I have pictures of them doing school from last year so I have used them.

They are working very well and now that the actual pictures are mixed in with the clip art pictures Daniel has been able to visualize himself doing them. I also found chore charts at Target for $1.00 each and printed out pictures of chores, how much they are worth and a tally sheet under each of them so they can see the amount of money they have earned. Also in each denomination so they can see how many $.25, $.50, $1.00 etc… they have earned to help them with some math skills. I placed Velcro on each picture so as they get older I can  change the pictures of certain chores or add different ones as they are capable.

These seem to really help Daniel and Ariel has now turned into a tyrant about following the schedule.

I decided to try something else new also,  to try to help us get through school days without as many rough patches or these guys loosing interest. Ariel loves school and will go all day but the boys, well it takes a lot more effort to keep them into doing it. My plan? Well I decided that we would get up and get ready as if to go to a “real” school. We have to have breakfast, teeth-brushed, clothes on and waiting on the bus by 8:30 am. (We are doing good at 8:45 or a little later but it’s a goal.) Then I put on my bus driver hat and get into my pretend bus, driving around the house while Daddy is waiting at the bus stop with the kids. I pick them up and we go to the front rooms, that is our school and they are greeted by “Miss Angel” their teacher. It took a little while for Daniel to comprehend but he gets it now and thinks it is great. They all love it. They raise their hands and say “excuse me, Miss Angel”. I think it is a great way to help with the imaginary play.

They seem to have a different respect for me as well while I bear the name “Miss Angel”.

This has been going very well, along with the schedules it has made a huge difference for Daniel in his school day. He has completed all of his work each day, has been sitting still and listening. He has been asking me if he can go get a toy instead of just running off and leaving us with no explanation, he is even coming back and sitting with us again. The other day he was fixated on a toy and I couldn’t get him to stop so I decided to use the toy. We were creating things out of geometric shapes, Daniel wouldn’t join us so I asked if I could see his toy, reluctantly he did let me see and I suggested he use it to create something with the shapes. I then started it for him and he said “No, mom I do it”. And he did,  for the remainder of that time he created things on his toy while we created things on the floor and ready-made design sheets. I am now recognizing when he has hit his limit with work and I just wrap up school for all of them at that point.

I do a pretty scheduled school in the morning and then after lunch I go with the kind of Montessori method.

I basically just read my kids, their moods, their interests, and then I use those things to push them and guide them. If they want more, I give them more,  if they are tired of doing something, then we quit. Trying to force them is not good for any of us. I am really pleased with the results for all of us. We are all much calmer and enjoying ourselves much more. I do know that it will probably change and that nothing is set in stone. However, I am amazed at how much Daniel has been so receptive after changing the schedules to actual pictures of them doing things. I tried before and gave up on picture schedules because he would look at them and stare. I would explain it to him and he did not want anything to do with them. What I been doing is using verbal schedules and then showing him pictures of the actual thing we were doing or where we were going.

I noticed he was much more responsive to this.

By doing that, adding the social skill curriculum which involve video and pictures, I ultimately came to the conclusion that I should do picture schedules as well using our own pictures. The social curriculum’s are doing wonders. Daniel has started talking much more and having conversations with David, Ariel, Joshua and myself. My mother came and took him out for a little while the other day and she said he talked to her the whole time. He asked me what exclamations points were, what periods were and why were they at the end of sentences. I have to tell you that is another thing that I never expected. There are times when I come to the point of thinking his form of communication is not going to include talking to us and then he pulls things like that out of no where. He amazes me every time. I am thankful to have him use his words.

I am also very thankful that he is beginning to be able to express his feelings.

Since the social curriculum, he has started to comprehend some of the things he is feeling and able to tell us what upset him. The social curriculum has helped all of us. I am learning  just as much about my feelings and how other people express theirs as the kids are. Who would have thought a singing dog could help me to understand that “It’s ok when things don’t go my way”. LOL! It’s not just a singing dog, we are using some pretty great resources that I have already written about in my post Social Skills and Autism Learning Helps . I also know that many boys who have Asperger’s tend to show improvement by the age of 6. Daniel will be 6 in a couple of months and I believe this past year has been very crucial for him to learn to communicate and for us to understand his way of learning, communicating and expressing himself to help him be able to communicate with us as well.

Actually, every year will be crucial, I am still learning how to live in this world.

Do I want my children to be like other children?

The answer is a definite no. I want them to learn social skills so they have at least an understanding that there is this whole social atmosphere that is going on and that can be very confusing and make no sense what so ever. I believe that  a lot of my hurt and self-esteem issues have stemmed from my lack of understanding about this social world. I still have to have jokes explained to me unless they are analytical humor I really don’t get it. I don’t understand crass or rude jokes. I don’t understand making fun of another person as being funny. These are just a few things, while I was the butt of many jokes I didn’t understand that in many cases, they were jokes. Or as being bullied in some cases I thought they were joking. They were not. Just the joke or kidding alone has caused me great confusion and pain.

I don’t want my children to change.

I have gone over it in my head, why do my kids need to socialize, why do they need to understand emotions, what is the point? They are all fine. But this is why, last week a little boy asked me why I had to stay with Daniel in class, I proceeded to explain to him about Daniel. I told him about Asperger’s and that even though Daniel can talk he doesn’t feel comfortable talking to people until he has been around them for a while and that he talks to either myself or David to help him. Then the class started and I could tell that the boy was really thinking about everything I had said. Then last night during the time we were in class (we didn’t stay the whole time Daniel couldn’t stay in there) I saw the little boy watching Daniel and smiling and looking like he was concerned about him. As I shared this story with David it occurred to me that what the boy was showing was empathy.

