Hi everyone,
I have a lovely DP of 5 years, and two children from a previous marriage.
The other night my eldest was being very ‘crazy’, not in a bad way, he makes me laugh all the time although a lot of the time I admit he’s too much. We had spent the entire day out in London where he was quiet as he always is in public, and then when we get back he just explodes - makes noises, repeats things, does weird dances etc.
Anyway my DP asked me if he thought my eldest may have autism. I was pretty angry at first and said no, he’s just different. DP actually has a lot of friends with high functioning autism and grew up with one, and he wasn’t being mean or anything but I couldn’t help be stand-offish about it.
His reasons are, that my son does things like:
-repeats things constantly, I mean all the time. Movie quotes, something he’s made up, something he’s heard... just whatever it is at the time.
-Commentates on absolutely everything, whatever he’s doing, whatever I’m doing, but ESPECIALLY what the dog is doing.
-he had a voice for our dog and very very often he’s talking in the dogs voice pretending the dog is doing stuff, having conversations, making up stories about what the dogs doing etc.
- he constantly asks “what would you do if....” or “would you rather”. Doesn’t sound bad, but imagine this about once every ten seconds. Literally.
- if there’s silence he will fill it with noises, strange accents, songs about random things he makes up
- he’s always looking in the mirror making weird faces.
- he interrupts conversations constantly, but it isn’t behavioural (he’s honestly well behaved despite his compulsions) but he doesn’t realise other people are talking.
- he’s terrible socially. He’s a different person outside the house. If somebody asks him a question he goes silent and looks at me as if to rescue him. He just clams up.
- he had pretty awful OCD, he has to be “even”. So if he brushes one hand against the door frame, the other has to be equal. If he’s cold on one side, the other side must also be cold. Sometimes it takes him awhile to equal out.
He also has to touch things fully at times. Sometimes he will brush past me and HAS to touch my shoulder, fully, with both hands, for example. Same with toys or whatever else. His OCD is more than this but that’s a quick idea.
He’s a very emotional child, very anxious (he was badly bullied in school for being different, and a teacher strongly disliked him. So he suffers because of this)... but when he’s happy he expresses it in a very bizarre way (ie making weird sounds and can’t control what he’s doing properly).
He’s a smart little guy, although he is lost in his own world a lot of the time when he’s not doing these things. He was in a school where he had the same teacher for years who disliked him so struggled with school, but he just learns differently - he’s actually very bright, but can’t learn in a classroom at all.
There’s a lot more things, but AIBU to just say this is down to him being different?
He’s hard work, he really is, but he’s also one of the coolest little people I know. He’s so funny and even though he isn’t cuddly like my youngest (he always tries to hug me, but kind of does it at arms length like he struggles with it) he’s still loving in his own ways.
I know nothing about autism but if I should be supporting him in a different way, maybe I should know? I don’t know. He’s very different to my youngest and other children, but it never crossed my mind that he had anything... if this makes sense?
Sorry it’s so long.