Assmonkey Syndrome
A quick one here in this blog as well, but a different subject other than a couple of cute pictures of my youngest. Some stuff that I can talk about here that I can't necessarily parade out in front of my mother and pseudo-grandmother.
We took our middle child in for her first appointment along the road of getting her diagnosed with an Autism spectrum disorder. Lots of fancy words and fancy degrees and hoops to jump through and a long and laborious process that you have to go through for someone in the outside world to finally look at you and realise how different the life you lead is to those with "normal" kids.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying its better or worse. I detest people that crow about how proud they are of Corky for being the best shot-putter at the Special Olympics. The simple truth is something no one ever really wants to say, in my experience, and I'd bet you a dollar that they'd prefer their lives to be easier and happier without a kid with Downs Syndrome. That takes absolutely NOTHING away from what is.
And what is, IS. Trust me on that.
But still, we're all so goddam afraid that saying we'd prefer something be different means we're unhappy with what we've got, or that we're ungrateful, because everybody near us is quick to counter with "At least he's healthy! Would you rather him have Downs or horribly disfigured and bleeding from his eyes?!?"
Yeah, I get it. I'll say it again. It's okay to sit down at dinner and say "Y'know, it'd be great if we hadn't run out of steak sauce, this would've been perfect with some steak sauce". That is not an insult to the cook, it is merely an observation on something that would perfectly complete the picture. Perfect.
And since we know nothing is perfect, we accept, without question, that this isn't perfect. That doesn't mean the alternative is that it's crap, and neither is my kid.
She's different. She doesn't really know how to interact like the rest of us. She doesn't know how to love, she doesn't know how to communicate her feelings and seems to genuinely act on absolutely nothing but her own self interests. Think carefully now, if you had a classmate, housemate, co-worker or even an ex that acted like this, you'd probably tell stories about them and use them as the poster child for the category of "Asshole".
Now make that your child. Love and care for, nurture and feed, sacrifice, Fucking SACRIFICE your own happiness for this person, and then see how you feel about them when they act as if they have absolutely no idea what you're on about. Worse would not be if it was thrown back in my face. If she was openly unappreciative or openly disagreed with my love, if she hated me even, she'd be showing passion, and I could still respect that.
But, something my mom said in relation to her divorce from my father was, "I never wanted to hate him. Hate is a very strong emotion, almost as strong as love, and I never wanted to feel hate. In terms of retribution on someone you loved that hurt you, the goal isn't to turn love into hate. The goal is apathy. The worst thing in the world you can do to someone who either loves or hates you is not care either way."
That's my life with this child. She says she loves. She cries when I ask her if she'd rather live somewhere else. She does her best to look and act human... but I've never felt it. Not once have I ever felt loved from that child. Her vague ambivalence and self-centered nature may simply be her personality, I'm prepared for this, and her disorder isn't something that can go away with a pill or a few sessions with the lovely and jokey Dr. John.
I've said it to doctors and family members and mums at the school and her teachers and... ultimately, all I want to know is how to do better. How can we all be happy.
I don't fucking care about your degrees or your office or the red light/green light bullshit and I think you can take 1-2-3 Magic! and magically stuff it up your own ass. I don't fucking care about the dole bludgers who want extra money from the government because they're kid's an asshole and they want to at least cash in on the fact that their kid is hyperactive because they feed him shit food and ignore him. I don't care if you call it Asperger's Syndrome or Bazooka Fuckknuckle. I don't even care if you charge me $300/hr.
I just want help.
And it looks like, for the first time, that we're getting it. This pleases me.
This entry wasn't as "quick" as I'd hoped, but once you get to talking about some shit, it all just comes spilling out.
Thanks for listening.
