Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Information

·        We didn’t know she had FAS.

 

·        I thought her arguments were extra frustrating because she was illogical.

 

·        It was different from sibling rivalry.

 

·        It would always end up with me looking at her as if she was crazy and she would get frustrated with me.

 

·        I thought she was dumber than me.

 

·        I noticed that she did not relate to people the same way that our peers did.

 

·        She rarely remembered the things that she said and did and that caused tension as she always thought I was lying.

 

·        I found myself explaining to people, friends, classmates that she was not normal and it was not her fault because her behaviour was different.

 

·        She seemed almost fearful of normal adolescent craziness and focused instead on long, drawn out inappropriate social situations. Drama was her drug.

 

·        Her boundaries were off. She didn’t seem to understand that there was a limitation…when to know to draw that final line.

 

·        She would scream and she would not know when to stop just for the noise factor alone. You would literally have to knock her unconscious to get her to stop because her mouth operated independently from her brain.

·        She had an unnatural obsession with other people’s lives and small unimportant details while missing the bigger picture.

 

·        She really hated it when people looked at her like she was stupid. She could tell that something in her was off and she felt bad so she would respond in anger like anyone would. People do not like to be looked at like they are crazy.

 

·        If somebody did not cook for her she would not eat properly. She would eat really small overly salty, chemically laden food and lots of it. She was not big on having a sandwich or anything. It took her a long time to understand nutrition even at a basic level.

 

·        She is not vain…but she gets in an obsessive routine of her grooming ritual.

 

·        Constant picking of her body. nails, face, head…fidgeting…can’t quite sit still for a long period of time

 

·        Non-stop phone use…completely non-stop and almost withdrawal symptoms when the phone is not available.

The phone is the first thing she looks for. She just goes on and on and on with no break. Many calls a day to the same person. Does not hear it when you say that you need to get off the phone and doesn’t quite remember all of the aforementioned. It is remembered vaguely and twisted in a different way. You will say she phoned ten times …she will say that she phoned three.

·        Sense of time is off. She seemed to think that a very small amount of time has passed when actually a very long amount of time has passed as opposed to the opposite.

· She always had empathy even though she was a bitch but people have personalities even though they have FASD. It is hard sometimes to separate that…which is her inherent personality and what is FASD.

 

·        She was slower to attach but at the same time clingy. She was a bit inappropriate with her affections by giving them to people she shouldn’t have. She was too flirtatious too young.

 

·        Stealing things. She was always a very bad liar. To someone without FASD it was very obvious but not obvious to her.

·        It was a constant game of retrieving what she had taken and her denying that she had taken it until I got to the point of no longer confronting her but just taking it back.

 

·        She absolutely believed her lies. Especially looking back on it now I believe she really did. It was not just malice.

·        My life with her was her thinking that I was gaslighting (teasing) her and yet I was not at all ever. She would think that we were ganging up on her.

 

·        She was normal in school, there were no real issues there.

 

 

·        She has always been quite fearful …she is not bold.

 

·        She has always been a bit naïve and gullible to people who are predatory and unscrupulous.

·        She is less paranoid about being thought of as having said something odd because she knows now to look at the reactions of people and she laughs at herself when she says things.

 

·        She trusts her family and friends to keep her on the path of normality.

 

·        She listens to advice more readily.

 

·        She is very well organized. Everything in her world is organized in its place. Her world is small and contained.

·        She is less fearful. She has learned to stand up for herself in an appropriate, strong manner.

 

·        Through her marriage she has learned about building and maintaining a relationship through ups and downs. She is less impulsive.

 

·        She is very good at taking what has been said to her and passing the advice on as well as repeating it to herself almost as a mantra. That is her way of self-regulating.

 

·        She is less frustrated. I think she feels more in control of her world as she is a wife and mother and head of her family.

·        Having a child has forced her to recall all that she learned in her own childhood and that is what she draws on for her own parenting. Sometimes word for word. She draws on what is familiar to her and she knows works. 

 

·        She is easily influence but that can be for the good depending on who is around her. She can be highly suggestible by those that she trusts and who are good.

 

·        She learned to be psychologically minded by her adoptive family.

 

·        If she did not have a good adoptive family I am scared about who she would have turned out to be.

 

·        I think that someone with FASD needs all good around them. Even one can negatively influence them. She used to have a homing beacon for trouble but not now.

 

·        She still needs frequent, gentle reminders of boundaries and appropriate behaviours. The main difference is how she reacts to that. She is a lot less offended and accepting if it is people that she respects and trusts.

 

·        I really have no feelings about it now. She just is who she is. I feel a little bit of guilt that I treated her that she was dumb when it really was not the problem. I can imagine that that was hurtful.

 

·        It is always in the back of my mind to be respectful of the FAS in her when we are together.

 

·        It is not fair and it is pointless to punish somebody for something that they have nothing to do with.

 

·        She has grown up as people do…everybody does mature. She has had to grow into getting used to her FASD as have we all. Everyone seems to have their own problem these days so it does not seem so big anymore.

 

·        And I sure as hell wouldn’t drink if I was pregnant!

I would rather adopt a retarded child or a child with autism than a child with FASD because there is an anger and self-destructiveness that comes with FASD that reminds me of the negative qualities of people who are drinking. Their disability in my mind is not random genetic event…or a mishap. It is like dropping a baby off a 10 storey building on its head and knowing that it will live.