Why S L O W is also GOOD

When my son was preparing for college, we were all excited about the possibilities. 

I wasn't overly concerned about his ability to take care of himself. He could do his own laundry, he could cook, he knew how to tip the pizza delivery person. So, partially because he seemed fairly self-sufficient, I felt like he could handle life at college. This is partially because I wanted to feel that way. I wanted to see him succeed, but I also wanted to feel as if he was just like any other kid going off to college. I wanted him to have a great time, and enjoy meeting new people, and learn a variety of things from a bunch of different classes. Most of all, I wanted him to enjoy that feeling of being in charge of your own life.

Well, if you read my post from yesterday, you know that he wasn't ready for college.

His therapist tried to tell me this. She really did. She tried to suggest that maybe taking a year off from college might be a good idea. Whenever she suggested this idea, all I could see was my son having an entire year of not socializing. No interaction with other people his age, doing fun things. Honestly, I was blinded by the thought of this lack of interaction. I was afraid it would halt his progression.

My son's therapist also suggested the idea of community college. I also ignored this idea. I had recently taken a class at our local community college, and I wasn't all that impressed with the other participants of the class. They may have been smart kids, but they weren't social with each other. Nobody talked to each other, in a class of at least 20 students. It seemed weird to me. Of course, I didn't stop to think that it was a class on Macroeconomics, and maybe that wasn't the most social of subjects. So, based on that very limited experience, I considered community college for my son -- and tossed that idea rather quickly.

Now, three years later, I can see that my son's therapist had more experience than I had, and she knew what I didn't understand -- that people with ADD or autism or any other myriad types of learning issues often need to take a little longer to mature. This extended maturity window applies to many college students, not just my son. I talked with my other two kids, and they had lots of peers who took five or six years to finish their bachelor's degree. It's common, and we as parents need to take a step back and realize that maybe it's preferable to take longer to accomplish some goals.

I have one friend who has a son who is just now finishing his bachelor's ... and he's 30. He had several missteps along the way, but once it was HIS DECISION to go back to college, he nailed it. He was able to get much better grades, and he was able to figure out exactly what he wanted to do. It's hard to hear that concept, that sometimes people need a decade to figure out life ... but isn't that better, to take a long time, than to never figure things out at all?

So, my husband and I watch our son, and we see progression. He won't have his associates until he's maybe 22 ... but it's PROGRESS. He looks happy. He's going to community college, and it's a good one, and he's made friends. Ya know what? There are LOTS of guys just like him, almost identical to him, at his school. He watches those students, and notices that some do better than he does, but a lot of them are struggling. He also notices that his professors "get" him there, and they are helpful. He is also, now, figuring out what his direction may be, what he enjoys, and that times when he fails on a test are followed by times that he gets one of the highest scores in the class. You just never know what a person can accomplish ... and it may not be the path you expected or wanted for your son or daughter. But if they can just keep working, and slowly making progress, that's a beautiful thing.

Aspergers and Happiness

I had a great breakfast today with two friends who live on my street.

One friend has a son, five years older than mine, who is on the spectrum.  The other friend has a son in my son's grade in high school, and although he is not diagnosed, he has many, if not all, of the same issues that my son has.

We were talking about our sons' lack of need for friends.  Here it is, summer time, and we watch our other children socializing and doing stuff and out of the house all of the time.  Then we look at our sons who are at home, wondering why they don't feel the need to get out and be with people.  We wonder why they are fine with staying at home, and all the socialization they need is a good game on Xbox.

Thing is, THEY ARE HAPPY.  We may not be -- we may be concerned that they don't leave the house, that they aren't going out to eat or hang out with friends.  This bothers us, as their parents.  We just can't relate to it.  But if we are concerned with our sons, it has more to do with OUR needs and less to do with our son's needs.

I guess I would love to see my son run off to college in a year, into a sea of guys and girls just like him. I would LOVE that.  I would love to see him comfortable, and with people who like to do the same things that he likes to do.  I would LOVE to see him interacting and feeling part of a group.

