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hurtloam
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09 Feb 2015, 5:14 pm

DW_a_Mom that is a beautiful post. Thank you for writing that. I agree with you. It is possible to love your parents and yet set needed boundaries. I now only see my parents once in a while and that seems to have helped our situation.

Thegoodlistener I totally relate to what you say about feeling that you grew up, but your father did not. I have that experience with both of my parents. I think that the teenage years were the most difficult because I needed adult guidance, but didn't have that support. I'm through that now and living in my 30s and have a different perspective on the world and my childhood seems a long way away from me now. I've got to a point where my sister and I talk about the good things we experienced growing up.

Smells and noises were my Mum's most difficult thing to deal with. She would all of a sudden completely change her temper and be angry at us and we didn't know why. We thought she was just being mean, but now I know that she had just hit a point were she was unable to cope.

As she's got older she has retreated into herself a lot and needs to spend a great deal of time cocooned away in bed in a darkened room. That makes me sad because she's not out enjoying herself, but on the other hand it is good that she has a place where she can go to unwind and block everything out.

I think that this forum has helped me a lot. I would encourage you to stick around and feel free to PM me if you want someone to talk to.



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09 Feb 2015, 9:16 pm

Thank you to all of you for the attention, consideration, and replies. I really do appreciate it and I'm taking it to heart.

It's OK to stay away from the toxic...

Aspergers is not enough of an issue to absolve him of the choice to love...

He may have had a legit mean streak also...

He was never taught the skills to help him avoid the breaking point...

It is scary and confusing to be a kid and experience the breaking points...

Not all of his behaviors were intentional...

~ It's all sinking in. It's a lot to digest.

In the meanwhile, I've been thinking about the lighter issues (perhaps I'm overwhelmed) around this issue. One of the lighter issues is around noise/volume. I would like some feedback on what I'm thinking, just to know if it seems to make sense to you all.

Noise:
My father was sensitive to noise and I wasn't permitted to cry as a baby. Luckily, I was a very peaceful baby and easily redirected. My mother and I had a connection that she was so attentive too, she eliminated my need to cry by almost perfectly anticipating my needs, keeping me attached her hip for a quick response, and she was just simply amazing. As an only child, there was only me for her attend to and when I asked her why I didn't have any siblings, she commented, "Do you think your father would have been able to handle that?" as if I was crazy. lol. true, he wouldn't. With one sweet, calm, easily entertained daughter, we had a very quiet, clean, controlled, household (unless he tried to rile me up which seemed to exasperate him).

When I grew up and had a daughter of my own, I was the loudest, most wild, fun, singing, dancing, pot and pan drumming mother you ever met. I allowed levels of circus type fun in my own household that drove my husband up the wall. And later on, as a childcare provider, it was as if my long lost siblings had finally come into my life. I relived my childhood vicariously :).

But, it's like as if I fall off the deep end. Because I never learned and witnessed appropriate and flexible boundaries being set all along the way, I struggle. It is painful for me to curb outlandish behavior, know when to draw the line, what to say, how to say it without being angry (I under-react), and when to anticipate a safety issue (within reason, like I know letting kids run in the street is not OK during 5 oclock traffic). I don't think these are Aspie issues of my own, but I think they are a gap in my development and experience. With my dad it was all or nothing. Stating boundaries to keep play fun, yet not over the top crazy, wasn't something that I learned from the adults around me.

I am guilty of being the "yes" parent. My husband, raised with 5 other siblings, is a barking "NO" parent. He helps me keep tabs on things. I also am raising siblings and I am baffled by the bickering. At times, I can't find solutions. Just yesterday, I admitted to them that I really don't understand their convoluted arguments against one another; it makes no sense to me, so I'm just going to issue a punishment that makes no sense and doesn't really apply but it just random because nothing needs to actually make sense when people just want to argue all the time!! ! lol Urrgh! Actually, I think that was pretty smart stuff.

