A vent (long)

rejectedmom

New Member
Ok I need to vent a bit. I don't think I have ever posted about easy child 2 other than the good stuff but the reality is that he can be very difficult to live with. He is sloppy, and rarely cleans up after himself. He is self absorbed and rarely ever realizes that husband and I have needs. He has poor social skills which are interpreted as rudeness and consequently it comes back on me.

At thanksgiving someone in the family asked him what he was doing now that he was out of school and easy child/difficult child ignored the question. It was repeated since the person thought easy child/difficult child didn't hear them and again my son ignored and didn't answer. somehow my son saw this as prying. so my easy child daughter who witnessed all this came to me and told me. OK I know now (hindsight is 20-20) that I should have told her to take it up with her brother herself but I didn't. I came home and approached my son about it. He lied to me and told me he had answered the question. UG!

Then today he was talking on the phone (in my presence) and he said "I love you but I am going to bed I have to get up early tomorrow". When he ended his conversation I said was that S (his best friend)? easy child/difficult child said no. It then dawned on me that he had been talking to a girl. So I asked if he had a girlfriend. He said " No, we are just friends". Then he tells me that she wants him to buy her lingerie for Christmas. I said "That is a pretty intimate gift for a friend. The most I would do is give her a gift certificate to VS". He said that is probably what he will do. easy child/difficult child then goes on to tell me that he is still a virgin and didn't I know that. :confused: I tell him that no I wouldn't have any way of knowing that and congratulated him telling him that it is commendable in today's day and age (he is 25).
I then ask if this girl has a name and if one of his friends had introduced them. He says he isn't comfortable telling me her identity because he isn't sure how he feels about her.

I got hurt and told him that I felt his boundaries were unreasonable. That there was nothing wrong with my asking him his friend's name and expecting an answer. He steadfastly refused to tell me insisting that he didn't mean to hurt my feeling but that he had no intention of sharing that with me. He said he was afraid that we would make fun of him???????? ( I don't understand how he volunteers the fact that he is a virgin but cannot comfortably tell me how he met this girl). Anyway I lost it and told him that he makes his father and I uncomfortable in our own house almost daily. I told him that I was hurt by his secretiveness by the fact that he doesn't want to share his life with us. I said that it irritates us that he repeats many actions ( leaving dirty dishes on the table, food in the sink, used tissues on furniture etc.) after being told over and over that they are causing husband and I stress. I told him that if he wanted to lead a secretive life then he needs to move out. At least that way I won't be asking innocent questions and getting my feelings hurt in return.

In addition I have had husband talk to him about his drinking just last week. easy child/GFF comes from alcoholic parents and he can polish of a six pack in a couple of hours. His life isn't going as he had planned and I understand that he might be frustrated. easy child/difficult child went into an 8 month depression when he couldn't get or keep a job after graduating with honors from college. I wanted to get him help but then difficult child went down the tubes and well you know the expenses of that mess. Anyway I told easy child/difficult child that I would pay for therapy if he wanted it that we could afford it now and he says "No, I'm good". So I walked away. But I am tired of all the MH issues that surround me. I want easy child/difficult child to get a place of is own. I cannot live in the same house with him and not watch and worry. That is a level of detachment I cannot achieve yet. On the other hand, I do not think he is ready (able?) to live his own yet. He has many medical issues and poor executive function skills. He doesn't take care of himself and then he gets ill and overmedicates. If he moves out I know he will never check in with us. He would go months at a time when he was in school without calling us or dropping an e-mail. We would eventually have to talk to his roommate to make sure he was OK. I know that he is probably AS but I cannot deal with this quirky nasty sloppy self absorbed stuff anymore. I want to be compassionate from afar. I don't want to be on the front lines anymore. I want and need peace in my life. And... I feel guilty for that. I know I am rambling but I just need to get this off my heart. Thanks for listening. -RM
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
Ok...you live with my oldest son!

Seriously he sounds like his twin for the most part. My oldest has really poor social skills, depression is just under the surface, he doesnt drink at all though. Billy is not the neatest person to be around. He will let things accumulate where they land. Im convinced he is high functioning AS. He looks like your typical geek.

Now Billy would attempt to be somewhat polite if asked a point blank question but he would over talk people with idiotic things about nanoscience or robotics or computers. He always thinks he is smarter than everyone else. Makes me crazy.
 

1905

Well-Known Member
Well...I have a 15 yr old that you are describing.He doesn't have much in the way of social skills.He will ignore someone saying hello to him-because he doesn't like them.(He doesn't like anyone!) And he will not tell me or answer questions about anything. He is in all honors classes and thinks everyone is stupid.We spent Saturday all day at a chess tournament which he came in first place-at one point he got annoyed that I even asked him if he won all his games.He looks like Napolean Dynomite(exactly). And he acts like him too. Truthfully, alot of kids are quirky, sloppy, nasty and self-absorbed. I think it would be ok to keep some things to yourself- some things are private. -Alyssa
 

rejectedmom

New Member
Well I agree Alyssa as to some things being private. I am not a nosey mother who has to know all my kids business. Actually I prefer to not know some things LOL. It is just that the things he keeps private are different than most peoples (Like what his friend's name is and whether he had a good day at work) and the things he shares are things he should keep private (like his sexual activity or lack of and the fact that this girl asked for lingere). The drinking is a major stressor for me as it was once suggested by a psychiatrist that he might be Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS). From adolecence we have educated him that for him drinking could become a major problem in a very short period of time due to the possiblity that he was addicted at birth.

