What The Boy Went Through In School

The Boy graduated from high school in May of 2011 so I really don't know why this has been on my mind so much.  I guess it all started with the survey the high school sent him last month.  They were asking for feedback from the graduates on what they thought about the school and the programs, etc so they could improve on them I guess.  They had won some awards and maybe wanted to do even better so they could win even more awards.  Yahooo on the freakin awards!

As I said in another post, the Boy was very negative about the school and his answers to almost all the questions reflected this "hatred" of the school.  I actually defended the school and got him to rate some of his negative answers a little less negatively, which he did.  I felt that if the school didn't do somewhat of a good job then he wouldn't have gotten into college and he wouldn't be doing as well as he is, right?  I mean he went from making D's and F's in high school to all A's and B's last semester in college and made the dean's list.  His overall GPA in high school was a 1.97 and his GPA now in college is a 3.05.  

Didn't high school prepare him for that?

The more I think about it though, the angrier I get.  I think about our life before the Boy started kindergarten and even though he wasn't diagnosed with Asperger's yet and even though we knew something wasn't right about the child, our lives were okay for the most part.   No anxiety, no depression. ( Well, okay there is still some of that, but without the unnecessary stress the school caused for many years.)

It wasn't until the Boy started school that the nightmare began.  Within a year I saw his self esteem drop.  By the end of first grade and rounds of parent teacher conferences, IEP's, testing for this and that and a letter to us from his teacher begging us to let him repeat 1st grade to "catch up", we were emotionally exhausted.  The Boy's self esteem dropped drastically.  And the years went on with each one causing more anxiety and depression for me and more hopelessness and anxiety for the Boy.

Parent Teacher conferences and IEP meetings became "let's point fingers at who's to blame for all of this".  Guess who got "blamed" the most?   Me.  I was outnumbered.  The Boy became a "behavioral issue" instead of someone who really needed help.  I became the person who couldn't control and discipline my child.  I had never even heard of Asperger's back then so I didn't even know how to defend myself or get the Boy the help he needed.  On one hand I knew I was doing everything I could to help him, above and beyond what I saw other mom's having to do, but on the other hand I thought they might be right.  I was a failure as a parent. 

It was a nightmare.

Yes, every year there was always one particular person, teacher or professional who really seemed to care and hold my hand to try to guide me in the right direction to help my son, but ultimately it was up to me.

The Boy was diagnosed with ADD in fourth grade after his teacher pointed out what I already knew and had seen. (what EVERYONE had seen)  I guess a new school, new teacher, new diagnosis.   ADD meds were added along with pretty much the same IEP.  ADD didn't get him that much more help back then.  I don't know if it's different now.  I hope so.

Then in eighth grade he was diagnosed with Asperger's from a psychiatrist he had been seeing for over a year to help coordinate his ADD medications.  The same one he still goes too and has treated him for depression and anxiety.

The Asperger's diagnosis seemed to get a little more help for him at the school, including qualifying him for help through Alabama Rehab, which is helping him get through college and eventually into the workforce.  Even then, things never worked the way they were suppose too but by high school I was too worn down to fight much anymore.  Luckily, the Boy just wanted to get out of that place and with the extra "help" he was receiving, he made it out.

Did it really have to be that bad?  It took him 14 years to graduate if you count kindergarten and repeating 1st grade, not to mention the 3 summers he went to summer school.  I look back now and I am furious!   Since he graduated a year and a half ago, our lives are so much different.  His self esteem is getting better,  I'm not depressed and worn down anymore.  I think I'm getting strong enough again to really be angry.  

Even tonight the Boy stated how he hated that school.  I almost wish I didn't make him change some of his negative answers on the survey they sent us.  They could use some change.   I can only hope they have changed now that there is so much information out there on Asperger's and Autism that may not have been available 15 years ago.

 I am still very mad at what they put the Boy and me through all those years!  

Yes, I don't blame the Boy for the way he feels about that school.  Just wish I could have changed things a long time ago so he wouldn't have had to go through all the crap.

