Re: Writing about Depression
Posted by: Anonymous User (---.STTNWAHO.covad.net)
Date: July 21, 2003 07:24AM
Dave,
Thank you for writing so beautifully about your children. It makes me think of how my parents must feel, and once again reminds me that however much I have had to deal with, it must be so much more difficult for them. I get along fine with my sister if I don't see her often and then only for a short time, but they have to deal with her nearly every day: giving her rides here and there (we're both visually impaired, so can't drive, and she gets too freaked out to take the bus), helping her with her house and garden (which she rents from them for only a small fraction of what they must pay to keep it up), and dealing with what we all think of as "Vicki logic". High-functioning autism is particularly difficult because she is so aware at all times, and yet has these blind spots which, because she has a relentlessly analytical mind, she has to work around somehow. And she has no sense of humor about herself, as I understand it a common problem for Asperger's sufferers—they tend to be too literal. The combination is exhausting, and because she appears so functional, when she loses it in public it can be dreadfully embarrassing. Anyone who knows her will just take it in stride, but strangers will stare at a thirtysomething woman behaving like an adolescent.
I am afraid for the future, when my parents are gone and there is no one else to look after her. There are of course some things I will never be able to do for her, such as driving her anywhere. But she won't listen to me like she listens to them because I'm her kid sister; I haven't the authority. And honestly, I don't want it. I love her, of course, but we are too close in age to be the sort of compaticble siblings parents dream of (I was supposed to be younger, in fact, though in my opinion the generation gap in our family is quite wide enough). We bring out the worst in each other, and I don't think it can be helped. I can say to myself, she's just winding you up, let it pass. But she can't. So I am afraid.
And it makes me so angry because she is such a wonderful person, so intelligent and generous, and she never holds s grudge (thank God—and unlike me, I fear). She thinks very deeply about things, she's an NPR junkie so every time there's a local election we grill her for info about candidates because she always knows more than we do. She cares very much about people, lots of people, and wants to help everyone. She has frequent dinners at her house (which my mother ends up helping her with a lot) for her friends, mainly other Asperger's cases and members of her synagogue (she's being Jewish again now, long story). She could be so brilliant and do so much; before she gave up her dreams of making something of herself she was going to be a theoretical physicist. (I looked up to her a lot when we were in school, naturally enough; when I went to college I wanted to be a physicist too, though applied. But I didn't have her math skills, and bombed out in the first term thanks to a quirk in my college's calculus instruction.) It has always seemed to me that the real geniuses, the people who make the extraordinary leaps of understanding that define our progress, are incredibly focused and intent on their particular fields. These are her strengths: focus and intensity. (God are they ever; to this day I shudder when I see Wonder Woman—a two-year obsession—and I will never forget the time she decided it was the bomb to put mint in everything, and I do mean everything.) But although she is focused, the Asperger's gets in her way and she can't carry through. She doesn't lack for drive or enthusiasm, but there's an impassible hiccup in her follow-through, and I think it is killing her slowly, because she knows it.
This winter when we were having a family dinner at the parents' she announced that if some significant advance is not made in the next couple of years to help her get her life together, she wants to end it. This isn't the first time she has threatned to kill herself, but it has been a while since the last time. I can't even say this time is different, though I know she thought so when she said it, and has brought it up a couple of times since then when trying to get her way about something (one of her less attractive traits, emotional blackmail). But here's the thing that keeps me up nights: what if her life really is so awful that death would be preferable? I can't go there myself. My life is often nothing to write home about, but I seem to have the usual complement of survival instincts and have never thought about suicide except academically (or watching Heathers). I simply can't relate to her experience, so how can I say to her that life is worthwhile anyway?—yet how can I *not* say that? All that can be said is that we don't want to lose her. But I wonder if that is selfish.
Well, I didn't expect to get into all this! I really need to be packing my closets and bagging books. Good night all, and thanks for listening.