the day. I didn't do anything (major) without having a cup of coffee and talking it over with Daddy. We were TIGHT. He was my Daddy until the day he died.

But I moved out. I fell down. A lot. I got my utilities shut off and screwed up my credit. I ran with some bad people before I learned to tell when someone was using me (and I'm still not good at it). I lived in filth until I figured out that you really do have to do the f*****g dishes almost every day whether you want to or not. I sent my cat back to live with Daddy because she was miserable in my house. I blew up the engine in my car before I decided that Daddy was telling the truth-- you really do have to change the oil every 5000 miles, no matter how scared you are to walk into the lube shop across the street.

And those were just the little mistakes-- the things that were relatively easily fixed. That doesn't count things like having a baby at 24 with no health insurance (and $400 a year too well off for Medicaid) or solid future plans. Or getting in effect married-- to an 18-year-old boy who was far from home and terrrified-- at not-quite-21.

In short, I grew up.

You take care of them-- with all their foibles and limitations-- for 18 years. For the best part of two decades, your highest job is to protect them from harm. And then you have to kiss them on the head and tell them you love them and let them go out and get hurt, because your next job is to let them apply everything you've taught them out there in the world where lessons switch from academic to practical and the real lessons happen.

That's harsh. I'm terrified of the day I have to do it with my precious little snowflakes.

But guess what??? It's necessary.

I couldn't get the video to play.

I'm 36 and still live with my mother and will never move out and will be living with her the rest of her life (unless I die first). I don't think she minds though and if I was gone she would be alone.

I recently recieved a letter of thanks from the mother. I won't post it here but it was nice that she was actually listening to the opinion of someone she sought advice from.