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So .. There was some discussion a few weeks ago about how similar many of us were in our Myers-Briggs results .. Next question .. How many of you have a child — or yourself — with a Aspergers or Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosis?
My youngest daughter is brilliant but socially ackward. Definitely an Aspie kiddo.
Anyone else?
Me. My youngest son is on the Spectrum. Because his dad doesn’t attend anymore, he doesn’t attend anymore. He’s been so far removed from church he can’t remember most of it. Going back even for family events works him up a ton. I only have one child that is just slightly OCD – not officially diagnosed. This topic reminds me of something I read. It was someone that was getting a sex change operation to go from a female to a male. After they got a huge testosterone injection they were shocked at how much it changed the way they thought. It was so dramatic that this person said it made them question if they actually had free will or not.
Not trying to derail the thread. But i think it relates that most Mormons give those with (some) mental condition. I don’t think they give much of a pass for undiagnosed conditions.
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Lookinghard I will play with the derail a bit. You wrote Quote:It was so dramatic that this person said it made them question if they actually had free will or not.
I have a couple of friends who have been on meds for health issues and asked the same thing. One had clinical depression, as the meds kicked in, he saw the world very differently, even foods and employment. This made him wonder which choices or decisions he had made were correct. The unmedicated or the medicated?
Likewise another friend had chronic pain, this pain takes over mental capacities because there is no break, when they began to diagnose and treat the pain in new ways her vision of self and life changed. Yet again the same question which decisions were by free will or effected will?
Back to AP’s topic.
LookingHard wrote:made them question if they actually had free will or not.
I am a big proponent of limited choice. The very way that we interpret information and make choices is formed by factors largely outside of our control.
My son, Roy Jr., has been tested and placed into the Talented and Gifted program. He also has perfectionist tendencies, is socially awkward, has sensory issues (sensitivity to certain foods, textures, sound, etc.)
He thrives on pattern, order, schedule, and repetition. He responds to relationship more than authority. He has not been officially diagnosed in the autism spectrum (thought there are definitely some behaviors that point in that direction). He is just our uniquely special child.
I don’t have any kids. I, however, was diagnosed with Autism when I was little. I don’t think much was known about Autism then. If I get diagnosed now as an adult, I’d probably be diagnosed with Asperger’s. I also remember watching a bit of 20/20 a few weeks ago. It was about Suzy Hamilton who was a 3 time Olympian. She was diagnosed with manic / depressive disorder. She was given medicine to keep her from being depressed. The only issue was that it revved her up and she ended up (while still married with a kid) moving to Las Vegas and trying to be voted the best call girl. When she got off the meds she resumed “normal” life back with her husband. Ok. I will stop trying to derail the original question and not some tangents that really have me thinking on this subject. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
AP – How does your daughter do? What is her church connection? Did it help or frustrate her? Quote:Mom3 wrote: AP – “How does your daughter do? What is her church connection? Did it help or frustrate”
The poor way my daughter was treated by the other girls and some of the adults led me to disconnect socially from the ward. I decided to focus more on the “pure gospel”. Hah! That combo led to FC.
My daughter is 15, but she admitted to a program that takes the top 200 math/science kids from all over the state, puts them up in a dorm and they start college early. She is about 45 minutes away, but is only allowed to sleep away from the dorms for 3 weekends each semester. So we can go see her, but she comes home rarely. Each student gets a full scholarship from the state for tuition/books. We pay room/board. She is a year younger than the average for that group. She is loving the entire experience but she has also struggled to stay organized while living on her own at such a young age.
Church .. She attends sometimes up there. There are a lot of conflicts between the school program and church activities. The YW leaders up there have bee amazing. When she comes home, she refuses to attend our ward. Last time she came home, she didn’t even bring church clothes.
Because she has struggled with organization up there, her grades are marginal right now. We are considering withdrawing her, and putting her back in HS and letting her grow up a little more. Her test scores are so high and her HS GPA so good (she started early, took extra classes and lacks 3 credits for full graduation), that even now as a 15 year old she is being invited to Meet & Greet receptions for MIT, Cal Tech, Stanford, etc when they come through town. I would hate to see one semester of college as a 15 year old shut down opportunities that would match her intellect perfectly. It doesn’t matter how bright she is, she is showing the maturity of a 15 year old right now, and that’s okay. She needs to allow herself to slow down and take time to mature.
She loves prayer, she loves scripture, she loves service, but attending church at the home ward puts her into a full panic attack.
