u/steeltheo

There are a lot of little things about my 12yo that annoy me, and honestly it's all relatively mild stuff. The most bothersome is his absolute lack of impulse control which can lead to things like playing with the butter in the countertop butter bell, binge eating sweets in the middle of the night, and slicing up the tablecloth. Most of the rest is pretty normal for a 12yo boy, or at least normal for an autistic/ADHD 12yo boy, like forgetting to wash his hands half the time he uses the bathroom or leaving his stuff all over the living room or arguing about chores.

But I don't have a partner or many foster parent friends, so I just sort of bottle up the annoyed feelings, which then makes it build up. Now everything is starting to feel bigger and I'm experiencing compassion fatigue and struggling to enjoy spending time with him. I feel like if I could just talk about all the things that bother me without worrying that I would be judged for some of the things that annoy me or that he would be judged for some of the things he does or that I'd be treated like I'm so amazing for putting up with him, it would help a lot. He's also got a sleepaway camp coming up soon and I'm hoping the time apart will help me feel better when he gets back.

But do other people struggle with this? and what do you do when you need to vent about the frustrations/challenges/annoying little things just to get it off your chest?

(Also, I apologize to those who responded to my last post, we had a very busy week after I posted it and by the time I was able to read the replies, there were thirty and I felt a little overwhelmed trying to come up with replies, though I still plan to try to reply to some of them when I can.)

My 12yo is post-TPR. I had a conversation with him about his desires and basically, he wants me to be part of his life, but he doesn't want to be adopted by me because I'm a bit of a homebody and have chronic fatigue, and so usually weekends are spent at home, and he wants a family who goes out on adventures on the weekends and travels. Fair enough and I'm proud of his ability to advocate for that.

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But I'm worried. He's a 12-year-old boy, which to my knowledge already makes it hard to place a kid. On top of that, he's on the spectrum and has ADHD. He has BAD impulse control which regularly comes out in a destructive way (we managed to redirect it from my plants, but I have to replace the tablecloth because he cut it up last week...) or in binging sweets in the middle of the night. He probably has ARFID and there are few things I can get him to eat.

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He's mildly intellectually disabled, which mainly comes out as difficulty making connections (or making the absolutely wrong connection but thinking it's obvious lol) and very slow processing. He does love to read and have intellectual conversations, though, in some ways he's pretty clever. He does well in math/science and I've had some fun conversations with him about things like the implications of Icarus flying too close to the sun vs too close to the water, the trolley problem and various ethics philosophers, and the history of the domestication of cats.

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His pragmatic/social skills are unfortunately pretty bad even for an autistic kid (saying this as an autistic adult) but he is eager to socialize and is able to make changes to his behavior if you explain why a social skill exists. (E.G. he started saying goodbye to people more regularly after a persistent long-time habit of ignoring people saying hi/goodbye because I explained that people say hi/bye as a form of connection and that I know this isn't his intention, but when he ignores people it's likely they'll perceive it as him being disinterested in connecting with them.)

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His emotional regulation is on the level of a six or seven year old. He usually cries when disappointed or frustrated, which happens a few times a month at minimum. He hit a kid at day camp last week for pestering him. He carries around a stuffed animal I got him for his birthday.

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That all would be hard enough, I think, but... he also has a history of severe SA that he re-enacted on a younger sibling. He went through offender therapy and I don't believe he'd perpetrate again as he cares very strongly about doing the right thing and being good, but it's on his file and I know it's going to scare people. I'm also not positive he wouldn't unintentionally cross less explicit boundaries.

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Do y'all think there's a chance there's a family out there for him? People who travel and will be able to see past his challenges and love him for who he is? I'm worried he'll spend years hoping for a family and just be stuck with me.

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(Yeah, the obvious answer is for me to just become more active on weekends, but with all my health issues that's unfortunately a harder change than it sounds. I am at least working on it.)