Went to the Hospital

I'm trying to post more often this year. Things just keep getting hairy with my daughters...

Teenagers even when they are young adults are so easily led. This seems to be an even bigger problem when the teen has Aspergers. As close as I can tell the concept of someone using my daughter is just not in her realm of understanding.

The last week has been a turmoil over her wanting to put the electricity in her name where she lives. There are three other adults in the house but they need the electricity in an 18 year old girls name. I seem to be the only one of the two of us that see a problem with that.

Her boyfriend asked her to leave last night. (Now that they have electricity.) She picked up a knife and was running it over her arm and fingers. The boyfriend's mother called me that she was suicidal.

Of course I went. When she wouldn't calm down, I called for an ambulance. The mother told me she wasn't to come back. While in the ER my daughter called them and the said of course she could come back. Once again I am lying to her. Or so she thinks.

I'm hoping the inability to see if someone is using her is due to immaturity and not a permanent feature of Aspergers. Although she processes verbally she won't let me reason with her about what is going on.

If I don't go when someone calls there is also the possibility she could hurt herself by accident. I will continue to go. When she verbalizes she wants to kill herself and has a viable means I will continue to call the ambulance too. I think that is only reasonable.

Rules for Daughters with Aspergers

This may not have been the best first rule but I think it should be. Daughters with ASD miss so much they need to lool around. I also have a few more to add:

Rule #1: Learn the lay of the land.
Rule #2: Everyone has skills.
Rule #3: Everyone has a reponsibility to use those skills.
Rule #4: Building skills requires constant practice.

More to come.

The World According the Mother of Daughter's with ASD

I'm going to make a list of all the things that I know that works for Daughter's with Autism Spectrum Disorders, especially Aspergers. Her is the first one.
Rule #1: Learn the lay of the land.

Aspergers and Stealing Really?

My second daughter has been giving me fits. She is old enough to do what she wasnts as everyone continually reminds me. I keep reminding everyone that she has impaired judgement because of the depression and Asperggers.

She took off to Michigan with the boyfriend, his sister, his mother, his grandmother, and 14 cats and 3 dogs. I knew it and they assured me they had a place to go to, in the winter. It didn't all work out that way.

Anyway before they left they were selling stuff. They had baseball cards for sale. The boyfriend's deceased grandfather's cards. I like baseball cards and wanted to look.

As soon as I looked through them for a few minutes and realized they were mine. Of course she told me they weren't mine. Finally I told her she better find mine or I would call the police. She 'magically' found the cards the next day.

I'm mystified. She didn't used to steal. Did she know they were mine in the beginning? She had to know at some point. For someone who lives in black and white, I don't understand where this came from.

Of course I'm busy reinforcing stealing is wrong. I also lock everthing now.

What do you think?

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My daughter is worried about losing her hours. Our state was going to a system where there are levels of care. Because of the bad economic times, instead of continuing in the phase in the state is doing it all at once.

Even though my daughter has Autisn, I tell people she is smarter than they realize. Not unlike her mother she is always paying attention. She did get a lowere level of care this time but I asked some questions and got it straightened out.

Obviously other people were talking about our system too. My daughter called me and was going on and on. She was concerned about a guy in her apartment building wha lost alot of hours. So many hours that they had to go into a nursing home.

Well although I advocate for people professionally, I don't particularly want to learn about things from my daughter. When mentioning it to the provider agency they could not imagine where she learned about it.

Another night Dominoe called me fussing. This time it was about the DSP telling her she could get in trouble with the police for talking about it. Not that I care, mind you, but I spent a half hour convincing her that it wasn't her that could get into trouble.

Another call to the provider. The explanation this time was that she misunderstood. I know better. She understood clearly. She's no fool.

Autism and Feeding

The last post made me think about how hard it was to get Dominoe to eat as a baby. And how scarey it was. She went six weeks as a new born without gaining any weight.

Finally one of the nurses at the health unit where I lived at the time sat with me to talk intensely about it. Of course I didn't realize what she was doing at the time. She did know, because they were there, I had two older boys so she started to ask questions.

I happened to mention how puzzled I was that she could go so long without eating. That got the nurse's attention. I described how Dominoe could go 6 to 8 hours without waking up and even then was not really interested. I had never had that problem before.

Together we devised a plan that I was going to stick a bottle in her mouth every four hours if she woke up. But I would do it anyway at five hours. Well that helped. She never gained weight like crazy until she was much older but she did start to gain.

Even now when she is sick I might have to hand feed her. She will just sort of stop eating. what brought this up was trying to convince the provider to give her acetominophen. I thought the story might help someone else...

Adult Children in SIL

SIL means Supported Independent Living. When my oldest daughter moved into her own apartment, I waited a couple of months to see how things went. After that I signed with the provider to provide SIL as well as staff. They handle her money, very well I might add.

They are also responsible for food and clothes inventory and purchases. They seem to do well with that too. It didn't take long before they applied for food stamps or SNAP as it's called now here. She qualified because she only gets SSI.

All of that to share that I had to be really persistent to get them to give her some acetominophen for a sore throat. At one point my daughter was telling me she couldn't OD on it. Now she didn't come up with that phrase by herself. And she had only taken two acetomenophin in the past 24 hours.

I finally called the supervisor who said she would make sure Dominoe got acetominophen regularly and she would call the doctor Monday. I don't think they realize how sick she can get.

We have been lucky she has not gotten sick. Now that she lives on her own she doesn't have to deal with younger siblings and their sickness either. I suppose the provider also doesn't know how she wouldn't eat as a baby. She had what they called 'failure to thrive' at one point.

Do you have SIL where you are located? How does it work for you?

You might also like this post.

Scheduling for Adults with Autism

Even though my child is an adult now and in her own apartment scheduling is still an important support for her. You can imagine my surprise when I was talking to my oldest daughter and she started fussing. Of course I wanted to know what was the matter.

The DSP (Direct Support Worker) had just come into her room and told her to get dressed they were going somewhere. It was 9 o'clock at night. I had Dominoe go ask her where they were going.

When that didn't work I told Dominoe to tell the DSP her mother wanted to know. That got a reaction. All of a sudden the DSP told my daughter not to worry about it. She said her husband would go.

If I keep telling people that scheduling is important, do you think they will believe me some day?

Flying Low

One of my New Year's resolutions, well let me rephrase that. I don't I have New Year's Resolutions I have goals. Anyway one of my New Year's goals is to learn to fly low. I'm not having alot of success yet, but I'm trying.

Flying low was brought to my attention by my daughter with Aspergers. Every time I have tried to talk to her about how poor a decision it is to move to Michigan with the boyfriend and his family she goes off the deep end ranting and raging.

When I find a way to work what I, and others by the way, think into the conversation it works better. Another words it helps if I don't say things directly.

She still went but she has spent alot of time thinking through what she would need. I don't think that would have happened without the little nuggets I tried to insert into our conversations.