I was wondering if I could get some opinions on this.
My daughter was diagnosed with ASD early on and received help with an early diagnosis.
When she was in High School, she had a Psycho-Therapist who told her that she was allowed one thing that we wouldn't discuss (including us as her parents... which I didn't agree to nor was I told in advance). My daughter chose "friends" (because she didn't have any and didn't seem to care about it).
Maybe she felt pressure from us as parents, but I wanted her to be able to work on her social abilities.
So she went through High School pretty much with hardly any friends. I think this hurt her badly when she went off to college (she stayed on campus). She later told us that she became extremely depressed the first year. Luckily by the second year, she found a church group that accepted her and gave her the love and support I think she was in great need of.
Thoughts on that Psycho-Therapist's decision to allow my daughter to completely avoid talking about having friends?
Btw- This was a bunch of years ago and I'm not looking to confront nor am I looking to discredit. I was just really surprised by that and personally felt it wasn't correct. Maybe I was wrong?
I wasn't autistic but have a son who has a diagnosed autistic "spectrum/mental retardation" disorder. I have guardianship of him and he is going to be 30 years old in May. It's sad because he has the same May 23rd birthday as his mother! She died 5 years ago of lung cancer but never smoked a cigarette in her life! I miss her a lot. Since I was 5 years older than her, I never thought I would have to worry about this death "stuff".
No, I went to a lawyer early on in my career and had a will/trust established so before when my beautiful wife died life would be easier. It was setup and since I was older if I died first, she could take the money and do whatever she wanted. Unfortunately, it turned out the other way around.
There was a Radon gas problem in our house we didn't know about and as I said, she never smoked a cigarette in her life. I bought a Radon meter and had an outfit out of Peoria, Illinois put a Radon evacuation system in after Sally died. The Radon level was sky high before but I had to work outside of the house so often, I believe my exposure was less.
Am a widower actually when my lovely spouse died 5 years ago. I also have an M.D. degree and started out in a surgery residency but ended up in primary care/ geriatrics "cause" old people liked me.
I got out and retired when I was 64 years of age. "ITB's " or ivory tower surgery bastids didn't like me in residency at the University of Illinois up in Chicago. I think they're still wondering why I don't donate money to the med school. I stand efffffffff over and will never give them a DIME!!!
Am retired now so I don't reflect or worry about it but I still miss my lovely wife Sally.
Oh the local school district bused my son to Peoria to the Keifer school for his schooling and I donated royally too them when he "graduated" at age 22.
That gave my wife "break" from him. Back in the day, it was really hard to deal with him. He's fine now and doesn't get violent anymore. He would just beat the bejusus out of us in the "old days" for no reason at all. Here we were with absolutely no conflict and he start beating us up!! I got called more often than not and had to put a "full Nelson" wrestling hold on him to control the situation otherwise he would beat the "chit" out of us.
I want to state he's fine now and I have no distress with him. Not violent anymore and I think the hormone rush in adolescence resulted in the problems.
Kurt