A La Aspie

Could I just say that I am on the tippy, tippy edge of this thing we call preadolescence and I’m already wishing for a swift blow to the head?

He had sex ed a couple of weeks ago. And apparently the sex ed was very detailed because he got to see a picture of a vagina (insert mysterious oos and ahs here) and he got all of the details about a period and how exactly babies are born. And now? Sex is ALL he thinks about. EVERYTHING now is a sexual innuendo… and I’m his mom. I can’t imagine what it’s like with a bunch of 9 year old boys.

And? The meltdowns are so much worse. He is on the autistic spectrum so we’ve always had meltdowns… but these? These are like nuclear disasters. Re faced screaming and tears over how MEAN mom is and weepy, the sky is falling, I will never survive, everything is all your fault.

10 minutes ago :
him : *weepy weepy weepy* You’re such a bad mom… You don’t even cook me dinner!
me : I’m making left overs from last night. If you’d like to make yourself something though, you can.
*after 2 time outs to calm down - dinner was on the table by this time *

* face becomes red, eyes become wide, steam rolls out of ears, he levitates 8 feet into the air, there is a bloodcurdling screech as the heavens rip open*

him : I don’t want to eat this. I’m not even hungry! GOD, YOU’RE SO MEAN!!!! !!!!!! !! ! !

I remember when Ryan’s cousins went through this phase and I remember the eye rolling and huffing… and that’s really my only point of reference… but I don’t remember this part. This is like my sweet innocent (hahaha) child is having growing pains because the demon inside is getting cramped and no longer has room for the entertainment center.

I… am now quite certain there must be a divine hand in our evolution because God help me, there are moments when I just absolutely don’t know how our species has survived with offspring this obviously incompatible with civilized human life. God bless mothers.

This is our president in 30 years, folks. Kill me now.

ponderethereal.com has been alive and kicking since 2001. Not too long ago, I added advertising to the site which has generated a small amount towards supporting the site. Otherwise, the site has been supported out of pocket.

Ponderethereal A La Aspie has provided information and support for countless numbers of parents of kids with Asperger’s Syndrome and adults like me with Asperger’s Syndrome and Karmic Konsumer enjoys regular reports of people finding valuable information about products and service providers on a daily basis.

To be candid, in September, I was assaulted by my husband and sustained injuries that made me unable to work. That on top of the divorce (of COURSE I divorced him!) has left me in dire financial straights. I am no longer able to financially support the site on my own.

If you have the means and have appreciated the site, please consider donating towards it’s upkeep. I would be eternally grateful. :)




There are those times when the review goes really, really well. Historically, with this school, it has ONLY gone really, really well. This year was different though.

Usually, the school sets up a 504 plan review meeting at least annually as part of the 504 plan process because it’s their responsibility. I had to request this meeting. Ethan and I went to dinner last night and discussed the items at length and came up with some good action points. I wrote up a structured report and request list.

When everyone showed up, out of 6 people, NO ONE was prepared for a 504 plan review except Ethan and I. There was confusion, no one brought anything, there was no sense of cohesion. Then we start ticking off the items and running down the list. Sitting across from me, Ethan’s teacher says “He’s been completing his classwork just fine.” BUT WE JUST HAD A MEETING A COUPLE OF MONTHS AGO WITH YOU, ME, THE SPED COORDINATOR AND ETHAN BECAUSE YOU SAID HE WASN’T COMPLETING HIS SCHOOL WORK. I SAW his workbooks with massive amounts of blank pages JUST NOT DONE. He spent hours at home making it up. Am I in some sort of alternate reality?

That wasn’t the only item like that either. This meeting was truly an act of having documentation out my ears of each and every item to convince the people who witnessed it along side me to fess up. Whether or not he acted up in class, he acted up at recess, he completed school work, the school followed up to make sure I signed something… everything, every last thing… it was like it never happened. And on it went.

California schools are being cut way back. I can understand there is some pressure on them to not expect quite so much from teachers because teachers will probably have additional responsibilities as staff is cut. But give me a break!

