Friday found me on top of a very high hill, surveying the wonderful landscape below. Counting my blessings and blowing away the cobwebs, after a long night/early morning, calming an extremely distressed young man. I've never tried talking anyone down from a panic attack over the phone before. The good news is, it can be done, even at a distance of 100 plus miles away. However, I don't recommend it!
We decided it best to drive down and bring him home, after lectures on Friday, to defuse the difficult situation with his flatmates. He has told them about his Asperger's, which seemed to help at first, but they don't really understand what it means in terms of his every day struggles. Why should they? They are eighteen years old and just want to have a good time.
They don't get that he doesn't want to drink to excess and feel out of control. They don't get that he can't cope in large crowds or with a lot of noise. That pretty much ruled out him getting involved with anything that was going on during Fresher's Week. They now think he is boring. He's not.
They don't get that he likes to put his things away, in his kitchen cupboard, clean and tidy and for them to still be there when he next needs them. Not find them on the kitchen top dirty or worse disappeared altogether. They don't get that he likes to know his food will be on the shelf, in the fridge, when he wants something to eat and not out on the top, with vodka jelly shots in its place. They think that makes him OCD. It doesn't. Well not much.
They don't get that walking down to the kitchen, to be confronted by
a stranger an overnight visitor coming out of the room next door is very unsettling for him. This being the girl's fourth different "sleepover guest" in less than a fortnight he also found somewhat perplexing. They think that makes him a prude and/or sexist. Does it? For the record, he would feel the same if it was a boy doing the entertaining.
On Thursday their amorous activities led to him putting on his headphones and gaming/Skypeing, with a friend from home, to drown them out. His own volume control is poor at the best of times and with headphones it's non existent. This led another flat mate to call in the Resident Assistant to ask him to quieten down. He has a very strong sense of fair play and felt that this was not it. He tried to tell the flat mates how he felt. It did not go well. Ending in the late night phone call.
Goodness, this is not the post I sat down to write. That one involved.....
.....smoked mackerel pate, lemon drizzle cake, roast chicken.....
.....Autumnal crafting and a large amount of laundry!
On a more positive note, my boy is loving the academic side of university life. His enthusiasm for History was shining through in our lunch time chat, about this morning's lecture on the Industrial Revolution. He has joined the Tabletop Gaming society and enjoyed playing Settlers of Catan and King of Tokyo with a bunch of much more like minded people. It's unfortunate he wasn't assigned a flat with some of them. It's going to be a week of toughing it out, for both of us.
Waving to
Sian and hoping that she, and all the other Mondayers, will forgive my heart on sleeve post today. Normal service will be resumed on Wednesday.
PS Still definitely not mentioning the rugby.
