My daughter is officially an adult, but she does not always think in the ways that we expect adults to think. She is highly intelligent, having successfully navigated college despite her disabilities, matriculating in the general population. I held my breath for four long years. All the worries about potential social disasters were well-founded. Being on her own was hard in so many ways - for her and for me. I dreaded the phone calls that began with, "I don't know what I did wrong, but..."
I am an unusually patient person, but I am having a really hard day managing my reaction to a text message my daughter sent this me morning. I have, in my head, devised a number of different ways to respond to her. I plan to speak to her in person, not reply to the text. None of my imagined conversations will make sense to her. I want to speak with her as one adult to another, not parent to adult child. But she won't understand the difference. She is struggling mightily with her sense of self, trying to overcome many years of feeling emotionally battered by the people she interacts with on a day-to-day basis. She's trying to control the way people interact with her to create boundaries, never seeing the "big picture." I know I am not providing enough information for this situation to make sense to you, kind reader, but to protect her I can't say much more.
After having just come back from a week care-taking my mother, this text was a slap in the face. Part of me wants to say, "Time for you to find somewhere else to live." But of course, she can't. She has been searching for a full-time job for almost a year. She has made it almost 6 months at a part-time job, but it is not a good situation. Her manager and other employees don't understand her unique situation, and she doesn't know how to navigate office politics and interactions. This is the reality of someone on the spectrum. What I wish I could scream to the world is how intelligence and social norms are not related. Supporting an adult on the spectrum means providing crystal clear rules and expectations. NOTHING can be assumed. Our society seems to value 'people smarts' over 'book smarts'. So no matter how competent she is, her interactions prevent her from achieving her full potential, making her attempts at any kind of a successful life a series of battles.
She is now, it seems, transferring her frustrations to me and her father. I would like to think this is a natural instance of growing up, of separating. I hope that's what it is. I can't, however, take my own emotions out of the equation, even though I need to. As a parent, how do I overlook the hurt I feel? She won't understand that she has hurt my feelings, even if I explain it. She isn't cold-hearted, I assure you. Just misguided and confused. She is listening to a "friend" who has offered some advice, without knowing the whole story.
A parent of a child on the spectrum has to wear super-absorbent body protection to allow the emotional blows to bounce off. It is hard, and she has a long life ahead of her. I hope I make it.