Questioning your coping mechanisms

Image by rosefirerising via Flickr

Some days are great and others… not so great… yesterday was one of the latter!

Unfortunately a family row commenced at home yesterday (something I wont go into on the blog) however I do believe that as a result of this, a series of high-profile challenging behaviour was demonstrated by my little man. In all honesty, the behaviour was off the scale and I really did struggle to maintain sanity!

I do understand that arguments should not break out in front of children, especially those on the autism spectrum, already easily tipped into an overly anxious state of being, but I’m human and there are times certain situations commence, especially when you find half the arguments are caused by something or another your child on the spectrum may have done or said, worse the person who is arguing with you just can’t leave it a lone, refusing to stop!

I thought it would properly be a good idea to take the children to my mothers, we could see my mum and chill for a bit! Little man could spend some time playing the PS3 with my sister’s boyfriend and all should convert to something far merrier! My plan was going ever so well, though as the evening approached, little man began getting worse and worse… before I knew it, he was throwing a load of nasty swear words at me, why proceeding to kick, punch and lastly spit at me.

God I felt like running away and staying away! When your child has a tendency to throw a load of offensive nasties in your face, you tend to get used to it (in a wrong kind of way) though sometimes such obscenities hurt a thousand times more than any violence… and this time his awful name calling was becoming much to hard to bare. Little man finished his almighty meltdown with a hard punch in my arm and a thump in his sisters back, all while his little brother of two sat screaming! It was at this moment I actually thought… Maybe it would be better if his not here any more, maybe he should live some place else!

I felt such a mix of overbearing emotions as I tortured myself over the thought that had entered my head! I felt assumed and heartbroken how I could even think such a thing! Yet.. at that time as he stood showing no remorse for his actions and I watched how he continued to lash out at his sister, I know I couldn’t help it, I just couldn’t! Every time I stood trying so hard to reason with him, he’ll just laugh and swear! I seriously felt complete despair, lost on where we go from here! I just felt like going to bed forever!

Day’s like this, I wonder what happened to my Little red-haired boy? Though he was always noticeably different, he would sit watching his favourite Thomas video or sit happily playing (even if it was mainly alone… he seemed happy, that’s what counted)! Not anymore! I just see an angry child, who gets anxious, depressed, violent, and often acts in quite an evil and scary manner!

As my Little man grows into someone who actually doesn’t resemble that of a little man at all, I fear for him, I fear for us as a family! At 11 he is reaching the stages of puberty and with it I notice so much more anger, the ability to care less about the people who get hurt in the cross fire. I therefore question my ability to control such behaviour, longing for an answer! As the little man grows bigger, stronger and sadly more violent, I worry he will hurt himself, me or his siblings! Though there is one thing that I fear that little bit more…. Asking for help!

Related articles

• Christmas Meltdowns, Supermarket Style (aspergersinfo.wordpress.com)
• Understanding Autism Spectrum Disorders (everydayhealth.com)
• The day my boy got his smile back. (aspergersinfo.wordpress.com)
• Meltdowns (robertmoran.org)

The stranger who got right on my wick

I like to write about the positive side to Asperger’s after all the first two years of this blogs content, was filled with nothing but rants, brought on by a mix of discrimination & my battles in obtaining appropriate education for Little man.

 However, I’m really sorry to do this to you all, but this is in-fact a “Rant” 

 Sometimes life isn’t all rosy and you need to unleash the not so good stuff… Today is one of those days!

 There are a few things troubling me that I need to get out my head and onto the blog, somehow just letting my fingers do the talking for me, helps me to adapt my mood and somehow go about getting on with things.  

 Now, the first is one that I’m convinced most will read and think, “Get Over It” and to be honest if you did, you would properly be right in thinking this, I should just “Get over it” I know this! However there are some days when something like this happens and it’s just the icing on the cake (so to speak)! 

 What am I rambling on about, I haven’t even told you what it is troubling me, yet here I am trying to justify my own thoughts! Well, basically I am hacked off by a person I’m pleased to say I have never had the privilege to meet, a complete and utter stranger who really shovelled a generous amount of judgemental bull in my direction! 