The other thing is that if he feels slighted by anyone he just seeths anger. He harbors it and obcesses over it and it is hard to even be in the same room. It doesn't matter that I have not been the one to slight him. when he is angry he cannot differenciate it or turn it off when dealing with innocent others. Then he'll ask for advice and husband and I will give it to him and he will argue and keep comming back with to us the same stuff day after day. we have to actually get abrupt with him to end the cycle. It is hard on us and with husband's new job starting soon I will be the only one available to easy child/difficult child. He will wear me out in no time.
His siblings have distanced themselves for this reason. They love him but can only take him in very small doses. And they do not understand why he finds it so easy to blow off major family functions such as weddings and landmark birthdays but can not ever say no to his friends. OK I realize that this sounds like typical difficult child stuff but easy child/difficult child is not ever disrespectful. He never yells at us never curses will do things if we ask but only specifically what we ask nothing more. It isn't that he is lazy he just doesn't think further than what we specificly ask. Like if I ask him to run the dishwasher and there are a few dishes in the sink he will turn the machine on without adding the couple of dirty dishes in the sink. -RM
 

KFld

New Member
I don't think I would be so upset about the need for privacy at his age, as he is 25, but not cleaning up after himself and being rude to people when spoken too is a different issue.
I deal with the privacy thing with my easy child, but she is only 16. She has a boyfriend, who she won't really talk about and we haven't met him yet. She is a very modest private person and I know she is very uncomfortable bringing him to meet us. I don't know if she thinks we will interrogate him, because we would never do that, but I told her she needs to understand that she's only 16 and if she's dating someone, I want to meet him.
 

DDD

Well-Known Member
The combination of being an "adult" and having sizeable deficits preventing the "pursuit of adulthood" is a total
bummer. You hear reminders that "I am a MAN" at the same time you are worried because your child is acting like a child...or worse yet..."somebody elses child" since you didn't raise anyone to be a slob, rude non-hygenic etc.

I do understand your frustration. Sadly, I have no answers
but I do relate. DDD
 

rejectedmom

New Member
Karen, Privacy is accepted in my home. It is what he choose to make private and what he chooses to tell us that is odd.

In addition, easy child/difficult child got into a major situation when in HS because he doesn't understand some social cues. Being different he was targeted by a ruthless female who didn't want him at her lunch table. She made up stories to get him in trouble and had her friends back them up. After an intense police investigation, all of the girls friends who had initially collaborated her story admitted to telling a lie the girl never recanted but she didn't want to pursue it any further. My son was traumatized and he almost went to jail. When we asked about pursuing charges against the girl for falsifying a police report, the school asked us to drop it. The girl was related to some local politicians and it would have been a big media mess. The thing is easy child/difficult child continued to make excuses for this girl long after the incident not truly seeing how she had almost destroyed his life. So yes I guess when he is not forth coming with a girl's name warning bells go off in my head.


DDD,

"The combination of being an "adult" and having sizeable deficits preventing the "pursuit of adulthood" is a total
bummer."

You got that right! -RM
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
If he has Aspergers, these kids can be brilliant and so clueless that it drives you nuts, but their brains are wired differently than ours. My friend's 29 year old son has an IQ of 160, is a college grad, and never held a job. he's on Disability, and he and his wife (yes, wife that he met online, who lived in Chile...lol) live with her. He can't hold a job to save his life, and she is getting fed up with him, and doesn't understand Aspergers. I would find out if he has it, and then educate yourself and him on what it is so that you can work on helping him function in a world that probably confuses him. There are some great support boards for adult Aspies. Wrong Planet is the one I love the most (you can do a search for it). I go there often myself, as I suspect AS along with my bipolar, and my own son has high functioning autism. Good luck!
 

rejectedmom

New Member
MM mom. I wanted to have him tested and get a definate diagnosis but he doesn't want to. I am certain he is AS but he does not have that lable. They didn't know enough about Autism when he was growing up. He says he is fine he doesn't need to have anymore tests. The thing is he isn't fine and now he is starting to drink a bit too much for me to be comfortable about it. I think he does it because he cannot relax on his own. He started experimenting with alcohol when he was 14. He drove while drinking when he was in HS and his friend ratted him out so we took the car away for several months. We also stopped bringing alcohol of any kind into the house but now he can get it himself. He doesn't have to sneak ours. I will tell him about the Wrong planet site. maybe he will be curious enough to go there. Thanks. -RM
 

DDD

Well-Known Member
I'm sure you know this also but the "experts" stipulate that
if alcohol/drug use begins early in life it stunts the emotional growth and development pretty close to the age of
the usage. Of course that doesn't mean one beer but actual use. I personally think that the experts are right and we
have that factor added in to the other factors...which is
preventing the natural maturing process. Bummer. DDD
 
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