Anyways, my point is, have you seen this in others or experienced it your self. Due to the environment with Aspergers parent being so quiet, controlled, organized, and calm, we don't know what to do with ourselves when we grow up and have the freedom to create our own environment? and we fall off the deep end the other way trying to manage it all. This has certainly made me the "fun" parent. But, I really don't like it when it gets to far and it's a painful struggle for me to have to put my foot down (probably pretty typical). It's a confidence thing I'm sure. It's like if my "normal" compass is flawed. But, my husband has no problem saying "heck NO!, you don't have to let them act like that... my mother would never have let us do that.... you are too nice!"

Feed back please.



ASDMommyASDKid
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09 Feb 2015, 10:27 pm

TheGoodListener wrote:

Noise:
My father was sensitive to noise and I wasn't permitted to cry as a baby.


OK, I am an informally diagnosed aspie, my husband is aspie-ish in many ways, my son is diagnosed with autism, and my dad was pretty damn aspie (though undiagnosed) and this sounds crazy to me. My dad did not allow bickering, and by that I mean my sibling and I were told to go do it outside. I think, but have no certainty of it, given my family's apparent genetics, that this is a common NT tactic when kids get too loud. But the notion of not allowing an infant to cry boggles the mind.

I don't doubt that your dad's sensory issues were very bad, but...an infant...not allowed to cry. Just.no. Aspie's are typically reasonable people when they can be, and when not immediately under a deluge of sensory stimuli, I would have thought your mom might have interceded and came up with an alternate plan, like your dad excusing himself when the noise got too much. When sensory issues are too much, I give myself timeouts, and I would never attempt to shush normal childhood noises. It is possible he could not recognize the impending meltdown, but he is the one who ought to have been forced to adapt.

I know I am poking a bear, here, because I know you believe that your mom is a saint...but I am going to (try to) gently put this out here, so you can think about this. Don't you think this is something the other parent should have put a foot down on, and not tolerated?

It is nice that you were docile by nature, and that your mom figured out to attune herself to you, but there are things (IMO) that one should fight for ones child's sake. Tip-toeing around an abuser does not make a person a saint. Maybe it is a form of Stockholm's syndrome or something else, (not trying to victim-blame--and sometimes the more passive spouse is psychologically unable to protect the child.) but such a person is not a saint. A saint martyrs herself, not her child.

As far as you over compensating by being the "fun" parent, I can see why this would happen. People react to childhoods, typically by either creating the same conditions (sometimes even when severely dysfunctional) or by rejecting it and creating something almost the opposite. The middle ground requires more mindful thought and work than either of the two extremes.



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10 Feb 2015, 12:42 am

ASD MOMMY WROTE: "Aspies are typically reasonable people when they can be, and when not immediately under a deluge of sensory stimuli, I would have thought your mom might have interceded and came up with an alternate plan, like your dad excusing himself when the noise got too much. When sensory issues are too much, I give myself timeouts, and I would never attempt to shush normal childhood noises. It is possible he could not recognize the impending meltdown, but he is the one who ought to have been forced to adapt."

~ Just about everything about my dad confuses me. On one hand, his sensory issues were very bad. He seemed to have the tolerance to work in an automotive shop with random drills and torks going off, but he expected that in the environment. Unexpected noise, such as a babies screech, a repetitive banging toy, the bump of the babies bottom falling down as they toddle, and unexpected movement around the house, totally freaked him out. That is why my mom had total control of me and kept me in close proximity. She accommodated him and she became very skilled at attending to me in such a way that there was no need to cry. I was redirected from making banging noises, kept separate from him when I needed to walk or practice physical movement, and she immediately ran to my every bump or bruise so that he wouldn't become angry about my crying. On rare occasions I was sick, needy, cranky, and I did cry. He did react with yelling at my mom. He would sleep in the living room at night and during the day when crying was happening he'd leave. He never took care of me. She did it all.

Was he a selfish ass? Was a kid inconvenient for his self-centered focus and life-style? Was it easier for him to just take off and leave any time my cry was annoying? Did he take advantage her tending to me and was he LAZY? Did she know something; did she know he was incapable of responding to me without anger and irritation so she spent every moment protecting me? I think all of it. And I usually remain as confused as ever. I think he had legit aspergers issues such as sensory overload. I also think he's lazy and selfish. Could it be both? Could he be Aspergers and also an ass?