 So what! I deal with this shit daily, right? True! However I wasn’t in the most stable mood this day (Note this was a few days back) I was actually darting to a Halloween party in an attempt to save my panicking 11-year-old with a diagnosis of Aspergers, from a pending firework display. My iPhone pinged and alerted me that I had mail (email) this is when I discovered the comment below. 

I was reading that one difference between boys with aspergers and girls with aspergers is that girls mimic people around them and end up blending in with neurotypical people. I believe aspergers has a genetic base. I think you and your daughter also have aspergers. It also sounds like you favor your daughter over your son, and he notices and resents it. The most annoying thing with mothers with aspergers is that they think the way their children are acting is somehow done on purpose just to frustrate, like they thing they are the center of the universe, them when in fact children with aspergers are just trying to do what’s best for them.

  Yes, I’ve had crap like this before but this however really rubbed me up the wrong way. Now here’s what drives me that bit more crazy… You get dealt this type of ignorance, become somewhat fired up, yet all you can do is leave an angry “Mind your own business” reply, containing a fair portion of swear words (which I just about reframe from adding) as well as a load of typos that occur as a result of your mad frantic typing! Then you wait… and wait… In reality I don’t want to get into some full on bitching match with this numb nuts above, yet somewhere muddled within the haze of my angry mind, I want to see his response and I want it now! Yet it never comes, ever!

 I’m my head I was screaming you cheeky patronising *#¡# how dare you read just one, just one post and think you have the right to judge me as a parent! 

 What’s more, what right do you think you have to diagnosis not only myself but also my daughter as having “Aspergers” Goodness me, you have never even met either of us. 

 Oh… and you can cut the other crap about my son acting out his aggressiveness in the direction of his sister because he feels she is my favourite, thankfully you really don’t know me.

 Yes, this asshole thinks he knows it all, when actually he doesn’t even know the slightest. I don’t care if the individual has a diagnosis himself or is even a parent, he still has no sodding clue about me and my family!

 Here’s the thing people! I spend hours punishing myself mentally, due to the guilt I feel every single day! Guilt towards my daughter! Why? Because she deserves so much more attention then I have been able to offer. I spent days and nights, writing to schools, filing in complaint forms, collecting evidence for a discrimination case and more besides.

Then there were and still is the trips to CAMHS (child adolescents mental health service) the nights he sleeps in my bed though his far to old, yet if my daughter asks I have to state she can’t and this is purely because Little man would never sleep and likely complain with every movement she made. So, why not refuse to let my son? Consistency is sometimes hard to withstand when its 4am and his been sat outside your bedroom door since midnight in tears! 

 So, when I sit there thinking about this stranger who I have never met, sat at his computer typing this judgemental bull, when this mother has not had a wink of sleep in three days I tend to become a little bit touchy! 

 I would like to state quite loudly that although I love my son with Asperger’s and try to activity embrace the diagnosis, No, myself nor my daughter have Asperger’s.

How this conclusion was drawn from that one post almost makes me want to roll on the floor laughing but at the same time really rattled my cage!

 Now, here comes trouble number 2! I’m worried that once more, yet on a worse scale, my son’s aggressive and growing violent behaviour is going to draw to a serious end but only when his seriously hurt someone (who knows, maybe this won’t even draw an end to it)! 

 At 11 years old his tall for his age, and is no longer the skinny little boy he once was. His gaining strength and today he punched and kicked me so hard I feel to the ground. This was only after he had finished with his sister and I’d tried to intervene. 

 I hear the same thing from high-end professionals who claim that removing the trigger will solve such issues, but what if the trigger is his sister, seriously she only has to like something he likes for him to feel it’s justified to give her a dig. Planned ignoring wont help either! You can’t ignore one of your own children who you love dearly beating the hell out another, it’s just not  worth contemplating. 

Related articles

• Brain Science of Aspergers and Autism Pt. 2: Anger and emotion (wizzkids.wordpress.com)
• Just because I love him (aspergersinfo.wordpress.com)
• Aspergirls: A Subculture Within a Subculture (psychologytoday.com)
• Siblings and Autism: How Are Kids Affected by Special Needs Brothers and Sisters? (blogher.com)
• Brain Science of Aspergers and Autism Pt. 1: Sensory Overload (wizzkids.wordpress.com)

What are you looking at?