I had the proof, thank the gods. Never show up to an IEP or 504 plan unprepared, that’s for sure. Walk into every one knowing that they will dispute every last thing you say and ask for because that’s their job. They HAVE to try to not spend any more money on the child than they have to. YOU have to know what your child needs and YOU have to know the intricate history of what’s in his past down to the daily details and YOU have to know how this disability specifically applies to your child. If you don’t need all of the scraps of paper, dates and times that you’ve collected, then good on them. If you do, though, don’t be caught without it.

Cody has been doing wonderfully as a service dog. I take him with me almost everywhere I go now and it’s absolutely SO MUCH EASIER to go out with him. It makes getting out less of a source of anxiety.

A month ago, I would avoid going to the bank. Today, I’m going with nary a second thought. yesterday, we needed hamburger buns in the middle of the day, a time that I stay clear of stores, and I took Cody and got through it great!

I still can’t take him anywhere with shiny floors because it freaks him out but for short trips to a place with shiny floors, he can sit in the car. I saw a great dog whisperer episode that gave some REALLY great tips and I realize how I reinforced the shiny floor behavior now. I’m going to try to arrange an after hours training session with the pet store to get him to walk on shiny floors.

However, that isn’t the point of posting. The point is, our first service dog task is trained! Cody has learned to be attentive during periods of sadness and tearfulness. He senses it, knows it is abnormal and coaxes me into hugs and kisses. He sits patiently and attentively while I sob all over him and it helps! It’s better than a person because I don’t feel judgment or like I’m being watched. AND he’s with me all the time, whereas, I might not have a person around.

I feel like we’ve had a success!

Today, I took Cody on our first outing in public. We started with Walmart. I was a little nervous approaching the front door but Walmart staff were very respectful and I wasn’t challenged. Then Tim took off in the other direction, I got nervous and Cody got nervous. We rested for a moment and then plodded onward.

Cody was very well behaved. He focused on navigating around things, he ignored people, for the most part and ignored the stuff on the shelves and wasn’t the least bit frightened of shopping carts. And then the puddle of water happened. I didn’t see it, Cody stepped in it and his feet went out from under him and he panicked. He laid there for a long while, me comforting him before he braved it again and then he tried to do it on his toes. Have you ever seen a dog walk on it’s toes? It’s quite humorous and not at all conducive to navigating a tile floor. I’ll spare the details but we made it ALMOST back to the front door and then wound up putting him in a cart and wheeling him out, which he enjoyed.

Even while he was panicked, he was very quiet and polite to people. He laid there, panted and looked about calmly and interested in what was going on. Two old ladies met us on the way out and petted him and stroked him. I held my breath a little but there was nothing to fear. He licked one and they both cooed. When we got to the car, I walked him around the parking lot to help him regain his composure and then we were off to get lunch.

I learned, as his handler, to keep my cool and support him and to stand confidently by his side. Even though he wasn’t feeling confident, just being there with him made me more confident. I also learned to evaluate the successes and forgive the rest. He makes mistakes too and he did great for his very first time out! I also found that with him to focus on, even with such an anxiety cuing event, I didn’t panic AT ALL! I was CONFIDENT!

We went to Submarina next. I walked him around the parking lot and then approached the door. Instantly, he got nervous. I put on my confident energy and marched right in the door, ushering him behind. I let him lay down at the door while someone else placed the order and then we got up and walked outside and walked around some more. Then we did one more quick jaunt into the door and back out and he did it without being frightened at all. Success!

We ate outside and worked on down and stay while people are eating. Not so great at the stay part. I suspect because, in part, he was still keyed up over his experiences earlier in the day.

We made one more stop to CVS, which is carpeted, for his confidence and feeling of success. A little hesitation at the door, but then he followed us right in and took treats the whole way. When he stopped taking treats, that was my cue that he was getting nervous and so we walked outside and he got lots of praise.

We practiced sitting politely outside while people passed and he got it down pat. Then he came home and passed out in his crate. What a big day for him! No more working today for him. Just lots of love and rest. Tomorrow though, we’re right back at it. I’m actually tentatively looking forward to getting out!

I have Asperger’s Syndrome, which makes really simple stuff not quite so simple. When I was in my last relationship, we naturally ebbed and flowed so well together that my weaknesses were his strengths and although there were things that were annoyances to him, he always did like a girl who he could fancy weaker than himself. And so it worked.

