Responding To Abigail's Post

Nate is 5 yrs older than Abigail, chronologically. In all other areas, she is actually 5 yrs older than him. I remember as I was watching her grow, even through preschool, that she was very different. Watching her made me so much more aware, that Nate did have difficulties.

Nate's anger didn't start showing itself, badly, until after high school. I am sure he was mad that he was so very different & he wanted so very much to be like everyone else his age. Those he knew were off to college, dating, getting married. He was having difficulty just learning how to hold down a job. He took 2 yrs to admit that he had Asperger's. When he told me, for the first time, that he accepted this, I knew he had made yet another big jump.

Nate visits us when he wishes to. We ask him more often. Art, Abigail & I have a peaceful household. When Nate comes, the peace disappears. Art & I had to learn how not to allow Nate to draw us into arguments. This is still difficult & something we continuously work on. Nate gets mad at us very easily, as he misinterprets most of what we say or we drop a subject much too quickly for his liking. I don't like him going home mad, so I work hard to be sure he doesn't. I think this must be the mother in me, because Art is not like this.

As Abigail mentioned, Art & I were challenged to not only work with Nate, but to also give Abigail her needed attention. With the Lord's help, we succeeded. For the last yr, with Nate in his own place, Abigail has enjoyed being an only child, well young adult, but when she is home, not at school or work, she enjoys the time we have together as a family of 3. Art & I are also helping Abigail with the areas of growth that she is going through.

I hope you are learning about Asperger's through our personal experience. I will start with research & bring in more professional facts, at least those that actually do exist.

Abigail's Turn - Nate's Younger Sister

Growing up w/Nate was a challenge. We got along great when I was younger, in elementary school mostly. We watched tv together and played w/each other. As we’ve gotten older, we haven’t stayed as close as we were when we were younger, but we’re still as close as we can be. I think the reason for this is I’ve developed and matured faster than he has. When I was in high school, he didn’t meet my needs like a typical bro would. Examples of this would be when I was going through a hard time or was really excited about something, I couldn’t talk to him about it. He wouldn’t be excited with me. It would take more effort to explain why something I was going through was hard for me. I’m a poet and he doesn’t appreciate poetry. In these areas, I had to adopt a bro. there was a guy at church who helped with the youth group I was involved in. he filled my need for a bro. My earliest memory of his anger is when I was 8-10. He punched a hole in a wall in our house. That caused me to fear what else he might do to the house out of anger. I never feared him hurting me. He’s always argued a lot w/my parents and I’ve always hated it. When they argue, I leave the room. He has embarrassed me when I’m with my friends or just in public. He did this b/c of his lack of social skills and different bodily movements/language and when he sometimes argues in public. I’ve started to learn to not be embarrassed by him or annoyed and to have patience. These are very hard things to learn, but as my parents keep reminding me to have patience, I try harder, and am slowly succeeding. Here are some examples of ways that he can be annoying: his body movements are not typical and can be annoying, but mostly it’s his OCD. He uses 2 pieces of tissue instead of just one. He’s very slow at everything. He writes EVERYTHING. Some good things of having him as a bro are that he’s a neat freak, which is also annoying. If a paper was on the table instead of on the desk, he would move it. If a book was sitting on a table and was crooked, he would straighten it. He spends a lot of time cleaning, but gets things spotless. His tunnel visions are politics, weather, and history. He knows dates very well. He can tell you when a specific snow storm was on what date in what year. He has researched weather and actually made his own predictions. One year his predictions were even more accurate than the meteorologists’! If I forgot to watch the weather on the news to know what the high temp was going to be the next day, I could usually rely on him telling me. If I have a political or historical question and my parents couldn’t answer it, he most likely could. I survived what I call the “two-year nightmare.” This was when Nate lived w/us for 2 yrs after living w/our bio father. During this time, he needed a lot of attention and sometimes I felt left out, like I wasn’t getting enough attention from our parents. When this happened, I cried and told my parents and they gave me what I needed. When Nate got into arguments with our parents, I would leave the room. I also yelled at them to stop yelling and I think sometimes it actually worked! It was the only way for them to hear me. They argued everyday I think. We got burnt out really fast. When he moved out, the house got so peaceful! My parents and I get along great, so we don’t argue much. One thing that helped a lot was that I wasn’t home a lot. If I wasn’t at school, I was at work or a church activity. I got breaks, but there were times when I still needed to get out of the house. I don’t think I ever really thought about how I grew to love him. I just always have. He’s older than me so I didn’t know life w/o him. He’s my bro, so I love him. That’s all there is to it. Do we really need reasons to love our family? I’ve learned what kinds of things I can say around/to him w/o him getting into an hr discussion about it when I just want to mention something. Here’s an example of something that happened recently. I thought I was going to need some financial information from him. I had no idea what specifics I would need, but I knew dad would know. Dad was at work. I was on my way to work (I called him then on purpose b/c I knew that he would find something to be confused about and talk on and on about on that topic. Calling him then enabled me to hang up w/o a fight.) and asked when he was working that night. I told him that I needed to know if he would be home that night so that dad could call him. He didn’t understand that I was just calling for his schedule and went on and on about why I even called him then when didn’t know what questions to ask. I told him I had to go b/c I was at work and hung up the phone. I quickly put the cell on silent b/c I knew he was going to call back w/in the minute. Sure enough, when I got off work at 8pm, I had a voicemail from him. He said he knew I was around, well, no I actually wasn’t! if he had listened to me in the first place when I said I was at work, he would’ve known that. He calls a lot. I’ve learned when to and not to answer it. When he calls the house, we usually answer. If he calls a cell phone, either of my parents’ or mine, and we don’t answer for some reason (usually we don’t want to talk to him or we can’t), he’ll try all of our cell phones and the house phone until he gets someone. By the time he calls the house phone, I usually pick up and say, “There’s a reason we didn’t answer the cell. We’re busy! Call back later. He forgets things about me so much! Recently, he forgot how old I was. That wasn’t the first time that’s happened. He keeps forgetting what I’m studying in college and where I work. One time earlier in my junior yr of college, he asked if I was still in the high school youth group at church. During the 6 months that my parents and I went to different churches, he kept forgetting that we didn’t go to the same church. Then when they started going to my church, he repeatedly forgot that they had switched, also.

