Intellectual Disabilities (or PWID)

Making decisions

Mom, what do I do now? Mom, is it all right if I …?  Mom, do you know where my…. Is? Sound familiar? My pwid is always asking for my opinions, thoughts, suggestions, or directions. Where is the confidence to make your own decisions?  My problems are with a child with intellect disabilities. It was very hard to trust her judgement, so I didn’t. The result was a person, who finds it difficult to make her own decisions, so now how do I fix that?

I sat down with her the other day and discussed with her options and how  I think she is ready to make her own decisions with no interference from me. Yipes!  But I think she is truly ready. She has proven to me she is more than capable, now to convince her!  One thing I have noticed is everyone learns at a different speed. My pwid had to realize the consequences of her decisions before she was able to take the full load of her choices. I do get concerned that it might be too late and that she is very comfortable in allowing me to make her decisions for her, but that was a chance I was willing to take. Forcing her to make her own decisions before she was ready could have been as detrimental as not letting her make them at all. We are starting out small. If she still feels uncomfortable making those choices we will discuss the consequences of those choices and what is she willing to accept. 

The more she chooses, the more confidence she will have making her own choices. The more successful she becomes , the more independent she will feel to go out and be the person she believes she can be.

Intellectual Disabilities (or PWID)

Friendships

Does your pwid have lots of friends does he/she go out and socialize or are they like mine, and find it very difficult?  Formative years- the years when you learn how to be a friend, eludes some people like my daughter. She was extremely shy, and not able to vocalize emotions or feelings other than inadequacies. She had what she thought was her best friend, who proceeded to tell everyone that came into her life about my pwid’s disabilities, which turned people against her. The same friend abused her physically, emotionally and took money from her. My daughter thought she was a very good friend and could not see the forest from the trees. No matter what I did or said she would not forsake her as a friend, simply, because she was her only friend.

It broke my heart, but as I said earlier we do not have the right to keep them from their hurts. Boy did I try.  In all my attempts to protect my child I failed. The hurts were like little tornados that set off a mixture of non acceptance, confusion, and self doubt, no wonder she clung to a “friend” that showed her any attention at all, even negative.  

Even for people without disabilities it is difficult to find a true friend. To find someone accepting of your Idiosyncrasies and to celebrate them with you is very difficult indeed. Boy does someone with disabilities have idiosyncrasies, so therefore one would assume that people with special needs have trouble finding someone. When she joined the group Pathways to independence, that all changed. Very slowly but it did. From her inverted self to reaching out, not being fearful of judgment, she faced those fears and moved away from people who used and hurt her.  We really owed them a lot. Things are changing with them and will modify the way they do things and I am hoping they won’t lose their ability to help people like Meaghan.  Meaghan has found friends that accept her for who she is, and accept, or not, her for who she is and not her disability. She still does not have many friends but neither do I. 

 

Good friends are a necessity of life, someone to share, laugh, cry, with, to share your inner most feelings, without repercussions.

 

Many people with disabilities do not have that precious gift or have an abusive one like my daughter had. I am very grateful for organizations that enable the ability of finding and keeping friendships. We would have been lost without them.