New member introduction

[Guest guest]

Hi, I'm Verleen from upstate NY in the USA. Before I go back and read

all the past posts, I'll introduce myself. I am married to

for 14 yrs. This past September, I've come to believe that

has Asperger's. Before this, I thought that just marched to a

different drummer and was a product of his father who was an extreme

hermit. In September, I was visiting a very dear friend who gave up

her career and life here to care for her father (senile dementia) and

two older brothers (one retarded and one severly austistic) after her

mother died. During this trip, some of her autistic brother's

behavior reminded me of 's behavior. Then to boost this

revelation, I read an article in the news the day after I returned

home on Aspergers. The article explained 's behaviors right

to a " T " . I am hoping to gain some suggestions on how I can manage

some of these behaviors so that we all can live comfortably under the

same roof. You see, I believe that my oldest daughter (age 38) also

has Aspergers. She also lives with us.

I liked when I met him because of his positive traits and

still do. We both love animals and nature. He and my daughter hit it

off right from the beginning. I always said it was because they were

so much alike. Even though my daughter was an adult when I married

, and he have formed a close father-daughter

relationship. is very caring towards and I, but the

rest of the world can go to heck. I have a progressive neuro-muscular

disease and worry about what will happen to both of them after I am

gone. So I have been coaching them to look after each each when that

happens, because they have trouble talking about personal matters.

's behaviors:

Antisocial disorder - to the extent that he gets very anxious if

people are on the property, even if they are not where he is at. He

can be in the house and they can be in the yard, and he still goes

ballistic. This is a big problem for me because I need a social life

and friends. Since we have a very small home there isn't some place

for him to go to escape company. The basement is a dirt basement with

low head clearance. After we were married, family from out of state

and friends quickly stopped coming because of . He makes it

quite clear that he doesn't want them here.

Chronic depression since he can remember as a child. After some

research, I put him on St. 's Wort and that has helped a lot.

Very poor sleep patterns. He is always sleep deprived. And he needs

music to sleep with, while I need dark and quiet. In fact, he needs

music on and loud all the time. I crave peace and silence.

Obessive-compulsive disorder. He has a daily routine and will get

extremely upset if there is any interuption to it. Engaging him in

conversation is an interuption. He keeps spiral notebooks going back

for years of his daily weigh-ins. He records many programs daily off

of public radio and gets hysterical if one gets screwed up. I'm

giving just a sampling of some of this. When we traveled across

country on a plane once, he vented the whole way about a program he

forget to set up for recording. When we landed, he immediately

called my daughter to walk her through how to set it up for recording.

We have wall-to-wall electronic equipment, VCRs, VCRs, tuners,

speakers, mini TVs to program with - in every room of our home except

the bathroom.

Hoarding and collecting - this is another biggie for me. We have a

small home and I crave empty space and order. We have nothing but

clutter and mess. He can't throw anything out. When I had a garage

sale with my daughter, he started out being our biggest customer, by

buying OUR stuff. We banished him from the sale. As he ages, this

is becoming worse, although he is not as bad as his father. To make

some empty space, I got rid of some of my crafting hobby stuff. He

quickly tried to fill the empty space with his stuff. I had to fight

with him to keep the space empty.

Part of the collecting thing is his collecting animals for pets. I

love animals, but don't want them all in our home as pets. I have

been able to force some downsizing here. I rehomed 4 parrots in 2005

and it was a serious conflict between us. We still have 5 parrots, 1

large dog (2 elderly dogs passed away in 2007), a chipmunk, 7 rats, 2

guinea pigs and a number of aquariums. We live in less than 1000

square foot home. We both have a collection of plants. I have been

growing plants my whole life. I have downsized to about 10% of what I

use to have. He has upsized and taken over the space where mine use

to be. If I keep downsizing, there will no longer be any evidence of

me in this house. So far, I have gotten him to agree that he can't

have any more dogs. But he has upsized the number of rodents he keeps

in the basement. He doesn't see the expansion of pets in the

basement as a problem for me, because I can't physically go into the

basement. However, between working and taking care of all his pets,

plants, electronic recordings, listening to them, and reading, he is

no time or money to repair broken windows, for example, or clean the

house. When it became physically impossible for me to clean ( I use

a power wheelchair now), I hired a housekeeper, but she left because

of . He hated her in our home and let her know it.