Changes On The Horizon

Nate is getting to know himself, which is good. One of his calls last wk, was to say that he felt he should hold off on moving onto a different job, until after the roommate situation is settled. I thought this was wise of him & told him so. Changes are extremely difficult for him. His boss wants to get him into a job in the " real world. " That is going to be a huge step.

Right now, the man in charge of his team, is making plans to get Nate a new roommate. He met Eric, a fellow special educ student from high school & they live in the same apartment complex. They have become close & get along nicely. Eric doesn't get along with his roommate, for the same reason that Nate doesn't get along with his. Eric & Nate talk a LOT, their roommates are very quiet. The head of Nate's team is going to try to get a switch going on, but first the other men have to meet & find out if they are compatible. Nate & Eric have been getting together for about 2 months now. I will keep you updated on this.

Next blog posting will be from Nate's sister, Abigail, then I will start to get more info on Asperger's, itself, as I keep up with posts with Nate's life. My goal is to be able to reach people who have family members with Asperger's & to educate people on this condition.

The Past Year

I would have to say the this past year has been Nate's best & most productive. ECHO has been very helpful with him. The person who works directly with him, visits whenever necessary. He has received lessons in shopping, cooking, keeping a schedule for cleaning his apt, financial guidance. He is still having trouble with the finances & every time he makes a mistake, he believes the bank had to have done something wrong. There has been concern & his team may have to take over, as he does not know how to save. They are giving him another chance with this. When he didn't have a car, he took a cab & had to learn how to work with the cab company. He & the county, together, got him a new car. The team helped him to save money & the county gave money towards this. This is the first time he ever showed any ability to save.

Nate came to see us on Sunday & it was a good visit, which for him is not normal for Sunday's. I thanked him for a good visit, but I didn't go into the fact that this was not his norm. A couple of days ago he was in a good mood & called us 5 times, at least. He does this because he thinks of something else he forgot to say the first 4 times. He also calls a lot when he is in a bad mood.

More on this year in my next post.

Finding More Help

This company is called ECHO. The manager starts all new clients, spends time working with them at home first, getting to know them. The manager's name is Brad & part of his plan with Nate was to start with finances, for which we were very thankful. Nate listened to him & we were all too willing to to give up as much of that responsibility as possible.

The search for a place to live & a roommate also began. This took a month, which was faster than usual. Brad put himself on fast pace to get Nate out of our house asap, because of our strained relationships & Nate's temper was showing itself. When it came time to move, Brad even took care of that. Nate moved into his own apt, with a roommate May 2007. He was also hired at his present job, in March, I think. He is a janitor with ODOT in our county, with a program that ODOT has, in which they work with people with special needs, to help them learn how to hold down a job. Nate had had many jobs, but hadn't been able to keep them. He has been with this job for over a yr. The first year has proven to be rough as far as getting along with his roommate. It is very difficult for one with Asperger's to get along with most people.

The Last Year - Finding More Help

Nate has been seeing Dr. Jeannie for about a yr, I think. Early Spring of 2007, Art & I talked to a couple of people on Nate's team. These meetings always included him, because he is an adult & we are not his guardians. Hmmm, a word about that. We were told not to become his guardian because if he ever made any financial mistakes or got into any kind of trouble, we would be held responsible. He does make a lot of financial mistakes, & we are very glad not to be held responsible, plus, any time we talk money, there is stress, so it's a very good thing that we don't have to talk money with him any more than necessary.

Okay, got off the topic, there. One of the meetings that we had was how to help Nate get out on his own. We needed him out, but we wanted this to happen in a positive way, so that he wouldn't be hurt. We also wanted him to be part of the decision making process. By Spring of 2007, he was going back & forth, afraid of being out on his own, but wanting to get away from us. We were given a list of companies who work with those who need to be on their own, but whom are not yet ready. Online research started, phone calls, appointments, interviews in our home. Our 3rd interview, Art & I knew whom we wanted, now we had to explain our reasons to Nate, so that he would understand. At the end of the first discussion, he said he would just have to trust the conclusions we had come to, because he just wasn't understanding. So, the chosen company was invited back, and Nate told them that they were his choice. Life was about to go through some big changes.

The Last Year

Hi Everyone,
I have been gone for a few days because my oldest brother & his wife were in town & we seldom get to see them. So now I will continue my story about Nate. I will tell about the past year. This has been the most productive.

Art & I realized that we needed to do something but were not quite sure where else to turn. We were trying to find a counselor for him, who knew about Asperger's. The one who used to help him, had moved. I did a lot of searching & got a recommendation from another counselor whom I called. It turned out the lady, Dr. Jeannie, who was recommended already worked with quite a few who are helped through the mental health dept. This is another one of my pet peeves. It seems the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing, so we had to find out a lot for ourselves, that we should have been able to learn from those who already worked with Nate. The psychiatrist has worked with her, so why didn't he tell us about her? He apparently doesn't care for her because they have different strategies. So, we had to find her ourselves. Uggghhhh.