Label- Nash

[Guest guest]



From what I understand, in the past some AS people were misdiagnosed as borderline schizophrenics due to the Jekyll and Hyde traits that they seem to have in some instances. This was a comment from my Psychologist. My wife has often remarked that I am a different person at home compared to the public face. This is understandable.

Greg

dx AS at 53

Greg:

That has been my understanding as well. It was certainly true about my son in school. When he was young someone suggested I email Tony Attwood who was in the process of publishing his first book and sent me the gallies to his manuscript and said, "READ THIS CHAPTER!" lol After I read it I called him and said, I tried what U suggested and it failed and he said, "hmmm, sometimes they are so rigid, there is nothing U can do." Not the answer I was looking for at the time as we were in crisis and he was ONLY 4 years.

Because AS was so new to the USA at the time, the only interventions they knew at the time were medication and therapies that were new and experimental at best. I was one of the mom's that tried everything that was considered non invasive as medication was out as he had a bad reaction when medicated for his MRI and EEG. Cass had a reverse reaction (aggressiveness and violence) to the medication they had given him, which were Demerol, Thorazine Phenegan, and than they hit him with a pediatric cocktail to counter act the drugs that made it much worse. Bottom line, this kid should only be medicated in the future in a controlled setting. This was the BEGINNING of our journey. Lol

Cass was always one step ahead of us and smarter than we were at the time. We just did not get it. We did not have an adult population that was available to parents like me at the time. All we had were kids like Cass. The little professor that kept saying, "You are so stupid, you don't even know how stupid you are. That IS stupid. Fix me? I think NOT. YOU need to be fixed and I am stronger than you!" lol Well, he was a twin and pushed the other one out in utero. <Wink> at one point out of frustration I said, "He is STILL pushing US all around. How can one young kid have so much control over us? That became a focus, taking the control away. This bought him and us years of therapy.

He was right about one thing; WE did not get it at the time. Looking back, I don't think the therapy hurt him although it seemed at times it was killing all of us. Lol

He is now a young adult and working full time and looks back on his life and says, "thank you! I was brat back then," BRAT dos not even begin to cover it. Lol

All the years of fighting, advocating and building support groups in an effort to help my kids paid off at the end.

I work with a new gal that our company matched me up with me. At first I was thinking WHY do they think I am a good match for her as looks can be deceiving? She looks like a biker mom. Lol She is AWESOME. She has led an incredible life. Best friends for life with a girl friend. They grow up and take different forks in the road. Her friend marries and has three kids with a man she later divorces because he was married to his computer. A father in-law that is an over achiever and she is a number savant. She is gay and life happens and they are now together. Their middle son is in the process of seeking an AS dx.

My hunch? Regardless of a pending dx. of AS, little will change in this family. They know who they are and where they want to go on life's path. They accept they have made THEIR choices in life and their kids are individuals and support their interest and choices that are all different and embrace them. Maybe that is what it is all about?

Maybe, just maybe we get hung up on labels and fixes and fail to see what is right in front of us and that is just someone who dances to a different drummer???

Different can be good. I was at a paid company lunch the other day when someone laughed and said, "That would be our who is an original." In a tech company top heavy with AS that is how I must seem to some of them??" <wink>

Just me.