I cannot recognize it in other people a lot but I do get overwhelmed with empathy myself.

The problem is how I show and feel empathy and how Daniel shows and feels empathy are completely different from what other people do to show it. That is a whole other post. This situation made it clear to me how I have problems recognizing and reading people. The other night we were watching a show and a guy and a girl acted like they liked each other, in my mind they were going to have a relationship and get married. David explained to me that they were just using each other and the girl used the guy to ensure that she would succeed. I had no idea and all of the faces, actions, and words they were speaking meant something completely different to me. So the motive for my kids and myself to learn social skills is to understand what is going on around us.

There is a certain comfort in knowing that I don’t know half of the stuff going on around me.

However, it is not always the safest thing to not know and granted I have a lot of intuition, I guess you would call it, I do not listen to it sometimes. I listen to my gut on most occasions when it comes to people. I have been correct about people when I feel that I should stay away from them, the only problem is that I always want to help people. If I feel that I can help them in any way then my intuition is trumped and I end up in bad situations. I am learning and I have gotten much better at listening to myself and sharing what I am feeling with others to see if I am correct before I fall into another trap. I believe several of these things I have listed are reasons enough to reveal why I need my children to have social skills.

I am not pushing socializing, I am aiming for understanding social situations and cues.

I feel if we understand these emotions then we can understand why people are behaving in certain ways. If a person is sad, they may cry, hang their head, shut down and go off alone. In the past I would think if a person did that then they wanted to be alone and have quiet time. It usually did not occur to me that they wanted someone to talk to, why would they? When I am sad I want to be left alone or have David badger me because it is always funny and makes me laugh. (He doesn’t badger in a mean way, he helps me to see how silly I am sometimes.)  For instance in my previous marriage I had a miscarriage. I was devastated and very sad. All I wanted was to be left alone, in my room and listen to music and read. My husband at the time would not leave me alone, people from church were bringing food over and wanting to talk, then his parents insisted on coming and staying with us for the weekend.

In a small two bedroom apartment!

I begged him to please tell them not to come. He did ask them not to but they did anyway and when they arrived his mom said to me “I know you didn’t want us to come but my baby lost his baby and I am going to be here to make sure he is ok”, having this as well as trying to process my emotions sent me over. I did well to contain myself until they left but the whole time behind closed doors I told him how incredibly rude it was, selfish and inconsiderate of my feelings. No one really understood me with that whole situation and after they left I made my ex-husband tell everyone thank you for the food and wanting to visit but to leave me alone. I didn’t want to talk about it and I most definitely did not want to eat. In this situation I don’t know if I was wrong or not. I thought that everyone was being rude and inconsiderate by not leaving me alone.

But apparently everyone else thought that I was rude and inconsiderate.

I believe had I understood then that when people go through traumatic experiences they usually want to be surrounded by people to support them, that some people feel comforted by food when they are upset and that my ex-husband may have truly needed his parents to be with him, I may not have been so upset and had a major meltdown with in a couple of days. I still would have requested to be alone but I would have been able to explain it to people in a more articulate way and in a way that they could understand. Or possibly been able to find a place of solitude somewhere. I would have had understanding toward them and not gotten so angry. Maybe. I was trying to process my loss so I am not really sure how I would have responded but at least I would have understood that they were not trying to be mean to me they were trying to be helpful.

Those kinds of things my children need to understand.

It has only been in the last couple years that I even understood that situation with the help of discussing it with David. I hope to spare the kids unnecessary anger and grief or misunderstandings not to force them to socialize. I do get caught up in wanting to get Daniel in there with the other kids and make friends and whatever but I am realizing that I do it out of fear. Fear that he will never talk to another person his age other than Ariel. I know this isn’t true but I have my days. Then I take a step back and focus on him. It takes a lot for him to be around rowdy boys, window air conditioners, echoing noises in a fort, disorder and constant change in a class and still he has managed to stay in these classes a couple of times for more than half the class time. I think those are some great things to overcome and accomplish.When he says that it is time to go or on the days he just can’t and says “I don’t want to Mom” I listen to him. He likes to be around the kids but sometimes it’s just too much and that is ok.

The motive for social skills is to help the kids understand themselves and this world a bit more.

Back to the book, Asperger’s and Girls.

It was recommended to me about a year ago and I was finally able to get it. I recommend it to any women on the spectrum. The more I find the more I am both comforted and sad at the same time. I am comforted because I am not the only one and sad because I wish I would have known this stuff a long time ago, it may have helped to prevent heart ache and confusion. As I am reading it though I see a lot of Ariel and how she is more like me than I thought. I am taking the information, I am learning it and filing it away for the years as she grows. I already notice how she will internalize things which I do too and that behavior caused me to be self-destructive and cause bodily harm to myself. I am hoping to give her a healthy self-image and the ability to think and stand up for herself. The goal is to let her know that she has a voice and it is important that she speaks it. I feel the same way for the boys but in this culture we live in, they claim that women have a voice but the dominating factor is the “Old White Christian Male” who will acknowledge a women for her beauty and claim that they are respecting her intelligence.

