Its All In The Perspective...

*taking a deep breath*

I'm fallible. I'm human. I'm a person.

My aspie son - at the age of 17 - has suddenly realized that I'm not God. I'm not his conscience. I'm not perfect. My opinions aren't always right (but they're mine). I can be hurt by words. I don't know all the answers.

He's been getting angry, annoyed and at points hostile toward me lately. He questions my judgement. He questions my ideas. He questions my opinions. That's all wonderful. I WANT him to do that. I want him to ask why. I want him to challenge me. Its part of growing up and it should have started happening when he was 10 or so. The problem is - he truly can't understand why my opinion isn't coinciding with his, and he wants me to have his point of view.

Last night, he completely flipped because I refused to agree with him about piracy being okay in certain circumstances (like if you don't have the money to buy an actual copy of something - it's okay to get it online if a site has it available - never mind that the site is illegally posting it). I explained that it was theft. He felt it was a gray area because he's not breaking the law if its there for the taking. Yeah. Wrong. This led to a major fight where he completely lost it because I refused to agree with his opinion. *sigh*

On the one hand, I'm overjoyed that he's developing the ability to determine things for himself. I've spent years telling him that he should form his own opinion of things. I've tried to explain to him that he should do what he wants to do, not what I want him to do. I've told him not to put so much weight on what I say. I'm not God. I've actually used that phrase - maybe a billion times. (Well, okay, not that much but you get it, right?) I want this for him because he needs this skill set to be an adult.

But...I've suddenly become the bad guy. He yells at me. He calls me names. He accuses me of being difficult. He tells me he hates me. And that's killing me. Because I'm not disagreeing with him just to disagree. I have my own feelings and opinions. I can't change them to make him happy, just like I don't expect him to change his feelings and opinions to make me happy.

Today, we had another fight before the day even started. I'm feeling ... depressed ... discouraged .... and hurt. He made me cry. I tried not to, but I did. His perspective of me has shifted and he told me he didn't like the person I am. He said he couldn't wait to get away from me. It broke my heart a little. I love who he is - I love that he's discovering more and more about himself. He's a phenomenal person. And to hear him say that he thinks I'm not someone he would want to know - that he doesn't feel the same about me ...

Aspergers is a challenge. Life is a challenge. Depression is my challenge. Today, the weight of all of it is too much.