Hi everyone,
I am a mom to 2 amazing boys and full-time stepmom to 1 sweet and precocious tween girl. My eldest son is 4.5 yrs old and was diagnosed with PDD-NOS around age 2. He went through intensive early intervention and did well enough to mainstream to an NT preschool at age 3, but this year he has been experiencing difficulty in the more complex social interactions in school as well as having frequent rage attacks. He has a very, very low frustration threshold.
My youngest son is age 17 months and he is experiencing developmental delays. My eldest son's ABA therapist commented that she believes he (my youngest) is also is on the spectrum so we are currently in the midst of getting him evaluated as well. I am frequently distraught and sometimes in denial about this, because he is so good natured and affectionate compared to my eldest son that I can't see how he could possibly be autistic.
The scary thing is that I recognize so many behaviors and traits in my eldest that I remember about myself: no common sense, gullible, misreading people, can read and memorize tons of information but not understand what I'd read, clumsy, minimal eye contact, not affectionate, only interacting with people in the context of what they can do for me, saying hurtful things that make me lose friends, couldn't remember names and faces, couldn't do imaginative play, chronic IBS, etc. etc.
I have had a high IQ (or at least I did before I had kids--having children lowered my IQ points by at least 15 points per child) and learned to adapt, as hard as it was. To most people I am just seen as quirky and smart. However, I was constantly bullied as a kid. I chalked it up to being a minority or something worse--a bad person. Although my family tried to placate me by saying other kids teased me because they were jealous of me, I didn't believe it one bit. I just wound up feeling that my family was clueless and would say anything to make me or them feel better. I tried to buy my friends because I really had no clue what made other people so likeable and why I wasn't. I would change little details, trying to get the formula right, but failing miserably. I really tried hard to figure out what it was other people had that I didn't. I was dx'ed with depression, eating disorder, OCD, bipolar, and on. My adoptive mother was angry at me for a long time because I would blame her for all my misery. She had no idea how to handle a kid like me. I wouldn't listen to her. I did my own thing and gave her hell if she got in my way. I was convinced she hated me. I didn't like the constantly impatient and annoyed tone of her voice. I didn't want her to get close to me because she smoked and I hated the smell of her cigarettes. She treated her biological daughter nicer than she did to me, and I resented that. It was a vicious cycle.
Now I see many of these traits in my own son. When he was a baby I told people, He doesn't know who I am. He doesn't know I'm his mother. He doesn't show that he loves me. He doesn't turn to me when I say his name. He doesn't notice when I walk into the room. They all poo-poohed me and said it wasn't true, that I was transferring my insecurities onto him. But as his mother I KNEW something was off very early on and grew more and more frustrated. I could not connect with him, and began to think it was all in my head. Finally our pediatrician recommended a formal screening because of his speech delay and inconsistent response to hearing his name: he was pre-diagnosed as PDD-NOS and was eligible for city-provided services. But even still, there are many people who continue to deny this because he does present as NT much of the time. They say: He's spoiled, or He's a boy, and all boys aren't as socially sophisticated as girls, etc., or Those psychologists are getting carried away with diagnosing every little thing. But I try not to listen to them, even though it's hard and I continually have my doubts. Yet this is still more knowledge than my adoptive mother had over 30 years ago, who looked at me like the devil child. No amount of discipline or abuse would straighten me out. Eventually I did straighten out. On my terms. But too late. The trouble I got myself into is regrettable. The potential I had but didn't live up to... way too regrettable for words.
I am going to a doctor in 2 weeks to see if he will formally diagnose me with anything. I already feel like a fog has been lifted because I am understanding more every day. But I also have been reevaluating my life and my reality, and this has been so hard. I have to constantly remind myself to model the right behavior in my kids, instead of retreating into my daily chores. I have to learn to understand what love is, because I still worry I'm unloveable despite being married to a wonderful man, and worried my kids won't ever be able to truly love me. I don't know what (if it does happen) getting formally diagnosed will mean on a practical level, but I really feel like it is a matter of life or--constant limbo.
All that being said, it's really good to be here.
06 Feb 2013, 8:37 pm