As far as my mom goes, I think she was discovering his issues as she was learning to cope with me. It all evolved over time. The more his issues took over and grew more intense, the more she learned to cope living with them. Keeping me attended to and quiet was one of the ways she coped.

s**t hit the fan when my daughter was born though. When my daughter was born, she was not like me. My mother was beside herself and she admitted to me that my daughter was some other kind of thing to deal with. My daughter was colic, a sqwalker, and in a completely exasperated tizzy for months and months and months. And I moved back home (in my parent's home) for 2 years with her. But, now I was the mother.

I found myself also bullied by him. His issue with the crying (which no one could stop her from doing, day or night) was a problem. He was constantly angry with me for failing to keep her happy. He was also constantly giving her anything that she wanted (over the course of 2 years) and angry with me if I tried to stop him from giving her whatever she wanted. He was always stuffing binkies in her mouth when I wanted her off the binky past 18 months old. He filled bottles of milk for her in the night and stuck them to her so that she'd sleep. He let her play with anything she wanted so that he didn't have to say NO. He felt that I was a bad parent if I laid her down for a nap when she didn't want to lay down (although obviously tired), or when she was demanding her binki (when the dentist recommended we wean her off that and the bottle) or when I took a toy away from her because she was banging it on the glass table (swap out with a soft toy, but she was smart and would notice and cry like crazy over the switch).

He yelled at me a lot when ever "I" made her cry. Wanna know what spoiling her did? It developed a worst crying, temper tantrum, fit making kid than ever. The 20 hours a day of crying as a baby never subsided. Our days were still consisting of mostly chronic crying and meltdowns. At times I tried to put my foot down and explain to him that when he tries to shut her up by just giving her anything she wants, that is undermining me as a parent, who wants to help her learn some lessons, learn to self-sooth, and not have this horrible behavior of crying and tantrums reinforced by spoiling her (rewarding her). He didn't seem to understand any of that. He was simply at the mercy of her cry and would do anything to just make it stop. It took a while, but I did move out and get married. She almost drove my husband away from me also with the constant dramatic crying, Uggh!! The crying was that much of a burden and it consumed a huge part of her childhood.

But, once separated from Grandpa, I was finally able to address some of the crying and demanding problems. Sadly, to this day, she resents me for being the parent who had boundaries for her and gave consequences to her, and she adores him. He still gives her whatever she wants. He can't say No. He's at her mercy. And he hates me, and has no respect for me not being able to give her what ever she wants and not being willing to give her what ever she wants. To him, that is a good parent. My mom did a good job giving me whatever I wanted, attending to me perfectly (an easy child). He respects my mom. To him, I am a failure because my baby cried. And that irritated him.

It's all very weird isn't it? Does any of it make sense to you, that doesn't make sense to me? How can a man be so diabolically manipulative, perfectly undermining, and a bully, yet innocently have a disability that kind of absolves him?

Although my daughter was obviously suffering from him spoiling her, is that abuse? Is that an abuse I should have put my foot down (which I did, I fought with him about it all the time) and put him out of our lives over? My mom struck it lucky with me being so easy peasy in my demeanor. But, things were really different when my daughter was born. She really brought the house down. We had never seen him act like a slave to the cry before, either of us (my mom and I). We had no idea the power it had over him. I think it literally hurt him to have crying happening and he truly was at it's mercy. What grandparents don't spoil their grandkid? There's a whole world of grandparents out there who would agree with him, minimize the resulting problems, and mark it up as "Oh, just let the grandpa give her whatever she wants, that's what grandpas are for." It totally confuses me.... maybe I was in the wrong. ??? Craziness makes me feel crazy.



TheGoodListener
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10 Feb 2015, 12:59 am

Still struggling with figuring out this "quote" thing in forums. I think I discovered tonight that if you take out the [parenthesis] it makes the little box disappear.

Anyways, THANK YOU for being patient with me and all of my weird questions and long (indulgent, almost journaling) posts. It's been a long time, like never before, that I have found a place that even 1/2 way seems to understand my dads totally confusing issues.



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10 Feb 2015, 4:14 am

The quotes are hard to do, correctly. I screw them up all the time. No worries. Yes the stuff in the middle of the bracketed stuff goes into a box that sets off the quote from the rest, and the first quote with the name will make it say who you are quoting.