In September, I went through a traumatic event that while did injure me physically, did more injury to me emotionally and mentally than anything else and compounded any difficulties I might have been having before that time. I was, at that point, dealing with severe depression and anxiety ALONG with Asperger’s Syndrome ALONG with PTSD. AND my main practical day to day support for the last six years, my husband, was gone.

I’ve done a lot of things to help myself recover as quickly as possible from the trauma of September and one of the things I did was get a dog. No… not a silver bullet, by any means but it was my first step towards feeling safer. What I discovered is that the dog also provided other more subtle things that I sometimes relied on my ex for. Like keeping me moving through my day and knowing exactly when I need affection (although the dog gives it to me, which is a step up, in my book).

Slowly, over the months, the dog and I have become inseparable around the house and when I leave the house, I feel like I’m leaving a part of me behind. When the man cub is in school and I’m here by myself, it feels normal and natural to take Cody with me to the grocery store or to the bank. I want to have him there to usher me to the door when I have a panic attack or get too over stimulated. I wish he could come with me to insulate me from the crowd. When I come home, I want him there to walk with me between the car and the house so that I feel safe. I feel unable to do a whole lot of stuff without that help. Normal every day stuff that I used to be able to do with a husband around… or that I just never was able to do with confidence. Using an animal for that is called having a service animal.

Service dogs aren’t just seeing eye dogs or hearing dogs. Service dogs can help people who are physically handicapped or emotionally or mentally disabled and service dogs are being used with autism more and more frequently. Although the few tasks I named seem fairly simple, when considering having an assistance dog for Asperger’s Syndrome, the idea actually fit an entire gamut of behaviors that would be a huge help to both myself and my son and would make daily life that much easier and more livable.

However, when I started looking into having Cody trained as a service dog, much to my chagrin, I found that service dogs are far from regulated. There is no system of trainers or programs to train a dog to be a service dog and most services that train service dogs, use puppies from their own breeders, not a dog that is already a companion animal. The trainers that will train a companion animal charge thousands of dollars for their services and while I don’t begrudge them their living, that’s just not something I can afford.

However, contrary to popular belief, there is no requirement that a dog must have training by a particular type of facility and it is perfectly legal for an owner to train their own service dog. And while there are several trustworthy organizations that serve as registries and testing agencies for service dogs, there is also no central licensing or certification requirement for service dogs.

Some states, counties and cities have requirements but their requirements are trumped by the Department of Justice Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) which holds out no requirements other than the service dog must be individually trained in a verifiable action that supports the functioning of the disabled person. Here is their FAQ.

So, not only is it possible to train one’s own service dog, it is accessible and legal to do so. True to form, I’m going to do it myself, for little or no money and I’m going to blog about the whole process. This process includes how to choose tasks that the dog can help you with, how to create a vest and identification, how to get accessible testing and licensing, in what order to train tasks and how to responsibly handle a service dog.

I’m no expert yet… but I started this process about a year ago when researching how to use Tobi for therapy work so I’m a little ahead of the posts or I wouldn’t have the confidence to start this series. After all, it’s a tall order, training a service dog.

Step 1 : Deciding if a Service Dog is a Good Fit - And How
Step 2 : Choosing or Using an Appropriate Dog

Most long time readers will know that my 9 year old some has some issues with impulse control and behavior in school and socially. This is, in large part, due to his Asperger’s Syndrome and in small (but not inconsequentially) part due to a very highly intelligent mind and strong will.

He is consistently disciplined and rewarded at home and I’m very involved in his world but it’s just not sinking in. And where his disability is concerned, only seen and experienced consequences help. Where zero tolerance and potentially legally dangerous acts are concerned, waiting for legal consequences is not an option I want to explore. So I decided to take him to the San Diego Juvenile Hall Open House.

It was absolutely fabulous. There were booths set up outside, first of all, so while you’re waiting in line to go on the tour, you’re passing educational booths about the facilities and county programs for crime avoidance. Ethan got to see what inmates wear and eat, handcuffs, pictures of inmates doing hard work and get a real taste of life in Juvie before we even went inside.

When we got inside, the kids, Ethan included, were lined up in the front of the tour, shortest to tallest. They were told right away that everyone under 18 was being detained for the next 20 minutes against their will. Right away, officers started yelling at them to straighten the lines up and tuck their shirts in and fold their arms the right way and it was like all 20 kids just totally zipped it up. The looks on their faces were priceless.

