Re: Other things to consider/Re: New Student Seminar class for someone on AS

[Guest guest]

Let's put a slightly different twist on this discussion.

Yes, I emphasized the personal responsibility and legal separations involved when adults act as their own advocates rather than having others chase after them (and perhaps even coddle). But wait...there's more. <g>

Assuming the student has interests that can be identified, it's up to the student, not others, to present those interests in a way that further education can support. In this context, finding mentors and individually supportive persons -- some at school, others in private life -- can make a huge difference, since often the individual himself/herself is at odds with their own hopes through confused feelings and not knowing the signs of when they're wearing out resources or missing important supportive social cues. Temple Grandin has gone into this topic at some length in her books, videos, speeches, and co-written articles. Authors in the recently released books such as "Scholars with Autism - Achieving Dreams,"edited by Lars Perner, Auricle Books 2012, and "Autism All-Stars" edited by Josie Santomauro, Kingsley Publishers, 2012, mention the pivotal role of persons who aren't "family."

Achieving independence as an adult means, to start with, that one isn't tethered unconditionally to one's family. Indeed, sometimes one's family can be the impediment and actual barrier to gaining independence because of a family member's need to hang on, control, or protect the emerging adult from harm (another way of describing the real world out there). As long as the family has separation issues that either feed the individual's learned helplessness or dependency, nothing's going to change.

So, it may take the influence of an outsider, sometimes someone with the same interests, but just as often not, so that there isn't that element of the outsider's own personal agenda that has to be teased away from the internal motivations of the young adult on the spectrum.

So, what I'm suggesting is that such a person need not be a friend in the classic sense of the term, even though there is more similarity to the facets of true friendship in terms of what's being supported, or a person who has the formal title or label of counselor, therapist, or coach. Sometimes the mentoring person is a simple inspiration, and sometimes, the person isn't even AWARE that they're someone else's role model. So this process takes all forms.

The young individual may be so wrapped up in what s/he can't do that this constant de-affirming dynamic turns others off, uninvites others to perpetually heralded pity parties, or broken-record pleas on behalf of "someone special." There's nothing special about becoming an adult. It's part of life, and at certain stages, the "becoming" IS the important aspect of a given adult life-stge. Some of the precious over-attention paid to the most minute details of a young adult's life changes is often less than helpful to that young adult. (Think hoovering parent.) Enabling (in the bad sense) of a young adult doesn't even have to come from a living figure. It can come from long dead parents or caregivers. In fact, enabling learned helplessness, dependence, and consistent support of a young adult's calls for chronologically age-inappropriate support generates resonances way into the adult's middle and old age. That's because such sentiments have been inaptly supported at critical junctures in the young adult's path-choosing dynamic. Spouses continuing to "raise" their partners along with their children can easily slip into misdirected but well-intentioned furtherance of dependency having nothing to do with an adult-negotiated business arrangement in a significant relationship, and such spouses often express the mixed feelings so prevalent on this forum disclosing their own need to be recognized as an adult partner with reciprocal needs having nothing to do with acting as a mommy or a minder or an interpreter-to-others for their on-spectrum partner. Regardless of how comfortable such support roles may be, they invariably leave the "providing partner" with an abiding sense of unfairness and heightened concern as both partners age and at least one of them ponders the challenges of advanced age, reduced income and declining health.

I'm not describing these features of going through life changes and relationships "from a vacuum." My own twin sister (we're both approaching 70 in a month) has been in a long-time relationship with an only slightly younger partner firmly planted on the spectrum. Fortunately, she's been able to direct her mommy instincts into her profession (school teaching) and taking on adult individuals in need as periodic "projects." She goes from one support role to the next, and it's her capacity to maintain some sense of balance while dealing with the legal responsibilities of care for individual others through powers of attorney, her role as estate executor, and other kinds of formally recognized "caring for" titles that not only legitimate her mommy feelings, but also allow her to do actual good for others in a truly selfless way. She's worked out the complexities of her relationship with her boyfriend of fourteen years through a variety of clearly delineated boundaries relating to money, care and improvement of her living arrangements, and exclusive-to-her times by herself and times with others and other activities. She's able to get righteously angry when her partner consistently engages in illogical behavior, but does tend to lose her objectivity when it comes to her partner's conduct that's clearly unsafe not only in her eyes, but everyone's.

Love. Yep. Lots of it, but she spreads it around to her two adult sons, her "full family" on one son's side of the family, and her second son's dipsy wife of long standing. She's of mixed feelings when it's come to worrying any longer about supporting a now 27 YO granddaughter she largely raised as a teenager due to the granddaughter's crazy mom and overwhelmed father. She's finally accepted that her granddaughter is one of the lost ones. Acting from that recognition has thrown her into tradutional party politics at the local level, and continuing on in her paid part-time job as a union organizer with the NEA.