From reading a lot of post here (so anecdotal evidence, only) it is common in families with AS to have babies of both extremes. Very docile or very colicky. I also was very calm (supposedly) and my son was very colicky.

I don't get into all the Mommy War stuff. I was what you would probably think of as lenient, but it was not b/c I could not stand the crying. I am not saying that was not your dad's issues with your child's crying, I am only saying this because of my particular example.

The particular cry my son made was not the usual "I am testing you" or "I am slightly unhappy" baby cry. I mean it sounded like true distress. I do not know how to translate the difference into words, but if you ever noticed the difference in your own child, you would know what I mean. My son's neurological system was making him suffer, though I did not know it at the time, that he was autistic. But he would make that sound many hours a day, and it sounded like he was in real pain. We tried treating reflux, allergies to standard formula, etc. but the medical professionals would tell me that was the temperament of my baby. So, I was lenient because he sounded hurt, not to make the crying stop, because nothing really did. You could just tell he sounded less distressed, if you know what I mean. I am also more on the attachment parent side of things philosophically than the Ferberizing side.

Is it possible your dad could not tell the difference between a truly distressed child, and a child who needed limits? Sure it is, but the fact that that is not what you think, and you lived there, makes me think this was not the case. Grandparents, including NT ones, often run rampant over parents' wishes. My in-laws are like that---and have very different baby-raising ideas than I do. When an adult child with her own child lives with them, I would imagine this gets much worse.

Child-rearing is one of those things that people in general can get very rigid about. it brings out the bullying nature in people who are bullies because they can claim it is in the child's interest with all the sanctimony that this implies covering up the bullying maybe even in their own mind. With AS rigidity, it is even harder to persuade someone who may really be doing it out of sincere belief.

Obviously, it is next to impossible for me to parse this. Was it bullying meant to undermine your parenting? Was it sincere-belief? Was it really just to cut the noise level? Who can say from a distance of time and place, and over the Internet? I don't even think it will be easy to parse for you, having lived it. I don't know how much comfort it would give you to know and this is coming from a person who generally prefers knowing to not knowing, just by nature.

i think your peace will come when you get to a point where it doesn't matter and you can live more in the now than in the past; though I do not know how you get there from here.



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10 Feb 2015, 9:20 am

You've said that your mom kept you away from your father when you were a baby because your crying made him mad at her. You've also said that he wanted to give your baby anything she wanted to keep her happy. I have a hard time reconciling these two narratives. My impression is that, had your mother allowed your father to care for you in your infancy, he would have given you whatever you wanted to make you happy. Perhaps that would have been a bit "permissive", but it seems better than not engaging with your child at all. I question whether your mother kept you from your father for your sake, or for her own?



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10 Feb 2015, 10:18 am

YippySkippy wrote:
You've said that your mom kept you away from your father when you were a baby because your crying made him mad at her. You've also said that he wanted to give your baby anything she wanted to keep her happy. I have a hard time reconciling these two narratives. My impression is that, had your mother allowed your father to care for you in your infancy, he would have given you whatever you wanted to make you happy. Perhaps that would have been a bit "permissive", but it seems better than not engaging with your child at all. I question whether your mother kept you from your father for your sake, or for her own?


That is also a good point. Maybe, he was mad not because of sensory issues but because the OP as a baby was unhappy, and he and the Op's mom had differences in opinion on how permissive to be. I am the type to not really think you can spoil an infant; but I know that many people feel that you can, and they believe that it is a big problem to do this. (Again, not wanting to wade into the Mommy Wars, here) People are very opinionated about these things and it is possible that the OPs mother thought the potential spoiling was an issue or that he just to make the crying stop, as opposed to getting rid of the distress.

To the original poster: Empathy does express in weird ways, sometimes with autism, and it is possible that it was genuine distress at hearing a baby suffer. I know I felt this with mine, when my son was so colicky.