Messy, clumsy. is constantly spilling and knocking stuff

over. He never notices or cares to clean up these messes. He walks

right through them, for example spilled coffee grounds on the floor.

I use to clean them up and keep the house clean, but its been years

since I can do this.

And so, I would appreciate any help on these issues. I will also

read through past postings and see if I can find any solutions. I

know this sounds harsh, but there are days that I welcome death to

escape all this. Thank you, Verleen

[Guest guest]

Hi Verleen, My husband Curt has similar traits and he actually was diagnosed with AS about 1 year ago. Although he doesn't believe he has it. I'm very confident he does. I also have posted in the past that I always new somthing was "off" but couldn't figure it out. I thought he had OCD which I still think, severe self esteem issues and derpresssion, poor memory and inappropriate comments to others mostly my family and friends. Slowly over the years he accompanies me less and less to any family functions and nobody even misses him. It makes my life much easier. It used to upset me but I don't worry that he saying something innapropriate or ignoring people. i would describe him as a pack rat. He doesn't like to throw things out because its still good. Then it goes tot he extreme and when he gets fed up he starts throwing everything out. I went to the Jersey shore one weekend and when I came home he

threw ALL the kids toys out. He doesn't like toys he thinks they should be readin encyclopedias for fun...They are 5 and 6 1/2. We have trains, slot cars and a fish tank. He said he didn't think he had AS because it said they obcess aabout things and he doesn't do that. From my aspect he does. We have a fish tank and he spends hours in front of the fish tank watching the fish, moving stuff around, buying more fish. The people at the fish store won't sell him any more fish he's in there so much. We have a train track set up in our basement and when he's "playing" with that he's at the train store every weekend sometimes during the week, looking a trains, the track set ups, etc. He never focuses on more than one thing at a time. If he is working on the trains he's at the store on the computer for hours looking at track set ups he sits in front of the trains for hours just watching them go in circles and moving

freight from one train to another. All his hobbies he focuses most of his time too but only for short periods of time. The fish tank has been going on about 4 months. He was just laid off work for almost 2 months and he played on the computer lloking up train stuff, slot car stuff or playing solitare on his palm. the last 3 weeks or so he's been playing chess. He can't beat the computer and it throws his whole day into a tailspin. He reads books, practices and still can't beat the computer. We went to disney world last Novemeber with my family. There was 14 of us. It was a nightmare. I guess everything going on was to much stimulation for him. He likes to have a itinerary and I am so at the other end of that spectrum. But he soesn't like to go anywhere so I made up a day by day itinerary like Epcot on Monday, Magic Kingdom Tuesday etc....This really didn't help. It was like he was bouncing off the walls. It was terrible trip for me.... Curt also is a poor sleeper. Most nights he sleeps about 5 hours and he listens to music to get to sleep. I like quiet to so he wears earplugs. Oncce I started doing some research on AS I found numerous similarities to my husband. He is aware he struggles socially . He says he doesn' t know what to do and sometimes he asks me to help him. One day he called my sons preschool teacher who I am friends with and her husband asnwered the phone so curt told him who he was, he had met Curt before, and asked to hve her call him back. Apparently weeks before he had mentioned to owens teacher that he rides his bike on a trail near our house and she expressed interest which I think she was being nice..Anyway he called her up and asked her to go for a bike ride....I tried to explain how this was inapropriate and he still doesn't understand. So he had tickets to a football game and he said can I ask Dan our neighbor or is that inappropriate? I thought he doesn't

get it.... The OCD I have always recognized but in conjunction with the other stuff is overwhelming. He also keeps a daily journal of what he does at work and at home. I had a chair in my family room that I had on an angle and everyday for weeks he would change it to be flush with the wall. finally he said thats how it has to be. Our christmas tree was put in a different spot this year. I wanted it in a corner and that was terrible because it wouldn't fit square in the space. We had the tape measure out and moving 1/4 inch this way 1/8 inch that way...It was terrible to watch I felt like saying jsut shove it in the corner for God's sake... Life in general is a daily struggle and for you with your physical disabilities this is an added stress so I hope you can find comfort in sharing your stories, feelings and struggles with us. I know that I have felt better emotionally over the last week or two just

