Were you sheltered?

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I have a question and then an extremely dorky one.

Were you sheltered as a kid? I'm not just talking about when you were really young but during your pre-teen years too.

Oh, and when your nails get too short and you touch carpet, do you get the chills? lol.

As a smaller child, no. But when I moved with my Mom, yes. She 'homeschooled' me, except that her idea of homeschooling was to keep me at home all the time, except for when I was out getting firewood (to sell as well as for our own use) or working at a construction site, or helping deliver newspapers, or hauling water. In other words, if it was work, or made money, I could go out, but was chaperoned.

I was not allowed to date. Men who were interested had to brave my evil stepfather. I was not allowed to use the phone, except with them standing there telling me what to say or shoving notes in my face about what to ask or say. (as if phone calls weren't stressful enough).

I went to the grocery store maybe once a month, and that terrified me. She said she didn't want to take me to town because people thought I was ret*d. She insisted that I couldn't leave home because I wasn't like other 18 year olds, that I was different, that something was wrong with me, and that mentally I wasn't 18. I later found out she'd been going around telling my friends (who were all her age) that I was ret*d, damaged at birth. They were amazed that I could read.... I 'm actually fairly bright, and she knew that....but what I'm getting at here is that her sheltering me was the last thing I needed. I needed someone to back me up and encourage success in social interactions and independence, not discourage them.

no (On the sheltering)

and yes (on the fingernails)

I was not sheltered - in hindsight a lot of the stuff I did I really shouldn't have been allowed to, but I learned a lot. I grew up in a slightly dodgy urban area and was pretty much allowed to roam, and did stuff I shouldn't with the 'bad' kids, ah those were the days... still at least I'm fairly streetwise as a result and didn't get myself into TOO many situations I couldn't talk/fight/run my way out of. By the time I was 15 I used the house like a dorm, coming home to eat and leaving notes on the fridge as to my likely whereabouts - I slept most nights at Mel's parents after we met a couple of years later, and finally packed my stuff at 19. I sympathise with you chamoisee, I resented any curbs on my freedom, that must have been very frustrating.

As for the carpet thing, yes strangely....

Dunc

Yes to both, but not specific to carpet, other things too.

1. Yes, echoing chamoisee's posting. We seem to have grown up with parents who resented our disability, even hated us, and at the same time made it worse.

I was kept at a very childlike level all the way through my teens and even a little into my 20s. In that suffocating home my parents alternated between babying me and occasionally exploding in rage and hitting me.

They might have told themselves they were being charitable as in their day people with these problems often were institutionalized and forgotten about but I think they were really being selfish.

And my mother actually liked having things that way which confused me even more socially and made me play along with it longer.

Asked my father when I was 18 why he didn't get me help and he said 'I didn't want the stigma'.

Left in my 20s and never went back.

2. No.

Well, I was sheltered, but not so much as some others here were.

My parents made me ask if I wanted to cross the street, or go down the road (we lived on a dead end, and cars only came up our street about once or twice a day ). I was not allowed to leave my neighborhood (which consisted of about 10 houses), and they walked me down the street to my bus stop until I was in Jr. High. They refused to leave me home alone until I was in my early teens. I couldn't watch PG-13 movies until I was 13, and rated R movies until I was 16 (unlike most kids, who got to watch R movies at 11 or 12).

The worst thing was though, and still is, that they never told me anything. They often refuse to recognize that I am old enough to know about what is going on with the family, and what they are thinking about or planning on doing, especially if those plans will affect me. They never, ever ask for my input, and I'm 21 years old .

Yes and No. (for the first question)

I walked home from Primary school from a young age, and looked around shopping centres on my own from when I was about 7.

I was encouraged to socialise and my perents thought it was abnormal that I didn't really want to.

I had a good upbringing, but a I got older I feel like I get treated like i'm not capeable of anything. Mum says I "wouldn't cope" in the real world at the moment without learning what to do more, but she doesn't realise, if I had no choice, I'd HAVE to cope.

They don't like it when I come home later than midnight, either.

I am not sheltered at all. I don't do any 'bad things' though, mostly because I don't care. Last year (I was 16), one of my friends (who was in college) told me that I knew more 'stuff' than she did! I'm not sheltered because my mum will talk to me about anything. I can't actually remember getting any sort of lecture about drugs or sex, I've just sort of always known.

Oh, and no about the carpet thing! (Just tried it actually.)

I was sheltered most of my life, I lived at home till I was 26, as a teen I was never allowed out of the house past 10pm any night even weekends and all even till I was 19 and was always made to say where i was going and when I'd be home and if I wasn't usually they'd get after me.

During my preetend years I became sheltered . . . on my own will. That's when my signs of Asperger's really started to tear me down, so I just went away from the world and did my own thing.

I wish I wouldn't have, because it just made things worse. Growing up, I wasn't too sheltered. Went out, got into after-school activities and whatnot.

I guess I can say that I was sheltering myself most of my life. As a kid/teen I was spending most of my free time drawing maps and playing with the computer. I didn't have any qualms about exploring large parts of the city on my bike, though. I was afraid of people, not of places (thanks to my built-in compass it is very hard for me to get lost). Still, I made my first trip outside of the town on my own when I was 21 (LOL, Christopher Boone beat me to it!). My mother didn't have much problems with me, because I never frequented any parties, nightclubs/bars/discos, or other suspect places, and certainly did not hang out with "bad kids" (I didn't hang out with anyone for that matter, and that was the source of concern for her). She requested that I tell her or leave a note whenever I ventured out of home, specify when I would be back, and call her if I was going to come home late. I considered that a sensible rule and continued to do so until I moved out at age 25 (in my 20s the rule was limited to my evening outings only, though).

The only sheltering I ever had was self-inflicted - it was everybody else who wanted to inflict me on the outside world......

....and not even my disgusting green carpet can give me chills, so no to Q2.

I was extremely sheltered. Going to an Orthodox Jewish high school to keep me away from "intimidating people who might eat me alive" didn't help much either. In fact, when I got to college and called a friend late at night and his girlfriend picked up, at first I didn't realize what she was doing there! Then it hit me...naaah, can't be that...at least I sure HOPE it's not that...

And i thought that they didn't allow that in college dorms... LOL ACG!! !

I am not really sheltered, but i don't have complete freedom, either. My parents don't allow me out after dusk, a rule which i still resent (esp. in winter), and i can't leave the bounds of my neighborhood, although it is a fair-sized subdivision with six streets. I can walk to school on my own, since it is right across the street from the entrance to my neighborhood. And theyll let me out indefinitely during the day, as long as i call them if i go inside a house or after two hours. And they'll let me ride an electric scooter, and, while they won't let me play most FPS games, they'll let me play Star Wars Battlefront because it is a Star Wars-themed game, and because the din't want to impose on Grandma for getting it for me by returning it (Grandma's the best ). And i can't say anything for the second question, cause that don't happen to me!

I was the opposite of sheltered. My Dad died when I was 6 and my Mom had to earn a living for us, so I was alone a lot. My siblings were all much older and lived on their own.

Maybe that's why no one ever noticed there was anything "wrong" with me--no one was really paying attention, including me.

SkyBar