"How am I going to get my son with autism to adulthood?"

Let me go to and tell me how you feel right now. Well, about, I don't know, a number of years, I'm a bit overwhelmed. All right, who are you taking care of? I'll get this, I'll get this. I got a son that's ADHD, he was in utero drug exposed, and so we knew that there would be some struggles down the road.

And it hasn't been bad. He's a smart kid, he's a good kid, but he's got nonverbal learning disorder. My wife is convinced that he's, you know, he's on the autism spectrum. But at any rate, he just, you talk about being up, pulled up at night, being asked the same questions over and over and given the same answer and trying to tell him, you know, you just asked that question and it never ever stops. And you love him dearly, but the talk about feeling like a failure, that's, you know, because now he's getting into the teenage years and we've had some struggles and we're going through counseling. And, you know, I just feel like, how am I going to get this kid into adulthood without ruining them first?

Because you lose your patience, you lose your identity, definitely. I mean, my wife and I are going out on a date tonight. I don't think we've been on a date. I can't remember the last time we've been on a date and I told her we're going tonight. Let me ask you a question.

Let me ask you a question. Where are you going on your date? Well, I asked my wife, I wanted, I said museum or something, and she saw this movie, Mamma Mia, and she wants to go see it again.

And I hadn't seen it. So I said, okay, let's go see Mamma Mia. So personally, I'd go to the museum other than that, but that's okay, David, if that's what she wants to do, that's okay.

I would do that too. Now, I'm going to add to this because my wife, she struggled with anorexia from the time she was in her early 20s and she's in her 50s. Now I'm closing in on 60. We got a 13 year old boy, 11 year old girl. And she had about, went into deep depression. We almost lost her. We almost lost her about two years ago. And I basically, she was in treatment for about a year, a little over a year. And I was basically a single dad. And you talk about not knowing what to do and how to get it done.

And you just don't think there's anybody that really understands what it takes and what you're going through to try and get through this period in your life. And she's a lot better now. She's still struggling.

But I mean, she's far more functional. I had to change my job. You know, I had to go from making a pretty decent wage down to, you know, we're on Medicaid and we were getting food, help with food stamps and stuff. I've got to back on the job.

So we're moving back out of that again. But you talk about feeling isolated and like, you know, no one really understands. And thank goodness we have a good church.

And I had a lot of support from people at church. But when you try and get somebody to watch your ADD kid, it's difficult because they don't know how to handle them either. No, you can't just turn him over to just anybody, can you? You cannot turn him over to just anybody. Now, who do you got? Let me ask you a question. Who's watching him tonight while you guys go on a date?

My mother-in-law. She's up for the task? Oh, gosh, I hope so. Yeah, she's done it before. She's come a long way with the relationship now that, you know, he's 13 now, going to be 14.

But this year we've made a little more progress with him, a lot of hard, hard work, and she has, too. And so, yeah, we're not going to be out late. We're going to go afternoon into the evening and then come home.

All right. Well, let me I'm going to ask you, I don't want to get cut off by the break and we're going to get to other calls and so forth. But I want to ask you a couple of questions and then I want you to promise me you'll do something, OK?

OK. What is your plan if something happens to you and your wife or your son? You know, you're you're hitting me in a guilty spot there. No, I don't want you I don't want you to feel guilty. I don't want you to feel guilty. I've got a real okay.

I'm convicted because that's something I've been thinking here about. We lived in California and we had godparents and now we're in Iowa. And so, you know, we've been far away from them.

We have a brother and sister law in Poland. And right now they would be the ones there. They're the ones listed as who would be the caregivers.

And we see them every year. And so, you know, the kids, I mean, they have cousins. But let me ask you, let me ask you, let me ask you another question. I'm going to ask you just a series of questions. OK, just I'm going to give you put you on the lightning round, David. All right, David, if you and your wife's marriage starts to take a downward turn and you've already been through some pretty rocky roads. But if it takes a downward turn, how's this going to affect your son?

It'd be devastating. I would be absolutely. All right. Now, let's back up from there. Let's back up from there. Do you see how important it is for you guys to go out on a date tonight? Yes. And you're going to promise this audience that you're not going to feel guilty about this.

No, I'm you know what? Tonight, I'm not going to feel guilty about it. All right. Probably to me, like the most important thing I need to do right tonight. It is the most important thing you need to do tonight because you just said it would devastate your son if the two of you, your marriage started crumbling. And so what what we're learning to do as caregivers is to figure out what is the priority here. And if you're not in a good place and if you and your wife are not in a good place, this will affect them no matter how good you are with anybody on the spectrum.

And so what you're doing is you're reprioritizing. I know you're trying to worry about getting him into adulthood. And these are important things. And I'm not I'm not in any way diminishing that, David. This is incredibly important for you to concern yourself about how this is going to play out over the next several decades for him, because he's not terminal.

He just has issues. So what you're doing is you're focusing on the now right here, right now. And you're doing what you have control over right here, right now. And the way you're going to get him in adulthood is for you first to be in a healthy place. And then for you and your wife to be in a healthy place. Healthy caregivers make better caregivers. So don't try to put this pressure on yourself of what 10 years looks down the road.

Let's just deal with tonight and you get to go out on a date with your wife. OK. And that's it. That's it. We don't. And that's how we that's how we start changing the way we think about things.

I know that those those things on the horizon are big deals. I do martial arts, David. In fact, after I do the show, I go to martial arts where I get beat up a lot. And so that actually sounds like fun right now.

Well, don't trust me. It's not as fun. It's not as glamorous as you think, because, you know, when you throw me over, it's like hurling a big slab of beef sometimes.

But but one of the things that my instructor tells me and I'm a second degree black belt, but one of the things that he's told me over the years. Fight what's closest. If you have an enemy that is 100 yards away.

But you have one that's five yards away. Deal with the ones that you could put your hands on right now. And that's what you're doing. You're going to fight what's closest. And I told that to someone. He said, well, what if the one that's closest whoops you?

I said, well, then you don't have to worry about the second one. But you're going to fight what's closest. I want you to stay on the line because I want to send you a copy of my new book, Seven Caregiver Landmines. I'm just going to get all your information.

Would you stay on the line for me? And I'm going to send you a copy of this book. All right. Thank you so much, David. Thank you. Thanks for calling and enjoy the night tonight. OK. It's your night. Enjoy it. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is hope for the caregiver. This is the nation's number one show for the family caregiver. We're glad you're with us.