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10 Feb 2015, 10:26 am

Yippy Skippy, You described my father in a nut shell. He is two extremes and no middle. At either extreme, getting angry at everyone in the room if the baby is crying (because it seemed to hurt him) or being a slave to the cry shoving anything and everything at the baby to make it stop crying (because it seemed to hurt him), the problem was still the same. It was all about him and his distress that he was wanting resolved. Not a bit of real caring for the baby. Or is that the Aspie part of him, where he did care for the baby and felt deep compassion, but had poor skills to advocate for the baby. In my baby years, because I was so calm and quiet, it was really easy to just have him leave the room and let my mom attend to me, because I stopped crying so quickly and was easily consoled. In my daughter's years, there was no consolation. She went on and on. I asked my mom for her magic to help me understand my own baby, help her be happy also, and wanted my moms intuition on how to anticipate my daughter's needs. But she baffled my mother also and my mother thanked God she had me as a child and didn't have one like my daughter right off the bat. It took the two of us mothering my daughter just to keep the house from blowing up (my dad), but still, because it was a 24/7 drama with her crying and fussing, my dad was in a tailspin of anger for years. It's very hard to calm down a crying baby when you are getting yelled at and hounded from behind your back as she cries. We both (mom and I) had never seen the side of my dad, where he shoved everything and anything at the baby just to stop the crying, I think, because it wasn't necessary for me. This was a new behavior that came out, just due to the quantity and opportunity to try this new thing. We all struggled with it.

I don't think my mom kept me to herself because she was selfish or a control freak. She wanted his help, but his anger preceded his presence. Who would want a yelling, angry, distressed person taking care of the baby. It's scary. He just seemed very incapable. My life was about protecting him from me.



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10 Feb 2015, 10:45 am

Quote:
He is two extremes and no middle. At either extreme, getting angry at everyone in the room if the baby is crying (because it seemed to hurt him) or being a slave to the cry shoving anything and everything at the baby to make it stop crying (because it seemed to hurt him)


I don't see these as two extremes, I see them as consistent. The baby is crying, therefore he wants to help the baby however he can. When he sees other adults not responding similarly, it makes him angry at them. I think the crying distresses him not because it is an annoying noise, but because he empathizes so strongly with the baby.

Quote:
It was all about him and his distress that he was wanting resolved. Not a bit of real caring for the baby.


I think you are wrong. Look at the man on the couch. Did he struggle all his life, to the point where he is mentally and emotionally exhausted, because he doesn't give a crap about his family? Is that what someone does when they don't care?



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10 Feb 2015, 4:50 pm

YippySkippy wrote:
Quote:
I don't see these as two extremes, I see them as consistent. The baby is crying, therefore he wants to help the baby however he can. When he sees other adults not responding similarly, it makes him angry at them. I think the crying distresses him not because it is an annoying noise, but because he empathizes so strongly with the baby.



Quote:
I think you are wrong. Look at the man on the couch. Did he struggle all his life, to the point where he is mentally and emotionally exhausted, because he doesn't give a crap about his family? Is that what someone does when they don't care?


Maybe you are right. I keep saying that the man confuses me. I wonder if we are both right, since he seems to be a mix if Aspergers triggers and reactions, as well as conscientious, purposeful, choices to be mean.

I can see why I would interpret his behavior as selfish. His reactions to her crying (and me crying when I was a baby), were so overt, aggressive, loud, scary, angry, and intimidating, that the focus would shift from the baby to the man acting like a big baby. It was like having a baby and temper throwing (adult size) toddler at the same time. Why he would choose to advocate for the baby's distress through an anger that was so explosive, it was too much, is beyond me??? But, it also seemed like his own anger exasperated himself. He would be in a tizzy over the baby's tizzy and then he'd be thriving off his own anger, spun out of control, upsetting himself further and taking over all of the attention.

Another element to this is jealousy, I wonder. Typical daddies sometimes struggle with feeling jealous of the baby because they are no longer the women's sole focus. He'd had my mom's focus and care for some time before I was born (thank god I was an easy baby at least). But, there might be some resentment there (on his part) for my very life existence and that is why he didn't participate in my care as a baby. Her baby, her problem, just keep the thing quiet. ??? And due the his poor communication skills about what he's really feeling (admitting to a jealousy), instead it was just easier to be mean, aloof, and disconnected.