interacting with other NT spouses. Its also nice to read about the AS concerns and struggles. I do understan your feeling of despair because you think it will never be better but I think if you stay interacting here you will think and feel better. One of the other woman wrote tome that she has braod shoulders and if I ever needed them they were there and the same goes to you. I think that we have these broad shoulders to survive......Not only do you have and AS spouse but you havve severe medical problems yourself that you need to deal with. My thoughts and prayers are with you.... Verleen wrote: Hi, I'm Verleen from upstate NY in the USA. Before I go back and readall the past posts, I'll introduce myself. I am married to for 14 yrs. This past September, I've come to believe that has Asperger's. Before this, I thought that just marched to adifferent drummer and was a product of his father who was an extremehermit. In September, I was visiting a very dear friend who gave upher career and life here to care for her father (senile dementia) andtwo older brothers (one retarded and one severly austistic) after hermother died. During this trip, some of her autistic brother'sbehavior reminded me of 's behavior. Then to boost thisrevelation, I read an article in the news the day after I returnedhome on Aspergers. The article explained

's behaviors rightto a "T". I am hoping to gain some suggestions on how I can managesome of these behaviors so that we all can live comfortably under thesame roof. You see, I believe that my oldest daughter (age 38) alsohas Aspergers. She also lives with us.I liked when I met him because of his positive traits andstill do. We both love animals and nature. He and my daughter hit itoff right from the beginning. I always said it was because they wereso much alike. Even though my daughter was an adult when I married, and he have formed a close father-daughterrelationship. is very caring towards and I, but therest of the world can go to heck. I have a progressive neuro-musculardisease and worry about what will happen to both of them after I amgone. So I have been coaching them to look after each each when thathappens, because they have trouble talking about personal

matters.'s behaviors:Antisocial disorder - to the extent that he gets very anxious ifpeople are on the property, even if they are not where he is at. Hecan be in the house and they can be in the yard, and he still goesballistic. This is a big problem for me because I need a social lifeand friends. Since we have a very small home there isn't some placefor him to go to escape company. The basement is a dirt basement withlow head clearance. After we were married, family from out of stateand friends quickly stopped coming because of . He makes itquite clear that he doesn't want them here. Chronic depression since he can remember as a child. After someresearch, I put him on St. 's Wort and that has helped a lot.Very poor sleep patterns. He is always sleep deprived. And he needsmusic to sleep with, while I need dark and quiet. In fact, he needsmusic on and loud all the time. I crave

peace and silence.Obessive-compulsive disorder. He has a daily routine and will getextremely upset if there is any interuption to it. Engaging him inconversation is an interuption. He keeps spiral notebooks going backfor years of his daily weigh-ins. He records many programs daily offof public radio and gets hysterical if one gets screwed up. I'mgiving just a sampling of some of this. When we traveled acrosscountry on a plane once, he vented the whole way about a program heforget to set up for recording. When we landed, he immediatelycalled my daughter to walk her through how to set it up for recording.We have wall-to-wall electronic equipment, VCRs, VCRs, tuners,speakers, mini TVs to program with - in every room of our home exceptthe bathroom.Hoarding and collecting - this is another biggie for me. We have asmall home and I crave empty space and order. We have nothing butclutter and mess. He can't throw

anything out. When I had a garagesale with my daughter, he started out being our biggest customer, bybuying OUR stuff. We banished him from the sale. As he ages, thisis becoming worse, although he is not as bad as his father. To makesome empty space, I got rid of some of my crafting hobby stuff. Hequickly tried to fill the empty space with his stuff. I had to fightwith him to keep the space empty.Part of the collecting thing is his collecting animals for pets. Ilove animals, but don't want them all in our home as pets. I havebeen able to force some downsizing here. I rehomed 4 parrots in 2005and it was a serious conflict between us. We still have 5 parrots, 1large dog (2 elderly dogs passed away in 2007), a chipmunk, 7 rats, 2guinea pigs and a number of aquariums. We live in less than 1000square foot home. We both have a collection of plants. I have beengrowing plants my whole life. I have downsized to about 10%

of what Iuse to have. He has upsized and taken over the space where mine useto be. If I keep downsizing, there will no longer be any evidence ofme in this house. So far, I have gotten him to agree that he can'thave any more dogs. But he has upsized the number of rodents he keepsin the basement. He doesn't see the expansion of pets in thebasement as a problem for me, because I can't physically go into thebasement. However, between working and taking care of all his pets,plants, electronic recordings, listening to them, and reading, he isno time or money to repair broken windows, for example, or clean thehouse. When it became physically impossible for me to clean ( I usea power wheelchair now), I hired a housekeeper, but she left becauseof . He hated her in our home and let her know it.Messy, clumsy. is constantly spilling and knocking stuffover. He never notices or cares to clean up these messes. He

walksright through them, for example spilled coffee grounds on the floor. I use to clean them up and keep the house clean, but its been yearssince I can do this. And so, I would appreciate any help on these issues. I will alsoread through past postings and see if I can find any solutions. Iknow this sounds harsh, but there are days that I welcome death toescape all this. Thank you, Verleen

[Guest guest]

Hi , thank you for your words of support. Much appreciated.

