spectrumom

As I become a teenager, I am becoming more interested in girls. I hear a lot about kissing, private touching, and sex. I see it on the computer also. My friends talk about it too.  I think about it a lot also. Kissing, touching, and sex are a normal part of life.  They are fun and make me feel good. However, some things I can do now and some things I should not do until I am older.  Some things are appropriate at school, and some in private. Before doing any of these things I should make sure that the girl I want to do them with also wants to do them with me.  Before I kiss a girl I should follow these rules:    1. I have known her for more than a month    2. We talk frequently and consider each other good friends.    3. I ask her if I can kiss her.    4. She says yes.    5. We are not at school during school hours.  I can kiss after school or at a dance. Before I touch a girl on the breasts I should follow these rules:    1. I have known her at least 6 months.  

Our middle son has autism and bipolar.  He is fully able bodied.  But when things are bad for him (and this can last months) he is a danger in the parking lot if he bolts.  We got a permit for this reason.  We've never used it.  But I worry that someone who would never give two shits to hold a door for a disabled person will take it upon themselves to remind me what real disability is-the inability to see humanity in others.

Recently I have been posting on the characteristics my children share.  And share they do. But the challenges they face are often quite disparate. In my course of seeking answers, I have joined or been added to several boards.  Some for high functioning, some for low functioning.  Many of them are newly started, and the first posts often read something like this: "I'm glad this board was started.  I was on some other boards, and their children are so different from mine.  I couldn't understand their problems, and they couldn't understand mine." I often feel offended by this.  Because whoever was on that other board has a child like one of mine.  But whoever is on this board probably has a child like one of mine too!  I keep this offense to myself, because I recognize the lack of comprehension that goes into it.  Whether you have a child on Level 1, 2 or 3 on the spectrum (per the new DSM), you often don't comprehend the issues the other levels face.

Everyone has that one kid who gets into stuff and makes a mess. In our family, that kid is Nathan. The problem is, he is now twelve. And he's still that kid. His autism makes him so impulsive that, even on the odd occasion he considers there might be a consequence, it is SO worth it. Many times I will mention something, and, like I flipped a switch, he just does it. He had punctured a therapy ball with a knife so we got a new one. Thinking perhaps he had learned a lesson, I said "Now don't pop this one.". He walked over, grabbed a knife and POP. We lock up our knives, medicines (he overdosed on meds we stored in the cabinet over the fridge. Yes, a child resistant cap.), sweets, juice, cereal, tools. We lock the door to the upstairs when he is up. When he is in bed we lock the attic, bathroom and our bedroom. We have keyed locks on all the doors that lead outside. It is effing inconvenient to have the bathroom door locked at night when you get up to pee.

This is a followup to my last post. When Sam was first diagnosed, he was non-verbal.  And we were so frightened.  All we wanted was language.  His non-verbal state represented his autism.  If we could get it fixed then his autism would be so much better.  We could talk with him about his other problems, and then we could fix them. But. Autism is not just a deficit in verbal communication.  It is simply the first indicator we usually notice. There are deficits in non-verbal communication, social interaction, peer relationships, social reciprocity and other things. And understanding the words does not necessarily mean understanding the intent, or the message.  And being able to talk does not mean you are communicating. If you've ever had a conversation with someone where you felt nothing you said got through, that what you were saying was not what they were hearing, then you know what I mean. Speaking is good.  I love to hear my sons' voices.  I tell Nathan this eve

 On a couple of FaceBook boards I belong to, the subject of how autism is a spectrum came up.  These are boards for parents of lower functioning children, and their feeling was that higher functioning autism was just not the same animal as typical Kanner type autism-or the nonverbal, with lots of behavioral issues kind of autism. "Not so" said I. "Tell us why," they said. So here's the blog to lay out how our family demonstrates the spectrumness of the spectrum. First, of course, is the genes.  Obviously, in our kids, some of the same genes played a part in whether Isaac had Asperger's, or Nathan had more typical autism.  But other genes were turned on and off to play a part in the severity.  And also genes turned on for bipolar, that makes Nathan's autism even more difficult.  Because I have bipolar in my family.  And both of our families have severe depression and anxiety disorders running rampant.  Bipolar, like schizophrenia, runs on genes cl