Autism

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Alec Benson Leary said:
Marvin and I and some other people recently watched an episode of Dr. Phil where a mom was accused of mistreating her autistic son. She never hit him or anything, she just lost her temper and yelled at him a bunch. Dr Phil layed into her for not appreciating her wonderful son, but really, this kid was 13 years old and already mom's size, he would flip out and start beating the walls and screaming and hitting other people for literally no reason, it was totally unpredictable. He could never be unsupervised, she had to drop what she was doing ten times a day to wrestle him to the ground and pin him on a pile of pillows (I guess this specific routine stood the greatest chance of soothing him). She and dad had another kid, a girl of about 7, who was neurotypical. They showed some footage of the girl curled up on a chair in her room hiding her eyes while her brother was having a screaming/wall-beating rampage downstairs. The girl looked like she had ptsd.

So Dr Phil is laying into mom for not having infinite patience, but some of us were thinking, who is Dr Phil to tell her how to feel or behave? No one signed up for this kind of life. Mom and dad are basically imprisoned for the rest of their natural lives taking care of a nonverbal violent person who will soon outweigh each of them. The little girl might fare better, if she isn't too traumatized to think clearly later on, but ten years in the future I could see Phil scolding her if she decided she didn't want to be on tap for guardianship when her parents died. Seriously, once Dr Phil gives up his career, gives up having friends, gives up being able to leave the house and go do things, gives up having a functioning marriage, gives up being able to close the bathroom door and take a piss without his charge having a freakout, and accepts that this is his life for the next 30 years til he dies, then I'll let him chastise parents for not being happy with being on the short end of genetic russian roulette.

Sorry if this seems insensitive, but if you have a child like that, what are you supposed to do?
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You know, I know we are all supposed to value and appreciate all human beings, but sometimes I think God sort of likes to troll certain families with autistic handfuls
 
Autism certainly is a difficult thing!
I volunteered once at a young adults autistic group. Some people with autism or so socially disabled, that there exist large "play groups" for autistic people to have fun and do things together, that they could not do on their own. I volunteered and did what I could to be friendly to them, but found it very disheartening, and only a little rewarding working with them.

There about 10 young adults in it. A few were nonverbal, who mainly squeaked and grunted and mostly had sort of a "lost in space" expression on their faces. With my prompting though they did say "hello" to me and called me by my name :)!

Then I worked with a few who just had regualr aspergers. One was a real trip. He was obsessed with Hanna Barbera, and other cartoons from the 60s-70s ( Scooby Doo, Magilla Gorilla, the Jetsons, Snagglepuss etc.) the sort of cartoons that were commonly shown on cartoon network from the late 90s to the mid 2000s. His voice reminded me quite a bit of Elmer Fudd, and had a verbal tick of saying "right here" at the end of many of his sentences. At one event we went to, I was assigned to "keep track of him."

I wondered what that meant for a bit before I knew. As soon as the woman in charge of the program left me alone with him, he walked away from me very quickly muttering to himself wildly. I followed him for about 10 minutes, before I suggested to him "why don't we both get lunch?" We did, and I was able to talk to him normaly for a bit.

Even though Im in my 20s, I still like some cartoons, so I was able to talk about his interests. He told me he didn't have a job, and was not in school, but instead was in a "life skills" college, learning things like balancing a checking account, shopping for groceries, paying bills etc.
It may not sound so bad, but it sounded really depressing to me. He and many like him seemed to be sort of in the shadowlands and margins of society, not being able to participate in or enjoy the typical and enriching experiences that come from a university degree, solid friendhisps, and a future of well paying, fulfilling career.

I think you need to have a particular personality if you want to work successfully with people like I did. It is ideal if you are kind, patient, and are willing to see beyond people to help them. If you are just there to punch a clock, or "just get through the day" you will become very frustrated and annoyed with them and likely sort of mean and negligent too. It was an interesting experience, but Im not sure Id like to do it again... It just seemed so depressing even with some of the high functioning ones.

Like Chris some of the high functioning ones seemed to have a great deal of intelligence, and (unlike Chris) even a degree of charm and nice personality, but were so hamstrung and disabled from doing what to many people are quite simple things.
It also seems that parents of children with downs syndrome have a much easier time than parents of children with severe, non verbal autism. Just a theory, but I think it may be true.
 
Alec Benson Leary said:
Marvin and I and some other people recently watched an episode of Dr. Phil where a mom was accused of mistreating her autistic son. She never hit him or anything, she just lost her temper and yelled at him a bunch. Dr Phil layed into her for not appreciating her wonderful son, but really, this kid was 13 years old and already mom's size, he would flip out and start beating the walls and screaming and hitting other people for literally no reason, it was totally unpredictable. He could never be unsupervised, she had to drop what she was doing ten times a day to wrestle him to the ground and pin him on a pile of pillows (I guess this specific routine stood the greatest chance of soothing him). She and dad had another kid, a girl of about 7, who was neurotypical. They showed some footage of the girl curled up on a chair in her room hiding her eyes while her brother was having a screaming/wall-beating rampage downstairs. The girl looked like she had ptsd.