We went through each area of the facility and in each area, they were given a very gritty rundown of things like schedules, chores, responsibilities, discipline etc. They were warned about ill behavior at home and school and how it could land them there by people other than their parents. Every step of the way, they were very sternly treated and reminded about their behavior.

We saw bare exercise yards, sparse rooms with cots, bathrooms with no privacy, school classrooms, shared clothing, gross food and a really, truly, disciplinary environment. There was nothing that the kids could grab onto to say ‘it wouldnt be that bad’. By the end of the tour, they were satisfactorily sobered.

I took someone who had been in that juvenile facility as a kid and he was very clear that had he seen this as a kid, it would have been a deterrent. I know *I* surely would have been scared. It’s one thing to hear your parents harp on it, it’s another to see it first hand and hear cops tell you about it without your parents talking to them first.

When we left the tour, we went to booths about gangs, weapons and drugs and they had in depth displays that the kids could look at and actually see drugs and drug paraphernalia and gang related stuff so that they know what they are looking at when they see it.

I highly recommend this for any even borderline kid.

crossposted to my Asperger’s blog on Trusera.com

“Ethan’s mom!”, someone yelled from behind me.
(This is a title I’m quite accustomed to. “Oh, YOU’RE Ethan’s mom?”)
I turned to find one of Ethan’s teachers flagging me down. Yay!
“Hi!” I said, as cheerfully as possible.
Him: “Hi. I wanted to tell you what he did today.”
Me: “Of course! Why else would you flag me down from across the school by yelling, at a dead run?”
Him: “We were talking about planets today. I’m not sure any of the other kids heard or understood but Ethan asked me if there was a planet named after my anus.”

There was a brief pause while I scrambled to decide what to do. Should I laugh because damn, that’s funny or should I nod in serious agreement that it was a horrible thing to say? Could I nod in serious agreement without laughing?

I tried. I failed. I laughed. The teacher laughed to and said that yes it was funny and then returned to seriousness “But it’s not appropriate.” I nodded in seriousness and stifled the laugh for a moment. I briefly considered telling him the poop in the desert story and then decided it might not be the right moment.

I did talk to Ethan about it. We had a good laugh. Anus isn’t a bad word… it’s actually the appropriate word for that part of the body. The other kids didn’t understand because they don’t know what an anus is yet. So, my kid is advanced. I’m not going to discipline him for using the word. Uranus = ‘Yer Anus’ is FUNNY. I can’t convince him I don’t think it’s funny. I’m not going to discipline him for that. So all I could tell him was yes, it’s funny… but it’s socially inappropriate. Don’t say it in class again. Until all the other kids are older and know what an anus is and get the joke and then what is the teacher going to do… call EVERYONE’s parents? MuahahaHAHAHA.

No.. I didnt say that last part. I didn’t do the evil laugh either.

Shrug… what’re ya gonna do?

What I have noticed in Ethan is that when faced with an action, he often doesn’t realize that it is a series of decisions. But I’m confounded by the possibility that I do realize that it is a series of decisions only after learning to compensate that way - whereas a neurotypical doesn’t see it as a series of decisions… only as an action.

For instance : When I go grocery shopping, I buy what’s on sale and I freeze what we don’t need right then. I’m often pulling things out of the freezer to thaw when we need something. That goes for most meat, pre cooked meals and even bread. I’ve told Ethan a million times ‘when you put the bread in the freezer, lay it flat, not on top of anything and not squished. As long as I tell him that just before he puts it into the freezer, he does it correctly - as long as nothing gets in his way of carrying that thought directly into the task. But, when the freezer is open and it comes to making the decision about how to place the bread in the freezer, he just acts and doesnt connect the knowledge that the bread needs to freeze flat with the act of putting the bread into the freezer.

He’s hearing and understanding but just not connecting.. so that means that I have to repeat complete instructions every single time I tell him to do something and dare I give too many instructions, he will forget one or two and we start all over. It makes for frustration for both of us.

Most of my repeated actions, I have a learned set of choices for and I think about each action as a choice. How do I place my hand, how do I move the object, how do I change my face? What do I know about each of these subtle choices from past experience? He seems to be faced with the same necessity without the years of learning the behavior.