They let the little lady speak for a little bit but then laugh it off with a ‘isn’t that cute” feeling.

I could be wrong but I don’t think so America seems to still have the good ol ‘ boy mentality, at least where we are currently living. This really is just a rant, I will get back to my topic. First A Side Note: I just want to state here that I am not being overly sensitive to Ariel or Joshua, I am in observation mode. I have been observing Daniel for so long that I have not noticed a lot of things that they were doing. Now that I am understanding Daniel more I have been able to focus on some of their issues that I did not notice before. My goal with all of them is to help them be confident in who they are, understand themselves and grow into independent happy people. Ok, now back to the topic.

I have been reading several articles and watched this great clip with Dr. Tony Attwood.

\”Ask Dr. Tony\” on Girls with Aspergers – An Autism Hangout Feature Program

As I watched the video, again it was like watching someone describe my life. There are times when I do not know who I am at all because when I go out it is like my mind pulls up the script that I have learned and I automatically go into it. I find myself talking to someone and in my mind I am thinking “This isn’t me, why am I saying this?” Before I know it I am caught up saying things that I don’t agree with or I am confused by. I know that I have adopted scripts from people all along the way of my life and now the act has become so embedded that I don’t realize that I am doing it. I believe this is the majority of my social anxiety, I am unable to be myself because I don’t really know how to other than in my own home. However, this is not really talking about what I meant to talk about either and because I keep getting side tracked I will just leave with several sites and articles that I have found, that seem to have some good information on them.

More Than Just ‘Quirky’

Girls and Asperger’s Syndrome

About the Spectrum (This one has FAQ’s questions 12 & 13 are about females)

Girls with Asperger’s Syndrome

Girls & Women on the Autistic Spectrum

Asperger’s Syndrome in Women: A Different Set of Challenges?

I am beginning to understand that I cannot make people understand what I mean so let it go.

Most of the time I cannot articulate what I want to say anyway in physical conversation, I do much better in written form. I have been learning about this whole social underworld that is going on and has been going on right under my nose for my entire life. I had no idea that people were saying things with their face or their arms or that they do not tell you what they really are thinking. I mean I had my suspicions but to read other people’s words describing these rules that I was unaware of but knew something was causing me confusion, has made a lot of things make sense for me. It has also made me very aware of my inability to understand these things and teach my children about them. In the past few months it has been more obvious that both Ariel and Joshua are on the spectrum and I would venture to say that if we took them in to be evaluated they too would be placed somewhere on the spectrum.

The older they get the more obvious it is that they do not understand the social cues nor do they see them.

As I have been observing this, I realized how I need to do something to help them. I have been researching social skill curriculum for a while but never really understood the point. However, after seeing the kids around other kids and adults it has made sense now. As a child I was taught certain things that were a social must from my Grandparents and my mom. My Grandparents were the picture of Ozzy and Harriett and they taught me those kinds of things. I was demanded to respect my elders, say hello, be polite and when I said things that were inappropriate I was punished. I learned from that, I didn’t understand why but I understood that I would be punished someway. I have not done that to my kids. Of course I do not allow them to talk back or be rude but I also understand that there is a difference from truly being rude and saying what you see or feel.

The problem is the world doesn’t think that way.

SO I have taken small steps, one of them was the dvd curriculum from Model Me Kids and I like them so do the kids. We are also getting Social Skill Builder to help with this stuff. We decided that learning social skills in our family is just as important as any other curriculum. As I have considered these things I have taken a look in my past and even now, I now understand that during my school years a lot of my issues with school and learning had to do with my social stresses. I skipped school, I quit school (I went back), all through elementary school I was tardy over a 100 days each year and missed at least 10 or more. It’s a good thing that they didn’t send a truant officer back then! I did well in school when I didn’t have social stress but the majority of my school years were filled with social anxiety and confusion. I believe had I been given these kinds of skills I would have been better equipped to do school and do well.

I want to give that to my kids.

I know that I am only capable of teaching them from my perspective and that will not help them understand how this world of social underlining works or how to behave when people act a certain way. One of the things that has helped me is to finally understand that people are not purposely mean and many of the things that I feel are mean or unjust they do not. I may not understand it but now I know that, which has helped me to let things go much easier and quicker. I am finding that the social skill books and curriculum are helping me as well. I have tried social stories, free ones right now but I have looked into them and used them on several occasions. The problem that both Daniel and I have are that they use pictures that are cartoonish or like clip art. He has a hard time transferring himself into the situation so to him it is just a story with a picture and it has nothing to do with him. I totally understand that, what is the point of telling me a potty story using a bear??

I have decided to take the stories and use pictures of Daniel.

I have made several books with his picture and pictures of actual places or things that we use or go to and make a social story. He really likes this. I have taken pictures of him with a great big smile and used it to apply to social stories that he has anxiety about to help him apply that emotion to the experience. It has worked with the couple of them I have made. I am going to make a potty one next. I couldn’t understand why the social stories wouldn’t work at first because all of the things I read the people claimed that the child finally got it or it had changed their lives and brought great understanding but not for us. Needless to say I was discouraged a bit but then it dawned me that as I read them and looked at them I found myself rolling my eyes at the pictures or thinking this is silly. Those thoughts made me question why and I discovered that the pictures were a problem for me, I couldn’t envision myself with those pictures so I thought that Daniel may feel the same way.

And he did.

