Unpleasantries

I wish I could say that dealing with my daughter over the years was easy and something I looked forward to each and every day, but I could never say that with any inkling whatsoever of sincerity.  Perhaps, a lot of parents with Asperger children feel this same way.  She will fight me on every issue, until the cows come home and then some.  It does not matter what the issue is, for the most part.  Her job seems to be to make every simple task for me and others as difficult and painful as possible.  I will give some examples.

Administering her medicine is a god-awful job from hell.  She has two little pills to take (at the moment), which could be gone in a matter of seconds.  Instead, she drags her feet.  She tells me daily how awful it is to take, how it gets stuck in her throat, how she wants a different pill to help her lose weight, how the pills cause her to gain weight, how she doesn't feel depressed, when she misses taking them, and on and on.  Daily, I hear that, and it so frustrating.  I don't want her to take medicine.  She takes it out of necessity to function in the real world.  Should she go off it, she could have a breakdown.  Everything we've worked up to to get her to this stabilized point could all be undone.  It's a horrible position to be in for her, for me as a parent, for everyone.

Then, there's getting her to do a simple task like taking a bath.  She stretches.  She hemhaws, tells me she's busy, that she doesn't want to do it, that she hates baths, and on and on.  I just want her to take a bath, a shower, I really don't care.  She needs to be clean.  I rationalize with her all the time about how important hygiene is, how if she wants more friends, etc., that she needs to conform to this societal standard.  It doesn't matter what I say.  She's tired.  It doesn't interest her.  It's unpleasant.  She does it because I persistently bug her to do it, and even I'm not that strong to keep on her all the time, day in and day out.  I don't have that much energy, and I just don't care that much.  It creates an inner hardship for me to be such a drill seargent with my child and to make her do things that are unpleasant for her.  Her persistent nagging does eat at me from time to time, and she knows this.  It is her tactic to get her way in a lot of situations.  She does it with me, with her stepdad, with her teachers, Everyone! It is her way to get out of doing the things in life that she doesn't want to do, and it will impact her so negatively in the long run.  We tell her this (me, teachers, everyone).  We preach this to no avail!

Luckily, this year, she hasn't brought home much home work.  That's good, and it's bad.  It's good because it means that I don't have to walk through it with her, read sentences, and tell her what to write.  More or less, I do her home work for her.  She complains that reading and understanding is too hard.  She isn't retarded, but apparently, the way her mind works is it becomes overwhelmed easily with too much stimuli.  Difficult tasks must be broken down into smaller chunks, so that she can easily digest the information.

Another thing is that people, who are on the Autism spectrum, are more visual.  For instance, one year, my daughter's daily school routine was created for her in pictures.  I had tried that as far as her bathtime routine at home, but she is so unmotivated that my efforts were completely fruitless.  So, I gave up on the pictures and the note cards and just stuck to my routine of setting a microwave timer and running back and forth to and from the bathroom to make sure 1) the tub got filled with water, 2) she got her hair wet, 3) her hair got shampooed, 4) her hair got rinsed, etc.  So many people take this stuff for granted.  Their kids are independent and do all of this on their own without supervision.  My daughter is 17, and she will do this, but it's never timely.  She has no concept of time or schedules or anything.  It's all on me to be her personal timer and organizer, which is not a pleasant job at all.  I tend to give her a lot more time too than I should, just because it is so unpleasant for me.  Seriously, who on earth wants to micromanage their child's every move and in a timely fashion?  I'm like everyone else.  I have other responsibilities, taking care of the house, working, enjoying what free time I have, taking care of myself.  All the time I spend going back and forth telling her what she should be doing could be time spent getting other things accomplished, and that's what I do for the most part.  I pace myself and juggle my priorities.

The bad thing about her not having home work has to do with her unwillingness to learn new things at school.  She easily becomes overwhelmed and gives up easily.  She's always been this way.  So, in essence, she is taking very basic Math and English, and she's a junior in high school.  She is smarter than that, but her interests are very finite.  She loves animals and art but only on her own terms.  So, if Animal Science involves taking the prerequisites of Algebra and Biology, then just forget it.  Every subject she's ever taken has to be tailor-made specifically for her.  She just cannot take general education classes, and a lot of people may struggle with these, although most people do not limit their abilities and learning the way she does.

Yesterday, she tells me that she wants a good-paying job so that she can own a farm with animals, have a pond, etc.  My horrible job is to tell her how unrealistic her expectations are.  I have a notion that she is going to be on disability, and I know that people on social security don't make very much from my experiences with them at the office.  Over and over, I hear from so many different people how they are on a "fixed income", so I know what my daughter is in for.  She has the idea that she is going to be wealthy and that all her dreams are going to come true and that mom and dad are just keeping her from all of these dreams by telling her that we can't buy her every animal she wants, take her out to her favorite restaurant every time she wants, let the animals have babies, take them to the vet for every ailment, etc.  We are the enemy!  Some day, she will learn that her parents and the school are not lying to her.  We're trying to help her, but she can't be reasoned with.  She knows all, and we're just stupid.  Gotta love teenagers!