Wedding Planning, Stress And Cats That Bite

I'm hesitant to do another post about the stress and anxiety I've been feeling this week because The Murph might take more pics of me lounging by the pool or napping on the couch.  I have tried to explain that sometimes I can't put a finger on why I feel anxiety.  It seems to me like just the way the earth is tilting now that we are approaching Autumn and the sun is lower in the sky makes me somewhat anxious in a weird sort of way.  Even though I do LOVE this time of the year.

Anxiety sometimes has no easily explained reason for being.  Apparently.

The stress I am feeling comes from dealing with the last minute details on our upcoming wedding.  That isn't going away until the details get worked out.   I am working on it.  My vows are written.  I've been working on them off and on for over a month.

The programs are written out and just need to be sent to the printer.  That has been the biggest stress for me.  I just wanted to write it out and pick out a program at the same place we got the invitations and say here, put this information in that program format.    Easy!

The Murph doesn't want to do it that way since it costs more money, but it's either spend more money or more of my time trying to figure it all out and get a program together that looks decent.  I don't have a program on my computer that will easily do that.  At this point, I don't really care anymore.  I'm not stressing about it.

It seems that the cats, especially Phantom, has picked up on my stress.  He has been extremely bad.  Worse than usual.  He tries to attack Ed every chance he gets.  He goes after Cadence as well, if he gets too close.  When all else fails, Phantom bites me.   Sneak bites on my shins.  It hurts!

Biting is not good.  He should know better than to bite a stressed out female.  This cat has no fear.

 With all that's going on, most of it entirely in my mind, I couldn't pass these babies up last time we were at Target.  I love these cute little pumpkins that taste like candy corn, only cuter.

 I felt better immediately after consuming half the container.  I am not even going to let the fact that mineral oil is one of the ingredients ruin the experience for me.  See how cute they are?

The jewelry I am wearing in the wedding is here.  They were all packed up in cute little boxes from Tejani.

They are very pretty and very sparkly and I am very excited about wearing them.

The beverage napkins for the reception have come in as well.   Things are coming along just fine.  I am going to take a deep breath and enjoy life.

I've never tried any, but anxiety meds would probably help.  After I've seen how much better The Boy is doing on them, I have considered taking some myself!  The Murph would probably agree!  Today all he could offer to make me feel better was an acai berry smoothie.  It helped!

The Aspie Quiz

I found this quiz online one day while I was looking around for Asperger related information.  I took it just out of curiosity to see what my results would be.  Since Asperger's and Autism are known to have a genetic component, I wanted to know if I was an Aspie too.  It certainly seems like it some times when I have anxiety and trouble dealing with stress.  (although these things only happened after I was an adult - a parent to be exact)

Today I got the Boy to take the quiz.  He's been much more sociable and relaxed these past few days.  Not to mention awake during the day instead of only at night.  We were calling him the "vampire boy" for a while.  

If you want to take the Aspie Quiz just click here.  The scores are broken down into the different areas on the chart and it was very interesting to see all the results.

I took the quiz twice on different days.  This was my results the first time I took it.  The second time I took it, I deliberately tried to get a more "Aspie" score, but I still ended up neurotypical.  The Boy was quick to point out on my results how low my Intellectual score was.  He had a good laugh at at my low intellect!  I responded "Yes, but see how physical I am!"  If I were a cave man I could really hunt some buffalo.
                                      Results- Aspie score:  60 of 200

                                      neurotypical (non-autistic) score:  145 of 200

My Quiz Results =
Neurotypical

Here is the Boy's quiz results showing what we already know.  He's an Aspie.  He's also quite intellectual.  Maybe not such a good buffalo hunter though.

                                      Results- Aspie score 122 of 200
                                      neurotypical (non-autistic) score 83 of 200

The Boy's Results =
Aspie

It's a good thing we have Mexican restaurants nearby.  He and I consumed large quantities of this stuff the other day along with chips and salsa.  No buffalo.

Please share your scores in the comments if you decide to take the quiz.  Hopefully you will be more intellectual than I am.