In my daughter's situation, perhaps he did care and he was trying to advocate for her. What I don't understand is the intensity of his anger in that??? How could he have been so angry with both my mom and I trying to attend to a baby that was unable to be soothed. It's wasn't like as if she was ignored. She cried continually without soothing, no matter how much we tried to "read" her cries. Even if we didn't understand her, we would do all that we could to help meet her needs. We were there, paying attention, trying to problem solve (is the diaper too tight, is the diaper too loose, is she hot, is she cold, does she need to be swaddled, does she hate swaddling, is she tired, does she need a massage, would a bath help, is she hungry, does she need a binki, rock her, don't rock her, undress her, leave her alone, Tylenol, too much Tylenol?, formula?, switch formula? = all fruitless, just continual crying a good portion of every day and night). She was something else, I tell ya! All I know is, whatever we did, she lived. She lived screaming and we lived amongst it, while he was mad at us.



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10 Feb 2015, 5:18 pm

ASDMommyASDKid wrote:
That is also a good point. Maybe, he was mad not because of sensory issues but because the OP as a baby was unhappy, and he and the Op's mom had differences in opinion on how permissive to be. I am the type to not really think you can spoil an infant; but I know that many people feel that you can, and they believe that it is a big problem to do this. (Again, not wanting to wade into the Mommy Wars, here) People are very opinionated about these things and it is possible that the OPs mother thought the potential spoiling was an issue or that he just to make the crying stop, as opposed to getting rid of the distress.


I think we are getting off track with the permissiveness issue. Knowing myself, as an attachment parent and a very permissive and attentive parent, I am not at the end of the pendulum where I'd let my baby "scream it out". Not that type of parent at all. Under total attention and attentiveness to the baby, she cried horridly anyways. And that was difficult for my dad to tolerate.

I am beginning to realize that perhaps, he was frustrated with the crying and scared like the rest of us that she was in pain and couldn't be comforted. Because of his inability to communicate what he was really feeling (scared for her) he expressed it in anger and in defeat (just do anything to shut it up). She made us all feel defeated no matter how much we attended to her.

I still don't know exactly what the issue was when she was born and why she cried a good 90% of the day, seemed like for years. The only thing that I have guessed so far, is that something was wrong with my baby, but we must have done something right to keep her alive. And it set a demeanor and behavioral habit in her that was very difficult for all of us to cope with throughout her adolescence. My father's actions (giving her whatever she wants) didn't help the situation. It dragged problems out (such as her distress over being weaned from the binki for example) and it gave her more opportunity to practice the poor behaviors (screaming and tantruming to get what she wanted). For example: If she was allowed to go through the throws of distress over the absence of the binki for two days, and then began living without it, it would be two days of turmoil, distress, and struggle. But with him buying new binki's, sneaking them to her (just to shut her up), and yelling at me for not giving her own, it dragged the problem out for months and months longer than necessary. And the tantrum behavior was practiced for a longer duration of time in her life. It manifested as part of her personality and character, which I have always tried to put my foot down about. And she resents me to this day for it. I am a very giving, permissible, attentive parent, but I do not give in to bad behaviors. If she wanted something, she'd have to behave appropriately to get it. She hated that and she'd flip flop and struggle through testing both ways to see how things worked out. Uggh!

Regarding the cry: You mentioned this in another thread. Her cry was shrieking and disturbing. No one wanted to spend time with me around it because it never stopped. It wasn't fun. We could never figure it out. Even into her adolescent years she spent a good portion of her time, crying and I could never figure her out. I am still at a loss over a lot of things.

My years as a childcare provider were very healing for me though. I now have experience with many babies with different issues and communication cries. I could read all of them easily and I could meet their needs. The only baby that came close to my daughter was one baby that would not sleep and would cry the whole time her mommy was at work. She was a breast feed baby, who refused the bottle of breast milk, and refused the binky; very smart. And she never compromised on this for 6 months. She cried all day long as she chose to starve herself and be hungry. But she didn't die of starvation because she was attached to the boob all evening and all night long. Mommy and I knew she'd somehow survive until she grew big enough for table foods. She went from boob to plate and also rejected the sippy cup. Funny character. She learned how to sip out of a Dixie cup before she was 1 year old. At least her issue was known, understood, and survived. My daughter cried as if "air" were hurting her.