I have been trying to be creative in teaching these guys so another thing I have been doing is video taping our family time and role playing situations. I am making videos of us taking turns playing games, meeting someone new, doing school those kinds of things so that alongside the other curriculum that shows other children and families doing this they can all see us doing it too. I believe that this will help Daniel be able to envision himself. I hope so. I watched a video of a mother who had done this and thought it was a very good idea.  I have been making videos since they were born and they all love to watch themselves so I figured we could video tape our family being ourselves and use it to teach social skills. I am hoping this helps our children gain the knowledge of the social goings on that I never knew about and the ability to understand that not everyone thinks like them and that it is ok.

I also hope to instill the courage in them to be able to say ” I just can’t socialize today” and to feel perfectly fine with that too. (I am working on that one still.)

I love kids!

Kids I understand, we speak the same language and nothing they say offends me. I get it, they are the most honest people I know and they “learn” how to be not so honest. (Not in all situations but in a lot) So I decided that we needed social curriculum to go along with our school curriculum and places to go to practice our new-found skills. I am learning right along side my kids when it comes to this stuff and applying it to my own social situations. Right now we are trying this one for the kids Community Social Skills and Faces and Emotions. We are waiting on their arrival but I have been watching the clips on their site. I am looking forward to the faces and emotions one because I always fail at that. I cannot read a persons face at all, I can read their mind but not their face! The problem is that people are usually not portraying on their face what they are actually thinking or saying, hence my confusion and lack of face reading skills.

As we focus on this we have opted to try a new place to go for the kids.

A couple from our past church headed up the children’s classes on Weds. nights, I discovered through Facebook, (which is no longer my enemy and I now understand it somewhat) that they were doing the classes at their new church. It was about a month ago that I had been playing vacation bible school songs for the kids and we came across ones that we sang at the past church, Ariel got very sad and asked why they couldn’t go to Rainbows anymore and I thought of the couple and thought well let me find out what it is all about at their new church and see if it will work. We have been going for the past three weeks and it has been very good. They have a Rainbows class which is 3-4 year olds, then the boys and girls are separated, I am not a fan of that but our society seems to think it is best for girls to do girl things and boys to boy things. I think they should do them all, but I have no comprehension of a difference between myself and males we are all equal and I may like some of the things they like and they may like some of the things I like.

The main thing is that we can all learn something from each other and be on level ground.

Anyway, Ariel is in Daisies and Daniel is in Ranger Kids. Ariel is so happy to be in a group of girls her age. David and I both were kind of leery because we know how evil girls can be but it seems to be going ok. It is clear though that she is much like I was as a child, completely care free, giggly, loud, says whatever comes to mind and doesn’t have a real understanding of authority. She is not unruly or disobedient but I can see how her teacher would think she was being that way. I have to let her be there and go through real life stuff but I hate it! I don’t want her to experience anything like I did and I want her to be confident in herself and not lose her care free and joyful self. I am over protective I know but it is so precious I don’t want anything to ruin it for her. Joshua is doing great, the thing about him is that he has what David has, a natural self-confidence. It’s not cocky, though people think that it is, it’s not that.

They naturally challenge anyone who tells them that they have to do it a certain way.

This gene runs in me, as well as Ariel but we are not as confident as they are and will begin to doubt ourselves. Not David and Joshua they doubt everyone else and must be proven wrong. Although, it is not cocky it is just cautious I guess, there is really no clear way to describe it but I have no doubt that Joshua will not put up with stuff and if something is wrong he will tell somebody. Ariel seems to internalize things like I do. I was kind of happy that Daniel would be in a class of just boys that were his age. I am thinking this may help him socially and be able to mimic conversations and see how boys are. His class is 5-7 year olds so there is a lot for him to observe. The first week he did not want to go in but he explored the whole area, we walked around the church building, the forts that the boys are in, and Ariel’s building. He was observing everything and taking it all in.

When we were leaving he told me that he wanted to come back.

During the night and the next day Daniel told me about the stuff that was going on there. He told me about the boys running and playing kick ball, the big fans that the church has all around the buildings, the huge locus we found (that was so cool, he was huge and had awesome colors on his belly) and the window air conditioners that he studied the majority of the time we were at the forts. He did take it all in and the next week we went. He didn’t want to go in class so David and I played with him outside and it was good but at the end he decided that he wanted to go into the fort and check it out. We went in and then looked at the other classes and their forts. This week he went to class, we stayed with him.

The first part the leader had the boys go outside and play.

We went to the basketball courts and the boys got to run around.  The only issue I really have is that the attitude around here is “We are men and do men things and girls go do girl things”.  I have been around it enough to not care at all and if I want to play with the boys I will. I played chase and kept an eye on the boys because the older ones had some aggressive tendencies but over all it was good. Daniel jumped right in the midst of them and was dribbling his hand with a pretend basketball. But what he was actually fixated on was the court lines and he was running them with his pretend ball. The other boys thought he was playing just like them, I guess that was good. At one time he began hitting the basketball pole because it makes an echo sound that he figured out last week and a couple of the boys came over and asked what he was doing. They soon discovered the fun of making echo noises as well, a few minutes later Daniel ran over to us and was smiling.

None of the boys gave Daniel strange looks but they could tell that something was different from them.

