I Didn’t Know My Son Had Asperger’s Syndrome

At 3 years of age, I knew something was different with my son’s development, physically and neurologically. With all the nurses training still fresh, I remembered my studies of autism. I wish I would have connected more with it when my son was born, but there was an element of denial that kept repeating itself in my mind. Besides I had been told that his father had ADD (attention deficit disorder) or ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). The family had a name for it: ‘The Family Curse’.

I always thought that was a very mean way to classify someone’s disability. I was intent to know what was meant by that family phrase. I did not know that this disorder was present in my husband when we married, but I did know that he was unique and ‘different’, very talented and artistic. Those characteristics had drawn me to him. No one in the family was able to define it for me, of course. So, I was on my own.

My former husband has the aggression, and he would repeat certain motor actions. He has very poor muscle coordination. I was told that he was very subjective in his moods. Everything is all about him and he takes everything personal. He does not accurately relate the true facts about a situation because he does not understand them and misinterprets them. He is very naïve and misses much of the actual meaning to everyday conversations. He is very friendly, and I did not see his lack of social skills until I started studying our son. My ex-husband is very sensitive to touch and is distracted by every noise that comes near him. Looking back on that, after I had researched the subject of Asperger Syndrome for my son, I realized that my ex had Asperger’s Syndrome and that that was very probably the’ family curse’. How the family could be so judgmental made me a little angry, but I definitely understood why they could label it that way. It was a mystery. In fact, little was known about it until after the 1980’s.

My Son’s Characteristics

Birth

He had a rough birth, he was not progressing, the doctors thought, so they decided to do an emergency caesarean. I was left all alone for quite a while and they did not check his birth progress before they began the surgery. When he was born, I recognized the characteristic high-pitched cry that sometimes signaled a birth damage. He had begun the birth process on his own while I was relaxing and was quite far down the birth canal but had not crowned yet. I had no feeling at this point, and no one was with me. I so remember him crying, frustrated, angry. I called out to him and kept calling until he heard me. He stopped crying immediately and looked all over to find me. At that point that little guy stole my heart. All I wanted to do was hold him. As it turned out, the anesthesiologist gave me a little more sedative so they could finish, and I did not get to hold him for a while. Then, his father decided that he would hold him the rest of the time. That was difficult for me, but the bond between my son and me was significantly solid.

Infant

Growing up as an infant, he was very quiet. He would baby babble for a while until he heard a noise. Then he would be quiet. I was so anxious to have his father’s grandmother hear him talk that when I was talking to her and he would start his rare baby cooing, I would immediately put the phone up to his mouth so she could hear him. He soon would hardly talk anymore. Then, at 3 years of age, he started talking, but not excessively. I remember whenever we went out to eat, he would just turn around and watch people. He seemed to be taking in everything around him. It puzzled me but I decided just to enjoy being able to eat uninterrupted. He was really not much trouble. I so enjoyed holding him, and he liked that.

Child

Later, as a child, I realized that he had a tough time handling texture. I thought it was just that he wanted his own way, but it was hard to get him some pants he could wear comfortably.

At first, he would seem to know where everything was. I would ask him where something was, and he would toddle off to find it and bring it to me. Then he started looking at me blankly and appeared to have a very stubborn attitude. I would ask him to put something on a table and he would start to, but then would put it somewhere else and then just look at me, with no visible emotion.

What was hard was that he was the cutest, most adorable little boy ever. I disciplined him, but the characteristics he was developing really puzzled me. I knew something was wrong. I had started doing therapy with him as we were taking him to a vision therapist. I would allow him to crawl way past the age limit that most kids were crawling. I figured he really needed it for some reason. I felt like making my brother’s life very miserable when he humiliated by 4-year-old son for continuing to crawl. I could never get that needful activity back for him. It would have helped immensely for him to continue it until he was ready to quit it.

School Age

Home schooling was the only option for him. He was not relating to the other children. I had to watch him around other small children. He was very aggressive with other children, and even with his own brother and sister. I definitely did not catch on to that because at times he would just seem like he adored them. But then there was the arguing that started erupting at the dinner table and I had to separate him and his sister. He was not very coordinated and did not do well in sports.

He had a look in his eyes when he was about to have a meltdown. I did not know it was called a melt down until later in my research. He was pretty much expressionless as a child. It worried me. He could not seem to understand what other people were saying. Isolating himself, he would sit alone and just watch all the other children. He would frequently misunderstand what was said to him. A teacher came up to me and told me that she was trying to let him know that he could have a crayon and he completely misunderstand, reversing what she said as permission to use it to think she was telling him he could not have it. He had a melt down because of the misunderstanding. He still is extremely literal; I have to be careful I say what I mean very clearly.

Later, I noticed he would have hand and body movements that were very animated and exaggerated. He would flap his hands when he became agitated or overwhelmed. There were so many mannerisms that just baffled me. I was just the opposite and could not understand the meaning behind this. I did much talking to him, which I realized later just confused him more.

Partial Solutions and More Challenging Situations

I knew that he had to understand that I was on his side, that I was his friend who would never let him down or leave him no matter what he did. I have been able to prove that to him over the years, but it has been very challenging. He and I are still learning and have much progress to make. When he was 7 years of age, we had what felt like a wrestling match as I tried to communicate to him that I was a safe person, that he could trust me. I was afraid someday he would turn on me. It worked and he has never been physically aggressive to me as he was to others. He still likes to argue though. (Oh my).

This is being written to increase awareness of these Autistic traits. My son became involved in a situation with the police that very much showed me the need for public awareness of how to deal with a person in an Asperger melt down. The situation ended up being very blown up and my son became entangled in the middle of a vastly misunderstood situation. He is still “paying” for it after 3 years and that is a very devastating, overwhelming and an unfortunately misunderstood situation. And that is another story to be told at another post.