Thursdays Are For Bricks

Not this kind of brick

I woke up this morning feeling very anxious.  I couldn't breathe very well.  I felt like an elephant was sitting on my chest, squeezing all the air out.  Anxiety always triggers my asthma and this time of the year my lungs are struggling for air anyway.

I went to bed feeling like this and I woke up feeling like this.  It started yesterday with The Boy and the hair cut incident.  Things are quiet down in The Boy's room right now, but at any moment, one phone call from his dad and things could explode.  Usually in my face.

The Boy woke me up this morning with a run down of what his dad plans to do tomorrow (in preparation for the wedding) with him at the last minute.  The Boy was already planning ways out of it and wants to go with his friend and do something else.  His dad wants to pick him up around 1:00 and go pick up the tux.  Then he expects The Boy to hang out at his office with him while he works the rest of the day.

First of all, this last minute running around stuff usually doesn't work very well with The Boy.  He has Asperger's.  He likes things planned out and given plenty of time to prepare himself for things he doesn't really like to do.   Hopefully, his dad telling him ahead of time will help prepare him a little.

The biggest problem is that his dad doesn't except the fact he has Asperger's.  He doesn't like what he calls "labels".  He would rather hang onto the fact The Boy behaves this way because of bad parenting.  Not his, but mine since I "won" custody and just haven't taught him proper manners.

I don't really like labels either but sometimes they are necessary to help classify special needs children. What can be bad are the false or incorrect stereotypes that can go with a label of Asperger's or ADD.  I recently came across a really good article on the subject.  I feel the same way about labels as this author does here.

Second, in this last minute whirlwind of getting things for the wedding and finishing up work related things, it might get a little bit stress full for the dad and from past experience, The Boy shuts down during these times.  Instead of speeding it up and getting things done, there could be an opposite reaction.

In the end, The Boy suffers.  And when The Boy suffers because of his dad's lack of patience and understanding, I get major league stressed out.

It's all bad.

And there's still that hair cut thing.  Something that The Boy really dislikes but has found someone who he can tolerate and actually likes now.  She was very surprised a couple of months ago when he actually started talking to her while she was cutting his hair.  She probably asked him something about computers.

I'm still waiting on what's going to go down on that little issue.  That's a really "hairy" issue!

Not being able to breath very well and having this sense of doom floating around over my head, I didn't feel very motivated to go to the gym.  I had to force myself to go with The Murph today.

When I got there I thought I would just get on the exercise bike for a few minutes for an easy spin, then I remembered today is Thursday.  Crap!  Thursday for me are brick days.  And bricks are a tough workout no matter how short.

This kind of brick

In the triathlon world, a brick workout is where you bike first and then run to help train your muscles and cardio system to adapt quickly to this transition during a triathlon. Swim, bike, run thing.  It can also mean swim first then bike to get you use to getting on the bike after coming out of the water.  The reason it's called a brick workout is because that's usually the way your legs feel when you start to run off the bike.

Bricks help teach your body to move the flow of blood from the muscles you use while biking to the muscles you use while running more efficiently.  The faster your body can do this off the bike, the better your run will be.

Me, one of my bikes and my training buddy

I rarely do swim/bike bricks since I rarely swim anymore unless I'm training for at least a 1/2 Ironman.  My new gym doesn't even have a pool.

For the past 12 years I have always done a brick workout on Thursday.  It's mandatory for me.  I can do it on my real bike out on the road or with my bike on a trainer or on an exercise or spin bike.  I can run either on the roads or the treadmill with any combo of the above bike rides.  It can be any length from 20 minutes bike/10 minute run on up to 2 hour bike/1 hour run.

It's Thursday so I just have to do it.

My first bike.  Probably an antique now.

I sucked it up and did a really short bike and then a really short run.  Then I did weights.  I really felt a little better after I worked out and my breathing is better.  Much better.

I'm still waiting for that bomb to drop though.  It could get ugly.

My little training buddy.  We've made up since yesterday.