There were more issues with her besides the crying, like the way she looked through me and not at me and rejected hugs unless she wanted to give a quick one..... but that's a whole different thread.

I am trying to understand my dads issue (dwelling in the past) because I really am a totally confused and baffled adult over this, and I don't want to be that way. There is no peace in confusion. I really want to understand him, understand what was the deal, and let it settle in me.



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10 Feb 2015, 5:26 pm

Do you know how very few people care to talk about this kind of stuff? And give me the time and patience to indulge in these descriptions? Most people (especially over the internet) are very mean!! ! And they try to insight judgment and fighting. I just want you all to know that I appreciate your challenging feedback, so if I seem defensive, I apologize. I don't mean to argue to dismiss you. All of this is very hard for me to wrap my mind around.



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10 Feb 2015, 7:14 pm

TheGoodListener wrote:
Do you know how very few people care to talk about this kind of stuff? And give me the time and patience to indulge in these descriptions? Most people (especially over the internet) are very mean!! ! And they try to insight judgment and fighting. I just want you all to know that I appreciate your challenging feedback, so if I seem defensive, I apologize. I don't mean to argue to dismiss you. All of this is very hard for me to wrap my mind around.


No worries. I get that it is a difficult thing to parse through. A certain amount of defensiveness is going to be natural when you bare things to an outside world who challenges your assumptions.

A tangent, I know (We tend to do that, as well) but I wonder if your daughter might not have some spectrum in her. There is a genetic element, after all. It isn't that an NT baby can't have colic, but a few things struck me about what you said. Babies are actually pretty resilient in many ways, and if you think that indulgences and inconsistent parenting (meaning the differences between your dad's and yours) set a tone at that age, that would be very unusual I think. Meaning, once she got past the intense crying stage, it should have been possible to correct.

My son is diagnosed autistic, and we have made some short-run choices that we knew we would have to fix, but we did them, anyway because we felt the alternative was worse. In other words we got him, knowingly into a habit, we knew was not sustainable and the would have to fix it.

An example: When he was younger, we were working on getting him to tolerate eating in a restaurant. (he is still picky about it, but that is another matter) so we would take him to very family-friendly places to build up a tolerance. Now, in the beginning, most of the time one of us would have to take him out when he cried, so as not to disturb people, and we would literally alternate eating, and being outside with him, so we both would get a turn. Now we knew darn well, we were rewarding his crying with doing what he wanted, but we viewed it #1 as he was reacting to something---maybe lighting--maybe something else---and we were relieving that discomfort, and #2 We were acclimating him to something new--which for an autistic child is hard, and important to do delicately --- so as to desensitize but not traumatize. Anyway, to this day he does think he has more input than he probably ought to on restaurants, but we really have gotten most of that resolved, and in the long run it was worth it.

Why did I tell you this long boring story? I am showing that "bad habits" can be overcome and that baby/toddler inconsistencies in caring should not carry into adolescence. So I think either this was going on longer than I inferred, or something else was going on.

Circling back to topic, here how maybe it relates to your dad. Sometimes autistic people can have something like autistic radar, where maybe we don't know we or a certain person is autistic or autistic-like, but we can tell someone is like us in a profound way. Looking back on people I was friends with in the past, I can see this now. Is it possible he noticed something about your daughter that he recognized, on a level he did not maybe understand consciously. Do they similar in those kinds of ways? I ask this because it could be a reason why he was extra-protective of your daughter. He might have thought he knew something you and your mom did not about how to parent her.



TheGoodListener
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10 Feb 2015, 9:17 pm

All of my daughter's life, I've been telling people, "something is wrong with my baby." She's 24 now. And I'd get typical advice, suggestions, and feedback, but it was if no one ever really understood what I was trying to describe. If she is on the spectrum, she barely is or she's developed coping/masking skills that have kept her off the radar in school and work. I wouldn't doubt it if it's the same for me.