My son, though?  What does he want?  He's actually pretty happy with the way things are.  He's always happy.  He's always content.  I guess he just doesn't need that much.  Sure, he would like to have people to interact with -- but it's not a NEED like it is with other people not on the spectrum.

Once, we sent my son to a church camp for four days, held at a local college.  He was going to room with people he didn't know, and he was going be doing all sorts of stuff that he had never done before (dances, classes that he chose to attend, etc.).  I was nervous, but I wanted him to try this experience so that he could see what college was like.  He texted me that first night, telling me about all the shenanigans that he and his fellow campers were getting up to.  He never did go to a dance, but he had a great time playing board games with a bunch of kids.  He was walking to and from classes when it was raining, with an umbrella, and had girls walk with him to stay dry.  After a few days, he texted me "So this is what you've been telling me is so great about college!!!!"   Yeah, that was a great day FOR ME.

He hasn't socialized very much since then.  That was a year ago.  But that doesn't mean he isn't capable of having this same experience again.  It will just be on his time, on his schedule.  It won't be my kind of social experience, but it will work for HIM.

I finally realized, this year, that it isn't about my kind of social life -- because that's probably not ever going to work for my son.  He can't take the noise, he doesn't understand the conversational mores, and he doesn't have the burning need to BE WITH PEOPLE.  But if he can go to college and find some like-minded people to goof off with for a few years, well, I'll be a happy mother.

When stimulants cause depression and/or zombie behavior

It's been about a year since my son has been on huge amounts of stimulants in an attempt to see if he can pay better attention to things in school AND to see if he can complete homework in a timely manner. We could see that the stimulants worked, but there were other associated problems.

It's pretty bad when you have a kid on the spectrum, and the stimulants that help him pay attention also make him less social. I've read about lots of people describing the way the stimulants make them feel like a zombie, and after this last year, I was watching this reaction before my eyes. Off the stimulants, my son was happy, bouncing, fun. On the stimulants, he was good at paying attention, but depressed and no fun. He also had an inability to make decisions, didn't want to do anything (even video games) and just was not my son. It was frustrating to watch, and I imagine it was even more frustrating for him to experience.

During the summer, we would sometimes allow our son to go off of the stimulants. It just killed me, because those days were so much more fun. I had my boy back. I was definitely coming to the conlusion that maybe we were going to have to make a really difficult decision -- either my son stays on stimulants, and we totally give up on his ever socializing because he needs to make it through school, OR we give up on the stimulants, completely pull him off, and just try our best to make school work through sheer hard work. Neither choice was a good one. But I missed having my happy boy, and I was thinking that maybe his having a chance at making friends was better than having it be easier to do schoolwork.

We talked with his therapist about this, and decided that we needed to change up something. When our therapist talked with the doctor about it, they came to the conclusion that we should switch up my son's anti-anxiety pill. We had tried two different anti-anxiety's, and they did seem to help, somewhat. We switched this time to Cymbalta, and the difference was AMAZING. It was like the missing piece. Suddenly, we had a kid who was doing great at school, great on homework, remembering quizzes and tests and upcoming assignments -- AND he was HAPPY. TALKATIVE. FUN. Just like our son used to be.

I guess what I would like other people to know about this experience is that what our doctors tell us is true -- you really have to spend time finding the right combination of medications to get something that will work. Now, we also have little problems leftover, even though the meds are working -- my son still has some tics that are frequent enough to be socially unappealing (scratching his head, some grimacing, etc.) but I am fairly sure that we can work on that medically as well. It's just so nice to see him feeling good about himself, and happy with his school life AND his social life. Now that the meds are working better, the therapist can begin to help him with his social skills.

I couldn't have believed it myself, but for right now, things seem to be going well. I just want others to know that it does get better. It can take a long time, but it does get better.