Things I know

Today is Sans Pants & Bra Saturday!!
Which I shamelessy pinched from both Kelley and Shae.
Following on from Sans Pants & Bra Friday Evening.
Woop, woop.
Yeah, yeah, I know, I know TMI.
Get over it, I did *snort*

The Feral Aspie is distracting himself from the thunder - which isn't actually thunder but the construction of another multi-storey apartment building nearby but sounds like some Greek Goddess is chucking a tanty over the top of the house  - and is relaxing by blowing up zombies and skeletons.
Apologies to the Accidental Insect Pornographer, Kim, despite your high Klout level in Zombies when the zombie apocolypse starts I'll be hiding behind him!



The things I know are that my gorgeous boy is needing time out from mainstream school and this toenail was a blessing.
That I hesitated signing off to not register to homeschool again next year (you have to register each year in Victoria).
That maybe I'll register again just in case and look to part-time homeschooling/mainstream schooling for taking the pressure off.
That things got so bad a few weeks back that my beautiful, clever Aspie told me he was considering suicide.
And that he'd thought of different ways to do it.
That I watch him like a hawk, surreptitiously, and worry each time he walks out the door to go to school.
That the TV show Glee the other night proved my point when Santana was called out on her bullying, that she was feeling so miserable inside and was trying to make others feel the same misery.
That there is a horrible epidemic amongst our gorgeous kids that are making them so angry and unfullfilled with themselves that they are destroying each other just to survive.
That the mental health system sucks hairy dogs' balls.
That I have my splendid, happy boy right at this moment in time and that makes everything right in the world.

Barefoot Beastie

I have the Feral Aspie teen at home for a few days as he has had part of his toenail permanently removed by a scalpel-wielding GP.
Thank Gawd!!!
Him being grumpy and irritable snapping "I dunno" when asked what the problem is makes for egg-shell walking at home.
Because he doesn't connect the pain in his foot with his irritable mood, being completely at odds with his emotions.

It's given him some breathing space from school, too, where he can relax and unwind, getting his head into a happier headspace before going back and managing the exams.
Which are causing all kinds of anxiety, no matter how much we reassure him.

I'm thinking the half-days he used to have as a youngster at primary school might be on our horizon, again.
With the increased heat, longer days and general angst with end of year exams, etc, I can see us bringing home a lot of his schoolwork to tackle it at home in the afternoons.
I may need to chat to the principal about part-time school and part-time homeschooling, to give Feral Aspie Beastie some time out and an escape from the bullies.
We'll see!

Some of The Secret Language explained

Ahhhh.
That's the sound of a deep, contented sigh.
My darling Feral Aspie geeky teen is getting some help through the school and is happy to discuss his issues.
Well, they are other kids' issues who have seen fit to make them Feral Aspie teen's issues but they are being dealt with.

We've done the usual "ignore them/ walk away/ don't speak back to them" speech for years.
And it is so much easier to say when you're not the person dealing with the angst, anxiety and fury at being the centre of someone else's bullying.
So, after another incident I sat him down and explained about "the secret language".

This is something you and I  (and probably the Man in the Moon) know about instinctively.
But teens (mostly of the male variety) and those with difficulties reading social behaviours don't 'get it'.

I explained that someone teasing/bullying him is handing power over themselves to the victim.
When the victim ignores them, the bully ends up with egg on their face, looking like an idiot in front of friends.
And no feedback from the victim to continue the teasing.

But the moment the victim responds to the bullying they are handing the power back to the bully, feeding the monster with attention and giving them ammunition to continue.

When an older student gave them a mouthful of abuse as he walked past the other day, Feral teen and a friend automatically responded in kind.
In hindsight he understood how this inflamed the situation into shocking volumes.
I explained him to think of the Mountain Gorilla, sitting up banging his chest and grunting out a challenge to other males.
This is how this student (and most male teens) behave.
The moment people respond in kind it is the equivilent of the second male gorilla meeting the challenge and agreeing to a physical fight.