I appreciate your "boring examples". I have shared a few and I will probably share more. Here's one: Because I was raised in such a quiet environment (although overcompensated later on as a childcare provider by letting the kids get really loud at times in ways that no human being should be able to endure), I also still need quite a bit of quiet time. Maybe, my need for peace and quiet is a "mom" thing. But I tend to like my alone time a bit too much. The bickering of the kids, random, starling noises while I'm driving, my youngest daughter's whistling habit, all increase my stress level to the point where it literally becomes hard for me to breath or concentrate (and I begin talking robotically- weird, lol). Brain overload. It's at those points where I wonder, if I am within reason or if I have a hard time in a loud, busy environment.

Your restaurant example is helpful. It helps me see how some behaviors were changed in her and others were like a stone that I threw myself against until I was a bloody mess. She was kind of hyper and loud as a kiddo, so we did the same thing in restaurants. We walked her around for an "explore" to the bathroom or waiting area for the duration of the meal. We took turns too. That was the permissive part of my parenting. Had we not supported her in this way, she would have been reeling in her seat. But she doesn't do that now. Somewhere along the line, with enough exposure, she learned to sit up in her seat, not under the table, not laying down in the booth, not climbing over the back, and behave like the rest of us. But trust me, we rarely ate out because sheesh!, it was a challenge and a lot of work.

There are things about her that kind of "trained" me as a parent, that other parents didn't seem to have to do for their children. She would have melt downs when exposed to new environments (such as restaurants and grocery stores). In order to take her anywhere, I learned to pre-adventure with a ritualistic routine. The more she was prepared for the environment and knew what to expect (or be reminded of) the more focused she was. This required a lot of descriptive talk with her. For example if we were going to go to the grocery store: I had to talk about it before we left, guide her to look for landmark buildings along the way (McDs), tell her that she'd be sitting in the cart (for the millionth time), she can put her own buckle on in the cart, she will hold onto my wallet but not open it, our first stop is the deli to get a corndog, she can pick one box of crackers but not ask for anything more, hands stay in the cart and not tugging on mommy's hair. I think you get where I'm going. Breaking things down in detail helped her behave. My two younger kids don't require any prep at all. I can take them anywhere, unaware of what's appropriate behaviorally and they will clue in. If we walk into a Dr. office, a library, church, the grocery store, they know it's not monkey around time. And if they push it, a little verbal correction with a strong tone, and they know to get in line. Addy seemed stubborn and a total mess, if we didn't have a specific, reliable, predictable, routine. Different kids.... kids are different. But can you see how when I describe things, it almost just seems very "normal" and wise as a parent? So, we figured out ways to stay off the radar and I apparently lack the ability to really describe what the problem was to the professionals. Things seem simply solved with simple tricks like preparatory talk. However, amplify that into quirky techniques over everything to help her be successful and it starts to look like something else is going on.

With no diagnosis for her, no formal training or professional advice and direction for me, the supports I put in place for her were genius (lol, I think). But, I know exactly where this intuition came from. With her as my daughter, I was finally not in a powerless position. I was able to make things happen for her and apply solutions for her, that I had wished I could have done to my dad. His issues are big, overwhelming, and scary, almost paralyzing to me, because he's my dad and a grown man. But, when a kid does the exact same thing, I am intuitively able to know exactly what's up (besides her crying as a baby) and what will help.

That identifying technique you mentioned, where people on the spectrum can sense each other, I totally have that with kids. Not so much with adults but with kids. I think you are onto something about my dad feeling protective over her because maybe there was something about her cry or distress that he felt he understood. But, even still with that, even he didn't know what to do for her. We were all at a loss.



YippySkippy
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10 Feb 2015, 9:33 pm

Quote:
The bickering of the kids, random, starling noises while I'm driving, my youngest daughter's whistling habit, all increase my stress level to the point where it literally becomes hard for me to breath or concentrate (and I begin talking robotically- weird, lol). Brain overload.


This sounds like a mild autistic shutdown. I get them, too. My thinking, speech, and motor skills slow down and resemble a drunk person. Fortunately, I can recover with an hour or two of peace. Some people are affected more profoundly and require days to bounce back. I guess I would call my issue a "brownout" rather than a full shutdown.