Daniel sat on my lap in class and then moved back and forth between me and David. The boys Daniel’s age were perfectly fine with this and they seemed to have that longing for mommy look themselves. I felt for them and wanted to take them all in my arms and huddle together but it is a man cave and that is not allowed. Over all we are pleased and it seems good for right now. The leader usually has his wife with him and I met her last week, she seems to bring in that balance that is needed in there so it’s not all manly and there is some nurturing going on too. I like that a couple is leading the group. They have been very understanding and accepting of Daniel and for now it exposes all of us to something new. The other thing I like about the group is that it is structured much like Boy Scouts so they will be doing outdoors stuff, it is learning survival skills and how to take care of yourself and they go camping and canoeing, things like that.

I think these are good things for Daniel to learn and see how he does with it all.

We are planning on staying with him for a while, at least until he feels comfortable and is able to communicate to the leader. He can earn badges and this may be a good thing for his self confidence and independence. We are currently taking them to Lowe’s every other week, they have  Build and Grow classes and they build items and earn a certificate and badge when they complete it. They all seem to enjoy this and are proud of their accomplishments. We will take it week by week and see how things go. If he doesn’t feel up to going to class that is ok, he then has alone time with David and myself, which he does not get often and Ariel and Joshua get their much-needed social time as well. So far it seems to be a win win situation.

So what caused Daniel to finally be able to drink from a regular straw?

I cannot answer that question. He makes huge strides all of the sudden and they always come after several weeks of not so good times. Yes, indeed since the first of July Daniel has been having some rough days and he has gotten very frustrated on several occasions. Now when he starts to have a rough time I just continue to remind myself that he always has a big breakthrough with something after wards. The reason I have to remind myself is because when he starts to do behavior that he has done in the past I get a little scared. I see all of his progress and then to have him seem to go backwards for a time puts a little doubt in my mind. It’s my own issue, it throws me. I do the same thing with everyone, with David if he is slightly out of character, I begin to ask questions. What is wrong with you? Why are you doing that? What is going on?

I can’t help it.

I do the same thing with Daniel. If he begins to act differently, I begin to have all of these questions flood my mind and then begin to fear that I have not done enough for him. I have gotten a lot better with this but the thoughts and doubts still come, they just don’t last as long. I focus my energy on observing our current situations and if there have been any changes. I have learned to support Daniel through the situations and wait. This time his frustrations were not everyday, they were off and on. They only lasted for short periods of time. What is funny is that during these times I feel this need to push him to try new things too, maybe because the pattern has been that he does something major while he is having these hard times. The day he drink from the straw he had a couple of moments that day. However, it did not stop him from playing with Ariel and Joshua.

He plopped right down in the middle of them playing and joined right in.

Either Ariel or Joshua had an extra cup on the floor and Daniel was playing with it. I said “Hey, Daniel why don’t you take a drink?” He started laughing and Ariel said “Yeah, Daniel take a drink.” I said “Daniel watch Ariel do it then you do it.” Ariel showed him, which she has done time and time again, but this time he did it. I started jumping up and down and saying “Yea! You did it, Daniel you did it!” Everyone joined in and he was so excited. He kept drinking and then said “I did it! I did it!”  He has now given up the Honey Bear cup and is drinking from a straw cup. Not only did he do that but at the store the other day, Ariel insisted on getting peanuts….in the shells.

Let me just tell you, I do not like peanuts to begin with but in the shell is even worse!

We got them because she doesn’t usually ask for specific food items and I decided I could sacrifice shelling these darn peanuts for my kids. I guess. We got home and I put a bunch of peanuts on the table and we all worked on trying to shell these nuts, Daniel wanted some too. He tried to crack the shells but was having a bit of a hard time. He asked me to do it and as I opened them he ate them. He loves them! They all do. And now for the past three days I have been shelling peanuts and thinking to myself “How am I going to get these guys to eat peanuts already shelled?” I think I have a plan, I can use the lack of patience in 4 and 5 year old to work in my favor, I hope. It is all worth it though, Daniel trying new things and Ariel and Joshua having fun. The peanuts are actually a great family time kind of thing.

We all sit at the table and talk while we work on those peanuts.

I love it when my kids surprise me with their accomplishments and help me to break out of my own mode. The straw and peanuts are two other examples of how I never know what they will try next or what is possible. They remind me that we should always try new things and challenge ourselves always. It is very easy for me to challenge our kids and think of new things for them but they help to remind me that I need to do that for myself as well. Challenge my thinking, my molds, the foods I eat, and the places I go. I find it very easy to stay in my secluded world, eating the same thing everyday, doing the same things and forgetting that there is this whole huge world out there for all of us to explore. I go through explore spurts myself, sometimes I want to consume everything I can about this world we live in and other times I never want to leave the screen of my computer.

It is a good time for exploring and when I feel I have explored too much, I will come back to my screen.

I do recall several people who I just stopped talking to.

I just didn’t return their phone calls and I let them go. There were several times where my anxiety caused me to never speak to them again. I have a phone phobia for sure, I always feel like I am calling at the wrong time or something. I do not want to interrupt anything or be bothersome. I also get all freaked out when they say they will call me, I need a time. I try to insist on a time because otherwise all day long I am thinking about when they may call and I can’t get started on anything because if they call then whatever I was doing will be interrupted and I will not be able to focus on the person at all and I admit at times I get quite annoyed by that. We finally just stopped answering the most days because David and I both have phone issues and surprise phones calls affects our family in a big way.

