My son has joined the ranks here!

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This is Robin. My son, as some may know, has joined the ranks as "Aspie Dannie." He joined before I even knew about it, and I did not even know he was posting under my name until a few days ago.

I have noticed that my son has joined the ranks here, before I wanted him to write. Maybe that's better, I don't know. I see that a lot of you seem to be quite understandable of his self-absorbed views and thoughts. I am grateful for that, because I want him to have a place where he can vent and express himself. He constantly tells me that nobody lets him vent, but that's because I think he wants to vent in extremely inappropriate ways. At least here, I think, some people may be able to relate to his experiences, if not even help him get a grip on himself, if that's possible at this point.

He's fifteen years old, as I've mentioned in other posts, and his writing style is very immature. His conversations, however, are not as immature as he comes off in his writing style. He uses words that sometimes I nor my husband have heard of, nor does he speak in the kind of direct grammatical constructs he uses to write. His teachers have expressed this to me, and I don't know if such an odd writing style is related to having AS or not. Could it be?

His thoughts that he expresses, though, are quite accurate. He seems to despise our marriage and hates it when we argue even in a minor light. The strange thing is that I can raise my voice to him, but if my husband raises his voice, he throws a tantrum. If we get into a minor argument while he is in his room, he throws a tantrum. If I criticize him too personally, though, he will throw a tantrum at me as well. This sort of stuff is what we have to live with every day.

I'm glad that both you and your son are able to benefit from the site!

my son knows about the site, but shows no interest in posting here....for me, i think it would be difficult to feel comfortable seeking help for his issues with him looking over my shoulder. he would inevitably take everything i posted and turn it against me, as if i really didn't care what happened to him. i hope that you both stay and continue to feel supported.

Yelling is to much sound anyways, calm voices are good things.

My kid is on here as pokemon_al and one of his topics was about driving mom crazy.

Re: self-absorbed

Yeah, it's all about him, isn't it? He has no clue how much his noogies hurt. Sometimes I think he assumes I just don't have feelings of any kind. But, one misplaced foot or wrestling hold or a kid that got to the ball first - EXPLOSION and that was done on purpose (he has accidents towards others but NO ONE else has an accident when it results in hurting him).

Then, when he does realize he hurt me - well, let's just end life now since he's worthless.

As far as I can tell, these extreme reactions and "self-absorption" are part of the spectrum. I guess they're studying this Theory of Mind thing, all I know is it makes MY life miserable, but it helps me to know he can't help it. I just keep explaining to him, I keep trying to stay calm. I believe he can learn, I just don't know if I have the stamina to do it. Until I wear out, I will keep trying.

Something that keeps coming up is how literal these kids are - there is NO gray in anything. You are supposed to love your spouse - that's the rule. How can you love someone if you're fighting? You are breaking the rules and that's intolerable. I fight with my spouse too but it affects the boy in ways that we didn't understand before. With his diagnosis, we do try to explain, we show him how he sometimes hates me but always loves me - it's the same with me and dad. We are different people and sometimes we don't agree.

When my boy was four, I tried to teach him how to get angry. I just know anger happens, so I was really grasping when I tried to teach him how to be angry. We're still learning, but in December he hated me and wished I was dead. Now he throws stuff and says it's my fault because I made him angry. When he got angry and got graphic about how I should die (this hurt, by the way), I calmly told him I knew he was mad at me right now, but he really loves me and that he really was trying to say he was angry. After a few weeks, he caught on and learned it's okay to tell someone you're angry. We're still working on throwing things. Again, there is no gray - it's all black and white, life or death.

As far as writing - I don't think there is anyway possible for keyboards, pens, pencils to ever keep up with my son's mind. He can tell fabulous stories, he can relate detailed information about so many things. But, writing it down - we might get three sentences. Suddenly there's more involved than brain and mouth and my kid just can't coordinate that and his hands will never keep pace with his brain.

The hardest thing with my son is that we have to teach him everything. I've got two older kids so I've been there, done that but never like this. It's one thing to teach him how to brush his teeth, but teaching him how to be angry and why we get angry and that we can be angry without hate or betrayal -

I am soooooooo tired.