Feral Aspie teen understood immediately when I put "the secret language" into similies that he knew.
And, I think, he is finally understanding the intelligence behind the oft-repeated "ignore them/walk away" instructions as not a means to let the bully off but to keep the power in his own hands (and himself safe).


And now he's off at the GP getting his ingrown toenail - also known as the underlying bane of our existence - seen to.

So, I shall be waving my not-so-magic wand and disappearing myself into the backyard!

Don't ever let yourself get painted beige by bullies

Good grief, I turn around and another month flies past without me posting over here!
To be honest, we've had some great ups and some very dark downs with the Feral Aspie teen.

He loves school, wants to go all the time and really puts his all into his work.
The teachers have no complaints with him and he gets along really well with those in Years 10, 11 and 12.
If he could go to school and just learn, everything would be prefect.

Unfortunately there is a plethora of personalities and types at school; some of them are so uncomfortable in their own skin and have no confidence to let their spirits soar and shine that they bully others who are anything other than average.
You know, paint yourself beige to blend in and don't be too clever or too knowledgable or achieve good marks or do anything that might make you stand out.

So, couple this with Feral Aspie teen who is a walking, talking encyclopedia, who has completed 5 university units and, while he forgets to use shampoo on his hair whilst under the shower, he can recall Every.Little.Detail about arguments/discussions/lessons/events/docos so much so that he spits them back out verbatim.

Which doesn't help him paint himself beige.
And nor does he want to become beige.
He is who he is; his spirit will soar and shine and he will achieve whatever he hell he wants, despite the measly little creatures who have anchored their souls to the floor of the budgie cage and are too scared to unchain their potential to fly free.

Of course, we have glorious, wonderful Dunolly to restore his happy.
We now own a caravan at the caravan park, a little home away from home which Feral Aspie teen finds is just perfect for him.
Instead of him going on the school camp where he won't get a break for 5 days from any niggles or bullying or even mild, joking teasing (which could easily turn into a fully flamed argument) we've offered to take him to spend that week at Dunolly.
Which he jumped at, of course.

Go read a great post on the troubles with bullies by Madam Bipolar.
Yes, bullying has been around for a long time and only recently have schools really started to take it seriously because of the long-term consequences....except those very same long-term consequences were there all along.
We look towards the future of our fragile youth who are bullied but don't forget to take a peep back over our shoulders at those who are still struggling with those consequences.

The Black Balloon is my life...almost

Finally watched The Black Balloon last night.
Yeah, yeah, call me slow but the universe conspired against me seeing this movie until now.
Aspie teen insisted on watching it and had a few moments throughout, identifying with a number of behaviours and events.
The scene where Thomas goes nuts on his 16th birthday and things get broken?
A  mere blink of an eyelid in our house; that scene goes on and on and on and on here, sometimes everyday, in one form or another.
The human services at the front door due to sticky nose neighbours?
Yep, had 'em here due to a new neighbour (who didn't want to meet anyone in the street) claiming we were tormenting Aspie toddler when we were trying to toilet train him.

Toilet training was a nightmare and deserves a whole post on its own.
No, seriously, it does.
And you will thank me for it.
Maybe.

The scene where the mainstream school kids are picking on Charlie?
Eldest daughter's high school was near Aspie boy's autistic school and a number of her (male) classmates found it necessary to stand near the fence at recess and inform the younger children of their correct titles their parents had forgotten to tell them.
Titles like retard, dipshit, spastic, fucktard,  and others.
Eldest daughter tried defending the younger kids but was laughed at, which made her mad.
Teachers did nothing.
So she told her mummy.
Her mummy and Aspie boy met the ring leader on his way home from school one day and, seeing as he'd battled getting his message across large playing areas and a fence, he was politely offered the chance to inform Aspie boy to his face what his correct title was.
Sadly, the ring leader felt the need to start training for the 1 km dash and was last seen galloping down the street with a 4 year old in hot pursuit.
About a week later someone who looked like the former ring leader apologised to eldest daughter and Aspie boy.
I guess it took him a week to grow a pair of balls.