I’ve always known that I have scripts. For instance :

“Hi, how are you?” smile, tilt head, shrug, smile again because you didn’t make eye contact and you need to let them know you dont hate them “Ok, you?”

When I encounter someone I don’t know or a situation that is unfamiliar, I revert back to the scripts I know and try to make them fit. Often they don’t entirely fit and so I spend a few minutes after the fact kicking myself and creating a new script.

But I think what I didnt realize about myself is that when making decisions, I have the same inability to apply knowledge on the fly and just move with the situation. I’m constantly calculating with every decision, manually, everything I know right then.

It’s made me great at instant recall of a whole lot of information at once. Perhaps that explains the ‘walking encyclopedia’ effect of Asperger’s Syndrome. Perhaps that’s a coping mechanism for simply not carrying information forward like a neurotypical does. When teaching a class, someone asks a question and a glut of information spills out. When working in a professional environment, someone brings up a past issue and out spills the entire history and analysis.

But… not being able to simply apply information on the fly puts me, again, at a disability. I carry a horrendous amount of information in my head at any given time, causing stress and overload. I’m not able to make a decision over the phone when dealing with bills or home related accounts. I need to think, process and then decide.

I make really solid, careful decisions when I have the chance to do so. But when faced with a situation that requires quick thinking, or when gradually making decisions I dont realize I’m making with subtle words and actions, I often find myself in situations I did not anticipate.

Thus is life, I suppose.

Crossposted to Trusera.com

In September, my husband was physically violent to me. I experienced the typical shock that goes with an incident like that. It’s taken me 4 hard months to get to the point where I feel like I’m about halfway back to normal. On one hand, I’m lucky that I have healing skills and self knowledge that make my survivability better. But on the other hand, I was also more deeply traumatized by the incident because of my disability.

It’s no big secret that people with autism have a hard time coping with change. Now, 4 months later, I’m starting to be able to pick apart the elements of the incident. What was trauma and shock, what was logic, what was survival - and now, what was my disability.

The actual incident it’s self was traumatizing, obviously. Someone you trust attacks you. ANYONE attacks you physically… it’s all traumatizing. But neurologically, the actual way it was perpetrated just HAPPENED to collide with my sensory profile making it that much worse. As soon as the shoving and jerking around started, he could have stopped right there and I’d have been a mess. Even encountering something mildly jarring can send me into a sobbing puddle of tears and a day of recovering from shaken nerves. EVERY jarring incident can become traumatizing because my body doesn’t understand the input and so it’s automatically a threat. Cue meltdown.

After the fact, usually, someone just runs out and gets a job and everything is hunkey dorey, I guess. Maybe. But I can’t just work any job. I can’t work a job dealing with customers, I can’t work a job that really depends upon me working with people at all, unless it’s on my terms - and an employer doesn’t look too kindly upon that.

I’d finally come to a happy medium with work. I was self employed and I was really thriving at it. But being self employed means that if *I* am not working, the business dies. I couldnt work for 3 1/2 months and that is precisely what it did. So, somehow, I have to make up for my income AND his, now that his sorry butt is out of the house. Not to mention the medical bills and other expenses attributed to the incident. Facing expenses one can’t pay and the death of a business would be stressful to ANYONE. But they can run out and get a job - any old job. Rinse and repeat.

I’m accustomed to him taking over dealing with companies and people we depend upon as a family… like service providers and such. Now, I do it. That’s one more thing to my list. To anyone, adding one more thing ‘to do’ to the list of things we do day to day is a hassle. However, for me, dealing with even ONE of those phone calls is a huge event. It takes hours of nervous build up, if I can’t manage to put it off another day, that is. Once I get on the phone, it’s a rushed, anxious conversation in which I try to get it put to bed quickly. Cue meltdown again.

He really didn’t contribute that much around the house and I suppose I’m grateful that I got used to doing all of that. He also didn’t have much sympathy for ‘I cant deal with that, will you please handle it’ so I was pretty overwhelmed as it was. But adding these additional stresses is about all a girl can take.

It’s overwhelming. I have days where I would just much rather give up and walk away from society than deal with one more excruciating moment of confusion and strain. Every time that I have to re-explain to someone that I took them literally, didn’t understand what the form was asking or didn’t express myself properly, it’s just one more drop in an overfilled bucket.