My husband has discovered the other day that I am researching

Aspergers and he's concerned and asked me why I am delving into it.

So he knows what it is. Perhaps he was diagnosed with it before I met

him and hasn't told me. He did tell me that he was diagnosed with

MS, but said he was mis-diagnosed. If he does have MS, he has been in

remission for the 14+ yrs I have known him.

I hope I didn't sound too griping with listing all his behaviors. I

did so to show what the issues are, not to complain about him. He has

many positive traits and in many ways, I don't know what I would do

without him. I worry about and my daughter , because I

am their entire world. They don't allow anyone else in. isn't

even close with her sister. I worry about what will happen to them

when I am no longer here. Both and have high IQs and

both achieved degrees in higher education. does have a lot of

empathy towards other people, as long as they don't invade her

personal space. She is an ICU nurse and is a lab

technologist who likes to work alone. If I say something casually

about wanting something, lo and behold, will get it for me.

He is a fantastic man who just happens to have a few problematic glitches.

, I laughed at some of the descriptions of your home life,

because I could relate so easily. In fact, most of the time, I just

laugh at what my two Aspies do and they join in. It is best to find

humor in life. I have one tool that I found. Both and

really want to please me. So if I need to change something in their

behavior, I tell them that if they did " this " or " that " , it would

really help me. And if they hear it more than once, they do try to

help. This is something I use very rarely and for the more important

things. For example, recently I've asked my daughter to clean her

own bathroom weekly because its so hard for me to do it. My friends,

who don't have any experience with Aspergers, tell me to lay down the

law. Well, this doesn't work with and . They would just

dig their heels in and rebel with resentment. I wish I wasn't so

isolated. All my family live out of state. has no family

that he even talks to. My friends all live far away too with the

closest being an hour away. I really don't have a friend or family

member's home to pop into. And as you know, its nearly impossible to

engage in any kind of meaningful conversation. Its a lonely

life living with .

My husband likes to travel with only me and he would do terrible at a

large family vacation too. We both love nature and gravitate towards

places where nature abounds. It is hard to get him to leave his

'routine' at home. And its quite expensive because of all the pet

sitters and kennel costs involved. And it can only be done in warm

weather in case the weather causes a power outage to place the parrots

and plants in danger. Once I get away from his routine at

home, he becomes more talkative and truly enjoys himself. But I must

plan a packed full itinerary for him. He does well if nearly every

day is fully planned. In fact, on our September trip to CA, he got up

at 5 am every day, rarin' to go. On the third day, I told him,

" , you are killing me. " He laughed and said he doesn't want

to miss anything.

Like your husband, has some self esteem issues, esp involving

his employment. He translates everything said to him as a personal

criticism. For example, as he was driving us through a busy, metro

toll booth, drivers were speeding out of the booths in a mass exodus.

I remarked that it looked like the Indy 500. He got defensive and

said he is driving the best he could. I asked him how my comment had

anything to do with his driving. He just said nastily that it didn't

and clammed up. But he really felt it did, but he can't answer my

question. Because of how he translates everything said to him, I

don't try to engage him in conversation. He feels that I am avoiding

him and I guess I am.

I try to see the progress that has been made. is more

sociable now than he was when I met him. On our honeymoon, we went to

San Francisco. We took a lot of tours with this one company where we

rode with the same people day to day. I began talking with them.

got upset with me and asked why I was talking to strangers.

Now he will engage in a little conversation with others when we are

away from home, traveling or in a restaurant. He accompanies me to

plant club meetings some times and keeps to himself as usual. But he

no longer minds if I spend the whole meeting talking with others.

How did you ever get Curt to be diagnosed? refuses to see

any kind of doctor or therapist for anything. He has untreated high

blood pressure because of this.