Although, when people call me unexpectedly and it is family or they sound in need I will drop whatever and call them back.

The thing is though, that has given me the control over the calling, I have had time to process and now can communicate and make the adjustments for the day to be able to talk on the phone. Some would say I am being a control freak but it is not about that it is about the disruption of our family schedule and social anxiety that no matter what,  I will experience even if the phone conversation goes well and I feel that I was understood and I that I didn’t make any social mess ups. It takes a lot for David and myself to talk on the phone, it really stresses us out. I have another whole phone post that I need to write. It goes way back to childhood,  me and my phone phobia.

As for my social skills, well most people would never even know that I have any issues.

I learned from the best. At the age of 16 I was hired on as a cashier at a Target store. I knew retail, my mom had worked for Air-Way and then it was bought out by Target. She would have to bring me to work many nights and I loved to help clean up, they called it zoning. She was in the clothing department and I loved being surround by the clothes in the middle of those circle racks. It was so cozy and comforting, however I was not supposed to go under them and would get in quite a bit of trouble for doing so. I have fond memories of working there. I loved working but I hated anything to do with customers. My customer service, lets say lack of,  was always getting me into trouble. I am not one who believes that the customer is always right, but I was conditioned into thinking so.

Eventually I was able to work a job there that was just filling the shelves.

I loved it! The merchandise had order, the empty spaces had to be filled, and any over stock had to be put away. The items all needed to be put in their proper places and neatly. I transferred to a different store and was promoted to charge back, I love it too. Eventually, transferring to the stock team, unloading trucks, stocking shelves and putting away over stock. Then to a position that was called pull team at the time which used a scanner to scan the lows and empties on the floor and then it told you where it was in the stock room so I could pull it and fill the shelves. Thinking of that job still makes me smile. I loved it, I genuinely enjoyed doing those things. Eventually, I was promoted to front end, the worst time of my career and then promoted again to the sales floor in several different departments and ultimately to a management position.

I was pretty happy with that because I was over the backroom and logistics of the store, no customers.

Once I had to start dealing with customers as management I began to hate my job. During all of these positions I learned a ton about social skills. However, there was always my attitude problem. Just as in school, I always got in trouble for my “smart” mouth and that did not change in the work force. I came across very aggressive and hateful to my peers and to management at times. Most of the time I had no clue that I was behaving in a negative way, there were times though that I didn’t care, I knew that they wouldn’t get rid of me, I was a fantastic employee. I always got excellent reviews on my performance but would score low on my appearance and attitude.  I hate socks and I even got written up for not wearing socks one year because it was policy but I hated them so much I just couldn’t wear them.

I had been talked to quite a bit before I got written up but my manager was serious about disciplining me.

I wish I would have known then what I know now and I would have told her “hey back off I have sensory issues!” Ok, I wouldn’t be that rude but it would have been nice to let her know that I wasn’t directly being a pain in the butt, I seriously had issues with socks. (Still do) In every position I learned how I was supposed to talk to people, that I am not supposed to say certain things and that some of the things I say can be very hurtful. Many people thought of me as the girl who would just say what was on her mind, which is true but I was not doing it to be hurtful. I said whatever was on my mind because that is what I saw, felt, or understood from the situations.

One of the greatest things Target did for me was to give me social scripts.

Not only did I learn them from the classes they had us do but my mother worked her way up too through the company and became a store manager, she learned even more scripts which in turn she would say to me. She didn’t do it on purpose, what would happen was a certain situation would arise, I would talk to her and she would tell me the script without knowing that it was a social script. My mother learned social scripts too from Target and it made it very difficult for her to come out of them after she left. Even now she will still apply certain social scripts learned from Target to a situation and it is not the best thing to do. I don’t stick to the scripts as rigidly, I am not sure why, maybe because I had more freedom as a child and I really like to entertain and be funny so I improv much more.

Target had team leaders and management go through training constantly.

At one point it was called Target University and it went through everything. We trained on peer situations, customer service, human resource issues, dealing with vendors, diversity, sexual harassment, management styles, what type of personality we were, how we learned best, you name it we did it. Through all of those training sessions we would have to get into groups, play out scenarios, get up in front of the class and role play, answer questions, get tested on what we learned and let our peers evaluate us. At first I was a nervous wreck, I would have panic attacks before hand but once I saw that this gave me a platform to act, I started to really enjoy them. I could excel at this stuff and take what I learned and apply it to my job and then get even better at my job. I still would have anxiety afterwords but when it comes to work my anxiety has always gone to the side because when I have a job to do nothing else stands in my way.

I really enjoy working, it gives me purpose, routine, schedules and deadlines.

I liked having someone tell me when I needed to come in, how many hours I had to work, what I needed to get accomplished in the hours I was there and the sense of accomplishment I felt when I would achieve my goals. I really enjoyed Target because they had binders and binders full of policy and procedures for each department, each position in the store and through out the company, they were very organized. I did find it  frustrating when a store that I was working in did not follow the rules. Myself or someone would get trumped by management,  but overall it was very comforting and reading those manuals gave me a lot of the information that I still use today in my social situations. Without Target’s training I am really not sure how well I would have done in the work force. Being that I have an “attitude problem” and I say things to my peers and bosses that are not always appropriate.

Thanks to Target I was trained in social etiquette and diversity, among many other things.

We had to continue to tell him that “We are going to the museum tomorrow”.