I digress.
The Black Balloon is my life...almost.
We will have Aspie teen living with us forever, we will have to troubleshoot a lot of life for him, we will have to continually explain things and correct his misconceptions.
But, unlike the movie ending,  we will not be sharing a bath tub with him.....
Cos the little bugger WILL pee on our leg!

Bullying kids on the Spectrum bullshyte

See the happy kid to the left?
That's my Aspie teen, when we visited Beaufort last week, smiling, relaxed and happy.
When we saw the paediatrician this week the doc made the mistake of asking how long we'd been homeschooling.
The floodgates opened and Aspie teen began chattering away about the bully at his former school who'd made his life a misery.
Trying to calm him was useless; he was like a wind-up toy stuck on his track, having to see this through to the end, so he repeated every.little.thing the bully had done.
Even mentioning how he'd threatened to find our home address to come and kill Aspie teen.
4 years on and it was still uppermost in his mind.
And now I read this news article about yet another ASD kid being bullied not just by other students but by their parents!
WTF?
These 'adults' are meant to set the example by which their little darlings live.
Why the heck are ASD kids taught to mind their manners but these rude tossers have none?
I can only imagine karma will be snacking on their rumps once they become old and frail when their kids kick 'em to the kerb, having the same amount of respect for the elderly as they do for those with a disability.
Pfft, Christians?
Sounds like a little bit bullshyte.

Footy

Got back in touch with a good friend from my son's early intervention days.
Was like we'd only spoken yesterday instead of almost 4 years lol.
Yakked?
We didn't stop chattering like a pair of magpies *snort*, swapping suggestions and ideas.
She's been looking for teen swimming lessons for her boy, which I was able to recommend and then she to me about a footy club for my boy.
Cos we've tried the whole local football club thing, done the bullying thing ("but he's only joking when he calls your son an idiot, it's a bit of sporty ribbing. Geeze youse are thin-skinned" Ahuh. Yeah, right. In the carpark, away from the field, whilst throwing rocks?) and we got the t-shirt souvenir to prove it.

Not funny

Goodness gracious me!
Well, with the power of Mummy bloggers we got our message across that jokes at the expense of those on the Autistic Spectrum are not ok.
Channel 10 issued an apology while trying to claim that the host of the show attempted to stop the jokes yet they seemed to have forgotten another regular also made a joke about autism.
Hmmm, short memories in television but not here.
Now, there are forums filled to bursting with people arguing back and forth about how they are on the Spectrum and they didn't find it offensive, others are calling us 'precious' and thin skinned, even more are agreeing that it wasn't funny, it was offensive, etc, etc, etc.
They'll go on and on, like a cat chasing its tail because each will refuse to see the other person's side of the argument.
Such is the power of anonymity on the net.
Here is my argument as to why those jokes were offensive -

Because dickheads see this as permission to bully, under the guise of 'humour', those on the Spectrum.

Pure and simple.
The social inhibitions, the moral compass most of us have inside us is willfully ignored by idiots who see these 'jokes' by media personalities as a free pass to perform their own brand of 'humour' on others who are unable to defend themselves.
How often have you yourself asked someone to stop doing something that was annoying/upsetting you only for them to play the "It was only a joke" get-out-of-gaol-free card?
Just as I found Eddie and Mick Malloy's comments about the male ice skaters at the Winter Olympics offensive - because they are media personalities and those comments are seen as a passport to vilifying members of the LGBT community.
Eddie has had the good grace to recognise the high incidence of bullying, mental illness and suicide in same-sex attracted youth but I think it's too much to hope for Paul McDermott and Mikey Robbins to acknowledge the high rate of  bullying, depression and risk of suicide associated with those on the Spectrum.
Cos it's just not funny.

Sunnies aren't just cool

Loving the hugs from my son.
Tactile issues put up a huge wall stopping hugs for a long time.
The more anxiety he had to cope with the less he could tolerate touch.
The anxiety over-ran his life and dictated his behaviours, ruled by an ethereal non-physical thing from afar, the whole family held within its grip twisting us here and there at the whims of those who'd crank up the anxiety metre.