Harder for Him

Raising a child on the autism spectrum is hard. Being an individual on the autism spectrum is harder. At least it is for Travis.

I am reminded of this as we address various day to day issues.

Travis has a tribe. The members of his tribe struggle with social skills. Each member has a disability of some sort and/or mental health issues.

Travis is the only tribe member that drives and therefore has a car. He gets asked for rides to various places. A lot.

He takes his tribe to the grocery store. To doctor appointments. To the bank. To work. You get the drift.

Each person may not think that they are asking for too much. But what they don’t understand is that as a whole it is a lot. Each person needing their ride adds up to many people needing many rides.

Travis likes helping his friends. It feels good. But it gets complicated for him.

Because Travis has a car, he has expenses that the other tribe members don’t have. Like car insurance and gas. He has less spending money than the group. Sometimes when he takes the tribe on errands they want to stop and eat out. He has less discretionary income available for eating out.

Travis will call me and ask if he has the money to eat out. I always ask who he is with and what they are doing. Not because I want to control his life. And not because I am nosey. It’s because if he is driving his friends around, I’m thinking that they should pitch in and buy his Big Mac too.

When Travis calls me, he always has his phone on speaker. So I always take the opportunity to say to him (meaning the group), “If you’re out and about taking your friends to run their errands, shouldn’t they be buying your lunch?”

Sometimes I think that Travis purposefully has his phone on speaker because he wants his friends to hear me ask about them treating him. It’s easier than him asking them. And coming from me, it usually gets better results.

Some of his tribe members will offer money for gas every now and again. But it is not in proportion to the amount of gas used. Sometimes they say they will give him money when they get paid. It may or may not happen. Especially if in that moment the tank doesn’t need gas.

The tribe members will often forget that Travis’s personal time has value too. He likes spending time with the tribe, but he likes doing other things as well. He may not always be willing or able to drop what he is doing.

This past week he had taken one group to a few different places on a few different days. On Tuesday one person in this group called and asked Travis to take him to file his taxes. Travis said he couldn’t because I was with him. Tuesdays can be busy days. On this particular Tuesday we had a Zoom appointment with Travis’s psychiatrist.

When I leave on Tuesdays, Travis has a provider that comes and helps him cook a couple of meals for the week.

This same person called later and wanted a ride to go buy potatoes. Travis had just sat down, after a day of meetings, to play Xbox. That is what Travis does to relax. When he told this person that he couldn’t take him because he was helping a friend on Xbox, the poop hit the fan.

This group member said that Travis was just making excuses and next time that Travis wanted to hang out with him, he was going to make an excuse not to in order to get even. This “friend” was quite harsh.

That’s when I got the phone call. Travis comes to me with each injustice.

I told Travis that he had already taken this group to run errands on three or four occasions in the past week. I reassured him that it didn’t matter what he was doing in his free time, if he didn’t want to go out that day, he wasn’t obligated to. I told him that it is ok to say no.

I shared with Travis that if I was planning to cook a meal with potatoes, and I realized that I didn’t have potatoes, I would come up with a Plan B.

I laughed so hard when he replied, “Mom, I am their plan B”. I told him that was funny! But it’s also true.

I asked Travis when this person had come to hang out with him last. Truly hang out. Not can you give me a ride somewhere hang out. Not do you have any extra cigarettes hang out.

Travis couldn’t remember.

The point I was trying to make was that Travis shouldn’t care when this “friend” said that he was going to make an excuse not to hang out with him. Because he doesn’t hang out with him anyway.

What Travis heard is that he doesn’t have any real friends. They only call him when they need something.

Which brought us to the place that life isn’t worth living.

This guy had even told Travis that he was working on getting a car and when he did, Travis would never hear from him again.

During our call I pointed out to Travis that if this guy doesn’t have the money to put a few dollars of gas in your car, how is he going to afford gas for his own car? And insurance? Oil changes and other maintenance?

I told Travis, maybe I should call this guy. Travis said no.

I have had my share of conversations with the tribe. I call it mentoring. Like the time I had to sit his friends down because they told Travis they were going to replace him on their bowling team. They decided he wasn’t a good enough bowler. I asked them how they were going to get to the bowling alley. They looked at each other. I said, “Surely you didn’t think Travis was going to drive you if he’s not bowling?”

I get along with most of his tribe. But there are some members that do way more taking than giving. Those members try to convince Travis that his mom doesn’t want him to have friends. They tell him that my goal is to control his life.

When Travis tells me that he doesn’t have any friends because of me, I remind him that there are members of his tribe that want him to believe that because they don’t want me around. Because I protect him.

I have to point out that if I were truly controlling, he would be living at home. I wouldn’t be working so hard to help him become as independent as possible.

The problem with this entire discussion is that pointing out that he may be being taken advantage of hurts him.

When Travis is upset he doesn’t just vent to me. He vents to the other tribe members. They share what they hear with each other.

The entire mess becomes my fault. Because I encouraged Travis to stand his ground. When he does the drama unfolds.

He calls me again. His friends are done with him. Because of me.

I calmly tell him that I am not done with him. Even if he takes this issue out on me I will be there tomorrow. And the next day.

This type of drama happens again and again. Because eventually the offended tribe member will apologize. They need a ride to work.

This time around Travis and I had a good conversation about friendship. We talked again about what qualities a person may have that make them good friend material. I shared with him that I recently had a couple of people that I thought were friends walk out of my life. So I know that it hurts.

But from that experience I learned that those friendships weren’t what I thought they were all along.

He was surprised. I think he thought he was the only person on earth that had relationship problems.

Travis if very sensitive. He feels deeper. He doesn’t have good coping skills. It’s harder for him.

I told Travis that friends may come and go in our lives, but we always have our family.

Travis ended up coming to our house, having dinner and spending the night. He brought his dog, Sheila, so she could have a good run. He turned his phone off and went to bed at a normal time. He slept for several hours, he must have needed it.

He thought about spending another night. But then a friend called and needed a ride.

I love that boy.

“Sometimes it’s better to just let things be, let people go, don’t fight for closure, don’t ask for explanations, don’t chase answers, and don’t expect people to understand where you’re coming from. Work on yourself and your inner peace and you’ll come to realize that not reacting to every little thing that bothers you is the first ingredient to living a happy and healthy life.” - Rania Naim