He would then repeat that and go in a loop and say we were going to the museum. I know this was part excitement, anxiety and scripting but it made for a lot of chaos. The morning of, he was completely different. In the morning he was peaceful, happy and said “We are going to the museum today!”. He was great the whole day and very happy. The next day we went to church and he did great in there as well. I was in class with the 2-3 year old, I am always fine when I am in class with the kids but if I have to go to grown up church I feel out-of-place and awkward and have my anxiety moments. They had to change the kids theaters once again into completely different theaters, I was fine with it because one of my friends told me ahead of time that this was happening so I had several days to prepare myself and the kids and I have to tell you, I was so at peace.

I even had to go grocery shopping after doing class with the little ones and the social encounters I had.

I did fine even at the store, both of these situations usually require me some time to recuperate, but yesterday ended ok. Except for Ariel, she had a meltdown before church and two after church. I am beginning to notice a lot more social anxiety in her and when I see her in class she is always hanging out with the boys. The girls like her but she cannot remember the girls names, however she does remember several of the boys names. It could be because she has brothers and feels more comfortable with them. I myself have always had guys as my friends more so than girls, I relate to them better since they usually just speak what they mean and there is no hidden things or situations to try an figure out. Though I do not figure out that anything is going on anyway until I notice that some girl is upset with me and I do not know why.

I am working on getting these guys out and about.

I am planning on taking them to library events, the art museum has free opportunities on the weekends, I am looking into other options as well to help these guys get more children interactions. I just need to prepare and know when not to push us, if one of us can’t do it than we won’t, we will just try the next week. I put so much pressure on myself when I commit to something and then I think that I have to keep doing it, I am not allowed to have breaks! Balance, it’s all about balance and finding it for our lives. I have found that when I have a focus though, some sort of task or job that seems to trump my anxiety.

I am sure it comes out in others emotions or situations though that I am unaware of.

If I tracked this, I would most likely find that I actually was extremely stressed yesterday and now through this week it will manifest through me cleaning, feeling hyper, working out more than usual, eating maybe, or writing.   Someway to help me cope with the suppressed anxiety that I didn’t feel like I had. As I continue to think of my anxiety I think of many factors that have led up to these past panics. I really do not want to go on medications and I think I will be able to handle the situations much better once I pin point certain things that can trigger these. Although, it is not a regular occurence anymore, I have anxiety but I have been able to learn how to help myself with that, it is when I have panic/anxiety that leads to my body, mind, and emotions being all out of whack.

Here are some of the things I have been going through since about the end of April:

1. David has lost several of his free-lance jobs, he has missed his deadlines for the one project he is currently working on and we have been very short on funds.

2. We have had to borrow from a couple of people in our family.

3. My mom started a new job that changed her hours and her income, not for the better. (Both the hours and money affect us because when her schedule changes it takes her months to be back to her normal self because of her own AS and we borrowed funds from her that we cannot pay back right away.)

4. Church started changing things around and I have been feeling more and more disconnected from the people there as I see them get more and more connected. (I feel like I am an outsider watching these social movies play out in front of me and I have no idea what is going on.)

5. I had a major roller coaster of emotions and misunderstanding with my dad’s side of the family. (That situation is much better but still a lot of confusion.)

6. David and I had our 7 years anniversary in June, his mom’s birthday, my dad’s birthday, Father’s day and Joshua’s birthday is at the end of the month. (I always get stressed when it comes to my dad’s birthday because I have to call him, he is a phone person, big time! It’s not that I don’t want to call him, of  course I do it’s just very stressful for me to use the phone. I never know what to say, when to say something, the other thing is that people are always calling my dad, while we are on the phone people beep in about 10 times and that throws me off, A LOT! Plus I was not able to call him on his birthday because we have no minutes on our phone, the lack of funds to get them and our land line does not have long distance.)

7. My Grandma is coming into town this week, which is great but I have been anticipating this for over a month now. (It’s like how Daniel felt about the museum and the kids are all anticipating her coming as well.)

8. One of my sister’s here in town is pregnant, I am concerned for her health and the well-being of the child. She is in a relationship that seems quite rocky (not abusive but not all together healthy) and that gives me anxiety about her, the child, the father, oh just everything.

9. My other sister got married and then came back from the honey moon and demanded an annulment. (I still do not know why but it is all so confusing if I think about it my head spins.)

10. The weather has changed and my allergies have made my head very dizzy.

11. This does not include any of the children’s issues and the awareness I am gaining with Ariel and Joshua’s own sensory issues and AS traits that are being brought to light even more, I believe I am now seeing them because Daniel has progressed so much that my attention to those details in him are no longer distracting me as much. Both David and I have had the mind-set that Ariel and Joshua are fine, we have recognized things but they have been quickly trumped by whatever Daniel is dealing with.

Bottom line I am doing much better today.

Although, I have found that the slightest thing could send me into anxiety, for instance this week we are supposed to do several things, we have made plans but with my other two sisters those plans could be messed up because they are late and no one calls me or my and Grandma stay somewhere longer than expected and they don’t call me, we have a birthday party for Joshua and my cake doesn’t work right and Iron Man looks like he was in a blender or something!  I am writing these things out so that I can be prepared ahead of time of the possibility of them happening to help ease my anxiety.

The funny thing is that my anxiety does not always stem from bad things, good things can trigger it too. Hmm…..