I made my first reply short because I wasn’t sure people wanted a full down load. A large part of the reason my son doesn’t attend is the ward. I don’t totally blame ward members, but I can’t let them off either. My son loved being a deacon. He practically skipped down the rows passing the sacrament. It was organized he could “serve” yet not interact. When it came to scouting it wasn’t so easy. His dad was a former Scout Master, loved scouting, so he would always go along and help. We have 3 aspies/spectrum kids in the ward, all about the same age, but with varying degree’s of struggle. Every time an event took place the leaders just lumped those 3 kids together. It was an us and them thing. My husband stepped in to help the boys succeed. They were, but it’s extra work. One night after all of the boys were asleep, the leaders were sitting chatting the conversation turned to the “retarded kids” in the group. No one even stopped to notice a dad of one of them was sitting right there. We tried to blow it off, to let it go, but the next time scout camp came around it was obvious to the boys that we had an in group and an out group. The final straw for my son came when he was a teacher, he went up and bore his testimony. It went really well. It was his. He talked about loving to serve like Jesus and use his priesthood to help people. Then he sat down. When he got to quorum class his teacher called him out in front of his peers for forgetting to say, “I know the Book of Mormon is true, Joseph Smith was a prophet, etc.” The teacher even went so far as to have copied a handout with the list of testimony things on it, and kindly circled the ones my son had missed. Those were the straws that just made it easier to stay home. He belonged to a Christian theater performing group. They said prayers and talked about Jesus. They accepted him, included him, and he thrived. Now he is kind of A-religious. He tells me privately that he prays and that he loves the idea of a god, but the rest he can’t process anyway.
I know even as I type this that the story is a classic, “He was offended” story. And yes, I guess that’s true. But for all of us we reach a level of rejection that says enough. For a spectrum kid that level is unique. I totally get that many people have no training in this. I know as a parent it has been a learn by living experience. Part of me, a large part of me, really doesn’t blame the ward. It could have happened in school, at the theater group, any where. He will deal with it all his life. We find new phases of his processing and skills every day. We live in accommodation and best fit mode. Where I see the biggest challenge is being a cultural Mormon is hard enough for standard people, just surf online and you can read the pain, being unique in anyway adds to it immeasurably.
Mom3: Your son’s leader messed up in a very big way, and he probably still thinks he did a good and positive thing. What a miserable thing for your son to go through. I remember you writing about this in the past, and I had shared the testamony story with my husband. We were both appalled. We still are.
A little love and acceptance goes a long way.
I am very concerned about the U.S. LDS church right now. I see such a focus on looking a certain way. There seems to be a cultural buy-in that to be good and valiant LDS people, we need to look like a MormonAd. I fear that attitude will be the downfall of the church. In the community, I have heard the comment made, “What’s the deal? How come all Mormons and Jews are rich?” There is a perception that all members are successful, educated, and wealthy. I am seeing some members start to embrace that a little too much. This is a church, not a country club. We have had people join the church in our local ward and have 10-20 sales/advertising type members embrace them and shelter the new members, and literally keep them away from ward members who were poorer, less educated, or less socially adept. That sort of dynamic will cause more damage than any historical inaccuracies ever could.
I have had blunt questions asked about her mental retardation. And incredulous looks and blatant eye rolling when I responded that she was smart, but she doesn’t always get social nuances. Someone who was going to be her Beehive leader, and didn’t know her at all, told me that she was afraid of her. I asked why. She responded that she “didn’t know what my daughter was going to do.” “Probably try to read a book during class” was my response. I understand that there is fear of the unknown .. But reading too much, and spouting random facts about Star Wars isn’t really something to be afraid of.
DH and I went to see “I Once Was A Beehive” this week. I had heard positive reviews and it finally made it to Big D. I was appalled. A young capable Christian girl hangs out with a group of mean and dysfunctional LDS YW for a week of camp and shows them how to be better people. Unfortunately, they captured the dynamics of a YW program, down to the girl who was different and didn’t fit in. It wasn’t very complementary to the LDS culture, the YW program, or the average LDS girl. It did make a great case for spending more time with your family and teaching your children camping and life skills.
In my experience, an LDS congregation is quicker to put someone down as a “do not contact” if the house is run down, the economic status is obviously low, the social skills are subpar, or the family unit is broken. Any marker that shows someone is needy. Knowing this, I worry for my daughter’s future. I do expect my youngest daughter to leave the church. She has a strong testimony and she loves the gospel, but the truth is that she isn’t ever going to fit the MormonAd standard.
If she wanted to leave, that is one thing, to be pushed out is quite another.
I would love to get some Aspie adult input on dealing with the church.
I am not the best socially, but I reject most labels, and prefer to work with whatever helps me in my life, rather than whatever pigeon-holes me. Hello, I am currently a reflexive self-diagnosed Aspie. Being a church member provided a culture of stability growing up (I grew up in the church), but I was lucky enough to grow up with a dad (also likely Aspie) who explained a lot of the “Stay In Church” points to me as a teenager and helped me to start sorting out what was cultural, and was important doctrine for me. My family was the “odd one out” at church – there were 9 of us kids, and we are all unique thinkers. My parents were very poor sheep, who went through several FC’s, but managed to stay active or return to activity.
Part of my self-diagnosis is looking at the influential good LDS examples I had who supported me, and mentally face-palming when I was too exclusive/orthodox.
I am very curious about what will be segregated as part of the spirit, and what will turn out to be brain chemistry. There are so many questions…
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