So Dr Phil is laying into mom for not having infinite patience, but some of us were thinking, who is Dr Phil to tell her how to feel or behave? No one signed up for this kind of life. Mom and dad are basically imprisoned for the rest of their natural lives taking care of a nonverbal violent person who will soon outweigh each of them. The little girl might fare better, if she isn't too traumatized to think clearly later on, but ten years in the future I could see Phil scolding her if she decided she didn't want to be on tap for guardianship when her parents died. Seriously, once Dr Phil gives up his career, gives up having friends, gives up being able to leave the house and go do things, gives up having a functioning marriage, gives up being able to close the bathroom door and take a piss without his charge having a freakout, and accepts that this is his life for the next 30 years til he dies, then I'll let him chastise parents for not being happy with being on the short end of genetic russian roulette.

Sorry if this seems insensitive, but if you have a child like that, what are you supposed to do?
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Dr phil looks fucking sleazy. He is a con man. His show is just high brow jerry springer but without the self awareness and humanity. Fuck him.
 
Yew gotta approach dedicating yourself to realizing that, by denying your approach, yer dedicating yourself to failure.
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PS, buy my book.
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OK. This fourth of JULAAYYY, I think my family was sort of "Barbed" by a mother with a young son with autism. I would appreciate feedback.
The autistic child in question is a young boy, who my mother has been working with for the past year, to help him read. My mother is training to be an aide in an autism room at a public school. The child is basically nonverbal, but is very friendly and can say "hello Fifthcolumn) if someone tells him to say it to me.
Anyway he and his mother come to our fourth of JULAAYY barbecue, and almost immediatly, he jumps in our pool (swimsuit on and everything) and begins swimming around in a circle( with my golden retriever looking after him.) My mom and I would intermittently take breaks from the food and conversation to play with the boy ( to the extent we could.) We would tell him to "throw the ball for the dog" or "make a basket with the basketball." And other wise try to converse with and engage him. We did that, his mother didn't.
She pretty much spent the whole time talking the other women/mothers who were at our party, most of whom she doesn't know that well, but are fifthcolumn family friends.
Her son would sometimes get out of the water and run around the pool and party guests chirping and squeaking, his asscrack pretty visible over his swimsuit. It was me, not his mother who said "hike up your swimsuit." He then smiled and hiked it up :)! I said it to him, not his mother.

After the party, my mom and I discussed it, as to why his mother completly ignored him ( for the most part) when he was there. My theory is that she has to deal with him and engage him 24/7 for the most part. Perhaps partly because of her autistic child, she and her family do not entertain much ( she has three other neurotypical children.) Maybe she just wanted an nice long break and speak to other adults normally, like most parents are able to do. And all that makes sense to me, but you still think she might have "checked in" with her little autistic blessing every 20 minutes or so, just to say hello ( she didn't). Thoughts?
 
I had autism when I was younger back then until it changed to aspergers recently. From what my Dad mentions, that I was pretty much crazy. I became a lot more mellow and things were better pasting high school and did great at a transitional program I used to be in. To be honest, when I first thought about my younger self, I almost had the chance of becoming a lazy, unwilling person. I don't remember thinking much about college until going to a transitional school after high school. I said some really dumb things I regret saying. There was a part of me wanting to still be in the past being in school and video games, through now it be fucking awful being struck in a self destructive cycle combined with the fact that everyone leaves you in the end. I fell into some type of depression during February this year. I was really scared that I questioned everything about me. I would wonder if I'm making the right choices in life, should I chose this degree or not, big picture type questions. It didn't help that in the program I was in, there was three people that has the same disability that reminded me of my younger self. Two of them were like they want to be struck in a cycle of stillness, and the third person just didn't care about a lot of things and say something I would say in the past. I didn't want to be in that cycle.

Thankfully things got better, both of my best friends helped me out during that time. I did a lot of self-reflection about myself, and I have ideas on what career to chose. I'm currently been reading a book on aspergers to learn more about it to accept myself. I also been reading this forum which really helped. Seeing Chris and other lolcows really show how easy parents can fuck up really badly in caring for their kids. I been thinking of becoming a disability specialist to show anyone with a disability that there's more to life than meets the eye and it's better to be out there then hiding in a shell forever.

This may come off as childish, but I needed to say this.
 
Lol just got kicked from a group chat i was in on PSN for saying some guy they were planing to mess with with would hopefully be as autistic as Chris Chan. It started a internet fight over the spectrum and how its insulting. Lol i have irl friends who have it ranging from mild to functioning adults. I eventualy got mad over how toxic it was and told them the spectrum is bullshit and to grow thicker skins at the mention of the word. Granted i did say the speach paterns is funny and i suppose that pissed them off too? God i hope there will one day be a cure but that won't save them for being assholes who know they can get away with it.
 
Jazz never died! said:
Lol just got kicked from a group chat i was in on PSN for saying some guy they were planing to mess with with would hopefully be as autistic as Chris Chan. It started a internet fight over the spectrum and how its insulting. Lol i have irl friends who have it ranging from mild to functioning adults. I eventualy got mad over how toxic it was and told them the spectrum is bullshit and to grow thicker skins at the mention of the word. Granted i did say the speach paterns is funny and i suppose that pissed them off too? God i hope there will one day be a cure but that won't save them for being assholes who know they can get away with it.
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You necro'd a thread that died almost 7 years ago
 
Well, being a spectrum it could be a matter of numerous factors. I am pretty certain that in certain circumstances an autistic person can hide the autism better than others.
 
Genetics two high functioning, one low functioning in my family. though the two high functioning cases were spawned by my uncle on two different women, he worked around radiation too... Maybe get yourself a lead jock strap if you want normal kids.
 
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