I have already prepared myself for change.

The changes that send me into a panic are those that are unexpected, like when we went to Wal-Mart, the store had been the same since we moved here and then one day we walk in and they are remodeling with no signs, no indication that anything is changed and then items are placed in very odd places that make no sense. In a situation like that I am already spending a large amount of my energy on dealing with my sensory issues so to have sudden change makes the whole thing much worse. The same goes for church, it’s the exact same, I have everything set in place, nothing has changed for over a year and now all of the sudden they are making many changes, that do not make sense to me.

I am just trying to deal with my sensory issues.

I am trying to help my kids with their sensory issues and social issues for all of us, I already have a huge amount of stress before we even go, and that makes it even worse when there are sudden changes. Then there are the people, they constantly change as well. I understand growth in people, I expect that, but when there is personality changes that confuses me and gives me anxiety. If I am with a person and they act and talk a certain way around me but then are different when we are around others it makes me very upset. I first get angry and think them a liar, in the past I would cut them off because I hate liars, but now I understand that it is some normal thing for the majority of people. They act differently in front of different people.

There is one thing that still makes me angry though, when I see people act differently in front of authority figures, I can’t stand it!

See changes are not that bad when I am in control of them, I decide the changes or someone tells me ahead time so I can prepare. Changes are not bad if the means to the end is something productive, new, enlightening or developes me and helps me grow as a person. Changes are not good when they make no sense, someone else is doing the changing and doesn’t inform me. Changes make me panic when they seem to be constant and then put me on the edge of never knowing what is going to happen.

There are many things that I do not change.

I keep my house and how I have things displayed the same, I have pictures and all my hangings the same way, I have since I moved into my own place at 18, though they have changed they are still the same distance from ceiling to floor and they are still going in a linear flow throughout the house. I have my books all the same and in their order. I keep our daily schedule, if there is going to be change I plan ahead and put it on our calendar with pictures so the kids can prepare as well. If we are going to move I plan for months ahead and get my mind all prepared. I keep those kinds of things in a constant sameness as much as possible.

After thinking of these things, I do not feel that I am inconsistent at all, there is a consistency to my change and non-change scripts in my head.

But this isn’t like me, I am feeling cowardly, like a weak and insecure person.

People who know me, know that I may be a lot of things but those three things are not me. So what is this? Why have I been hit with such a large dose of anxiety and why am I unable to snap out of it or reason myself through it much sooner? Diversity. Yes, the answer is diversity, well lack of in this area that we are living in. In the last 10 years I have made major changes in my life from moving to various cities, being in relationships, getting divorced, coming to a new faith, changing jobs, getting married, having children and seeking to find myself to name a few. I have had a lot of change and I have been able to handle it, at times I actually did much better. The constant change made things easier for me because I was always doing something, working on something, seeking out new ideas and new knowledge.

The places I had the least amount of anxiety were in the areas, the places where I was surrounded by many different people.

The best church experience I had was in a college town – very intellectual, new people, old people coming back constant change but the change brought about new ideas, new stories, new visions, new information that constantly intrigued me and challenged me to learn. The last 7 years I have lived in two places and though they are across the country from each other they are exactly the same. The people do not change, there is no challenge here. When I compare these two places to the two places that I lived where I thrived, I see with clarity the difference. The two places that I was not attacked with anxiety as much or able to control it better were places that had many different people, different cultures and beliefs. They lived in the US but were from different countries. I was around people who loved to learn, loved the arts, and they talked to learn about each other.

They really talked about interesting things and were very accepting of everyone.

There was another place that I lived that was much like where we are now and that is when I slipped into a deep depression and I was put on Zoloft. I was also diagnosed with endometriosis which caused severe pain and took over a year for someone to believe me. I went through two emergency room visits and three doctors. Finally the last doctor told me about endometriosis and sent me to a specialist with in two days I had laparoscopic surgery and on my way to recovery. I haven’t had any problems at all after I had children. Very thankful for that because when you are in physical pain as well as having anxiety on top of it, there are really no words to describe it other than life halting.

As I have been working through all of this, I see a pattern.

I recognize that what I feel when I go to church here is the lack of diversity and that makes my differences stand out much more. Now that I have a family with different issues I am in a constant state of seeing how different we really are from others. When I am surrounded by people who embrace diversity of thought, beliefs and ideas, I find them to be more accepting of my quirks and unique thoughts on life. Being surrounded by people who are set in their way of life, who understand their own language, everyone seems to know how everything should be around here  and if you want to be accepted you have to learn their ways. They are different in looks, income, social status but they have the same thoughts, same ideas, same goals and they see no reason to think that they should be challenged or questioned in any way.

I have anxiety because I cannot question.

I have anxiety because I am not allowed to be me without serious silent social discipline. The discipline are remarks, eye rolls, the blatant me being invisible and completely unseen by certain people. And I am not being paranoid, this time. How do I survive in a place that just wants everyone to be the same? And how do they know what they are supposed to be doing? Other people have moved here from different places and they still know the rules. I have looked and looked for the last three years in this area for groups, even outside of  church, I have looked for people who may have a bit of diversity and I have yet to find them. I will still keep looking because there has to be some out there. There cannot be an entire city of people who are unwilling to embrace differences, right? Anyway, as I think of this it has actually brought a lot of peace to me.

I understand the root of this particular anxiety bout and I will make changes in my life to try to help me and my family.