So yes, we make all kinds of arrangements and come to all kinds of temporary settlements for what life throws at us. Good thing that many of us have enough scar tissue on our rumps to remind ourselves after the last fall that we can view the fall as either serious or a pratfall, but at least we have enough life experience to call any reversal we face as part of life, and not part of "doom."

N. Meyer

Other things to consider/Re: New Student Seminar class for someone on AS

Also remember some majors are not Aspie friendly. I was a chemistry major. While all profs were okay class-wise, my work study, honors placement professor WAS NOT. He had "issues" with mental illness (Aspies are usually dumped in that group by the great unwashed). It was a whole different ball game when his name was also on the data and research I did.

Cliff note version of slow moving train wreck-how can I trust your data? How can I trust you wo

Greetings:

I have been at a community college and now at Oregon State University for a couple of years and both placements are very BIG on informing students that they have disability services available and urge students to take advantage of them in they need accommodations. It has been in every syllabus for every class I have taken and the teachers states, this is YOUR responsibility to seek out these services, but they give you the resources of whom to contact. Also, he will be assigned an advisor who should (and I say SHOULD with a wink as not all of them do), guide him through the process. Like in anything in life there are good and bad advisors.

I agree with who made some excellent points, in college it is a different playing field. You sink or swim on your own and it is up to the student to request help or even show up for class and do the work as no one cares if you don’t. Colleges offer an array of services for their students. This young man can probably go to their website and find out what resources they offer for students with disabilities and whom to contact to get the ball running.

Just my 2 cents worth as usual…

Best.

[Guest guest]

rogernmeyer@... wrote:

> Achieving independence as an adult means, to start with, that one

> isn't tethered unconditionally to one's family. Indeed, sometimes

> one's family can be the impediment and actual barrier to gaining

> independence because of a family member's need to hang on, control, or

> protect the emerging adult from harm (another way of describing the

> real world out there). As long as the family has separation issues

> that either feed the individual's learned helplessness or dependency,

> nothing's going to change.

I agree, . Unfortunately, parents of young adult Aspies can be

very resistant to accepting this message, thereby hobbling their

offspring even further.

For some parents, their identity has been all tangled up in protecting

their child (now a young adult) from the big bad world. To let go may

mean losing an important part of their identity.

> The young individual may be so wrapped up in what s/he can't do that

> this constant de-affirming dynamic turns others off, uninvites others

> to perpetually heralded pity parties, or broken-record pleas on behalf

> of " someone special. " There's nothing special about becoming an adult.

> It's part of life, and at certain stages, the " becoming " IS the

> important aspect of a given adult life-stge.

>

Very well expressed, . I'm glad you said it though, not me. I'm

not brave enough to toss around all those trigger words, as these are

very sensitive issues that can cause readers to become very defensive.

> In fact, enabling learned helplessness, dependence, and consistent

> support of a young adult's calls for chronologically age-inappropriate

> support generates resonances way into the adult's middle and old age.

> That's because such sentiments have been inaptly supported at critical

> junctures in the young adult's path-choosing dynamic. Spouses

> continuing to " raise " their partners along with their children can

> easily slip into misdirected but well-intentioned furtherance of

> dependency having nothing to do with an adult-negotiated business

> arrangement in a significant relationship, and such spouses often

> express the mixed feelings so prevalent on this forum disclosing their

> own need to be recognized as an adult partner with reciprocal needs

> having nothing to do with acting as a mommy or a minder or an

> interpreter-to-others for their on-spectrum partner.

>

On some level, I think these couples fill an emotional need in each

other, one that is likely to eventually be outgrown on the part of the

'parent' partner. Anger and resentment then sets in, and the Aspie

often takes the brunt of what began as a mutually fulfilling emotional

need. Such is often the outcome when a codependent decides to break the

cycle of enabling.

>

>

> So yes, we make all kinds of arrangements and come to all kinds of

> temporary settlements for what life throws at us. Good thing that many

> of us have enough scar tissue on our rumps to remind ourselves after

> the last fall that we can view the fall as either serious or a

> pratfall, but at least we have enough life experience to call any

> reversal we face as part of life, and not part of " doom. "

>

How much scar tissue should one expect to develop? Where do you draw the line

between " part of life " and " part of doom " ?

IOW, how does one determine which (and how many) life reversals qualify as

'normal', and which constitute a major train wreck?

Best,

~CJ

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The biggest fallacy is that human beings are rational creatures.