Verleen

>

> Hi Verleen,

> My husband Curt has similar traits and he actually was diagnosed

with AS about 1 year ago. Although he doesn't believe he has it. I'm

very confident he does. I also have posted in the past that I always

new somthing was " off " but couldn't figure it out. I thought he had

OCD which I still think, severe self esteem issues and derpresssion,

poor memory and inappropriate comments to others mostly my family and

friends. Slowly over the years he accompanies me less and less to any

family functions and nobody even misses him. It makes my life much

easier. It used to upset me but I don't worry that he saying

something innapropriate or ignoring people.

>

> i would describe him as a pack rat. He doesn't like to throw

things out because its still good. Then it goes tot he extreme and

when he gets fed up he starts throwing everything out. I went to the

Jersey shore one weekend and when I came home he threw ALL the kids

toys out. He doesn't like toys he thinks they should be readin

encyclopedias for fun...They are 5 and 6 1/2.

> We have trains, slot cars and a fish tank. He said he didn't

think he had AS because it said they obcess aabout things and he

doesn't do that. From my aspect he does. We have a fish tank and he

spends hours in front of the fish tank watching the fish, moving stuff

around, buying more fish. The people at the fish store won't sell him

any more fish he's in there so much. We have a train track set up in

our basement and when he's " playing " with that he's at the train store

every weekend sometimes during the week, looking a trains, the track

set ups, etc. He never focuses on more than one thing at a time. If

he is working on the trains he's at the store on the computer for

hours looking at track set ups he sits in front of the trains for

hours just watching them go in circles and moving freight from one

train to another. All his hobbies he focuses most of his time too but

only for short periods of time. The fish tank has been going on about

4 months. He was just laid

> off work for almost 2 months and he played on the computer lloking

up train stuff, slot car stuff or playing solitare on his palm. the

last 3 weeks or so he's been playing chess. He can't beat the computer

and it throws his whole day into a tailspin. He reads books, practices

and still can't beat the computer.

> We went to disney world last Novemeber with my family. There was

14 of us. It was a nightmare. I guess everything going on was to much

stimulation for him. He likes to have a itinerary and I am so at the

other end of that spectrum. But he soesn't like to go anywhere so I

made up a day by day itinerary like Epcot on Monday, Magic Kingdom

Tuesday etc....This really didn't help. It was like he was bouncing

off the walls. It was terrible trip for me....

> Curt also is a poor sleeper. Most nights he sleeps about 5 hours

and he listens to music to get to sleep. I like quiet to so he wears

earplugs. Oncce I started doing some research on AS I found numerous

similarities to my husband. He is aware he struggles socially . He

says he doesn' t know what to do and sometimes he asks me to help him.

One day he called my sons preschool teacher who I am friends with and

her husband asnwered the phone so curt told him who he was, he had met

Curt before, and asked to hve her call him back. Apparently weeks

before he had mentioned to owens teacher that he rides his bike on a

trail near our house and she expressed interest which I think she was

being nice..Anyway he called her up and asked her to go for a bike

ride....I tried to explain how this was inapropriate and he still

doesn't understand. So he had tickets to a football game and he said

can I ask Dan our neighbor or is that inappropriate? I thought he

doesn't get it....

> The OCD I have always recognized but in conjunction with the other

stuff is overwhelming.

> He also keeps a daily journal of what he does at work and at home.

I had a chair in my family room that I had on an angle and everyday

for weeks he would change it to be flush with the wall. finally he

said thats how it has to be. Our christmas tree was put in a

different spot this year. I wanted it in a corner and that was

terrible because it wouldn't fit square in the space. We had the tape

measure out and moving 1/4 inch this way 1/8 inch that way...It was

terrible to watch I felt like saying jsut shove it in the corner for

God's sake...

>

> Life in general is a daily struggle and for you with your physical

disabilities this is an added stress so I hope you can find comfort in

sharing your stories, feelings and struggles with us. I know that I

have felt better emotionally over the last week or two just

interacting with other NT spouses. Its also nice to read about the AS

concerns and struggles. I do understan your feeling of despair

because you think it will never be better but I think if you stay

interacting here you will think and feel better. One of the other

woman wrote tome that she has braod shoulders and if I ever needed

them they were there and the same goes to you. I think that we have

these broad shoulders to survive......Not only do you have and AS

spouse but you havve severe medical problems yourself that you need to

deal with. My thoughts and prayers are with you....

>

>

>