With my son my biggest struggle is
behavior and social issues. I think since we did a med change things have gotten a little better as we don’t see mean moodiness. Thankfully. He still doesn’t understand emotions and how to tell people he is mad nor can he tell when things are a joke. Unless he tells the joke that is. Let’s here yours.
@Sunkissed0510@xanga – I know where you’re coming from. I too suffer from Bi-Polar disorder.
*Another struggle I have is getting along with my mom. Our relationship is so unstable…we get so mad and my anger gets the best of me…leading me to break things…or myself.
Our biggest struggle is family and friends. We want so much to have our son be sociable, but it is a struggle for him because he doesn’t like being touched unless he really knows the person. For instance, my aunt and cousin are visiting from out of state and my cousin’s daughter is 4 years old, and very verbal (although somewhat whiney). She loves everyone and wants to socialize with my son, but she doesn’t understand that he won’t respond to her like other children. Thankfully she doesn’t try to get in his face or hug on him, because I am sure that he would go out of his way to ignore her or tantrum.
We also have problems with my father not understanding that he can’t give my son anything and everything to eat.
I’ve been told my biggest problem is my attitude, and since I’ve had it for 40 years through all kinds of meds, I’ve just had to learn to not butt in and take over social situations. It’s depressing to (finally) realize I’m a drag, but it’s also a relief to understand why. My husband has developed code for me to plug into out in public, so I can realize when I’m too ‘weird’ or overbearing or blunt or not clued in or you name it. I am horrible at timing and jokes and all that, too, and I suddenly wear out and get crabby without warning, but I’ve had some communications classes and work with a psychologist who helps me see my social impacts and reactions. I think that is much better than medications, but I don’t know how old your son is, and if he is aggressively hostile without warning (as can happen with autism and Asperger’s), it may take some time for him to reach a realization where he can see he causes consequences in the behaviors around him. Simply medicating won’t teach him anything except dependence. Been there, it’s a b**tch getting off meds.
@Masonsmom – In response to negative words, all I got growing up was negativity and punishment, and I believe my adult attitude strongly reflects that. It’s been really hard learning that the world can be a nice place, and I can help make it nicer. Major kudos for working on positive language with your son, hope it works for you guys. I can only wonder how my whole life would have turned out with kinder words.
@keystspf – I totally hear you on the tone of voice problem. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve spent 2 or 3 days untangling a big mess that started with me being unaware of how my voice sounded when I was simply frustrated with my own head, and others around me interpreted it as me being hostile or sullen and I couldn’t understand why they reacted like they did, and the more logical I got trying to go back over the conversations to find the problem, the more irked they got that I was being so Spock, and it all just snowballs down a great big mountain. I give up trying to say more than 2 or 3 sentences in any conversation.
my biggest stuggle is dealing with bipolar disorder. just taking the meds in the morning is a taask. you wouldn’t think so but really. I just didnt think i would be dealing with something like this in my life and realizing i have bipolar is weird in itself. getting the emotions out was hard in the beginning… now im just frustrated im still stuck upset over the same darn things. First part is seeing the problem yes? Thanks for the post.
being content with where I live I went from living in a town of 75,000 in population to living in a town of 1,012 in population born and raised in town of 25,000 in population. We have to drive 40 minutes each way to the nearest town all of our shopping and with an infent who DOSE NOT do the rear faing car seat.
@Masonsmom – You should take the Disney Basics class…LOL… They taught us there how to do that, like instead of shouting at a kid who is running, “STOP RUNNING.” We are supposed to say, “PLEASE WALK.”
I think some of my biggest struggles are understanding and making myself understood. In writing it is a little easier, but talking to people it gets complicated because my tone of voice often reflects my frustration with finding the right words, rather than whatever tone I really wish to portray… Like I will sound frustrated even if I am off the wall happy about something. Also, I pause in “weird” places in order to find words, and people assume that I’m finished talking when I’m not. Then there is not catching cues that mean I should shut up.
With my son, the challenges have been a little different. I understand him most of the time, or at least know to ask him to clarify, but I’ve had to work on HOW I ask him to clarify. He gets mad and thinks I’m not listening… trouble is, he starts in the middle of a thought and I sometimes have to get him to back up and start over. Or he’ll still be going on about one thing when the subject has changed to another and context gets lost.
Dealing with teachers has not been fun either. Especially the ones who don’t get it.
Our biggest struggle is talking to our son in such a fashion to elimate all negative words from our vocabulary – he strongly reacts to NO, DON’T, STOP, etc…so in order to have him listen to something and let him know that what he is doing is not appropriate – we have to change our delivery…it is tough and really makes us think – and then getting the older kids to follow suit is a whole other ball of wax!
That’s my problem too – I rely almost entirely on their words to understand people, because words have meaning. There’s even a dictionary to tell you what they mean.
But people don’t say what they mean. It’s confusing! But I am learning some skills in “deciphering” the meaning behind certain verbal expressions, word-pictures, analogy, hyperbole, understatement, etc. It’s a skill to be learned, but it doesn’t come naturally to me like it does to most people I guess.