Hello everyone

Firstly let me send you all a belated happy world autism day.

Secondly let me explain why I didn’t get the chance to say that earlier!

Well, it’s been an interesting few days. As some may know Friday was ‘Autism Rainbow day’ I did my bit by dressing in all the colours of the rainbow. Judging by the public reaction to my clobber I’m guessing the cause isn’t that well known here in the UK. To many I just looked like a colour blind nut job. Well, it was all in the name of autism so what did I care, I’m totally used to being stared at, as it comes with the territory being a mum to a child on the spectrum!

Friday and Saturday were no exceptions. Let me elaborate a little.

Dressed in my rainbow mix match I decided to head to the supermarket to get something for dinner. My daughter was at my mothers so it was just me and my boys. I’ve written a good few post about the dangers of shopping with an Aspie over the two and a bit years I’ve been blogging, yet did I take my own advice, ‘Avoid taking him where possible, otherwise do so with caution?’ No of course I didn’t!

I’m normally very careful when it comes to taking little man to the supermarket, especially when his only just returned from his tuition at the library! The thing is I can’t even use the bath room without him by my side these days! So surly you can see my predicament when he was literally hanging from my jeans as I tried to make my escape through the front door.

I admit that I’m unsure if he enjoys visiting the supermarket or not? You see eight times out of ten he will have a meltdown with at least half of these being earth shakers (meaning full on blow ups) So you can see the potential risks involved. It’s like a military operation just getting there. He seems to love getting the shopping, acting the little man and of course asking for things, but at the same time all the waiting and crowds of shoppers really tick him off.

I was looking at the flowers for mothers day and I was trying to look at speed but within a few minutes little man was huffing and puffing like an old man. He then tried to unstrap his sixteen month old brother from the pram as he wanted him to play. Of course I grabbed the baby and strapped him back in as it was far to busy to have him on his feet. Little man freaked! He called me a string of hurtful names and began menacingly kicking at the display. On top of this the baby was howling the place down. Little man refused to push the small trolley he was pushing so I tried to push this along with the pram, but the trolley slipped from my grip and went smashing into the flowers. The baby was wailing, little man was cursing, and the fellow shoppers were enjoying the entertainment.

Can you imagine, I hadn’t slept a wink the previous night so was exhausted, dressed so bright I couldn’t be missed, flowers everywhere (praying I wasn’t charged damages), baby screaming so loud the tins were rattling and my little man throwing himself into everyone and anything that stood in his way while giving me an ear bashing.

On my knees I tried desperately to gather flowers from the floor (not one member of the public offered me some help) Suddenly all the noise, the babies screams, little mans shouting and the all the background noise decelerated, it all sounded muffled and I realised that I could hear my own thoughts over anything else around me. The voice in my head told me to get up and run… I almost did! but then that voice ordered me to do something else! “Get up off that dirty floor, brush myself off and take a look around me”

As I came to my feet, brushing petals and leafs from my jeans (that had patches of coloured material stuck to them in an attempt to vamp them up for autism rainbow day, I noticed that everything was slowly getting louder. I felt as if I was coming out of a dream like daze. The baby was no longer screaming, more sobbing, Little man was still ranting (he could go on for hours.) Looking around i noticed just how much of a spectacle my family had become.

“Excuse me everyone”, I shouted at the top of my voice, resulting in people either stopping in their tracks or making a run for it’

What I said next came from nowhere but my good it felt bloody fantastic.

I can’t remember word for word but it went something like this…

” Yes, His my son! No I never dragged him up! Yes his behaviour isn’t ideal, it’s bloody hard work! No your xxxxxxx stares don’t help!”

I grabbed the pram looked down at little man then finished by telling everyone,

“He has Aspergers, which is a type of autism. He don’t care that your staring but at this moment I do, So don’t!

I left feeling so much better then I could have. I was pleased that I had spoken up and felt no regret for doing so.

The following day was world autism day, I was now on a mission if anybody wants a repeat of yesterday I’m ready.
Of course I had to think like this as I was of out to meet a friend with the kids. The day was pretty much drama free but I needed to put a few people in there places.

At the end of an eventful few days my little man was drained and for the first night in ages little man slept.

“Yayyyyyyy

The only thing was he feel fast asleep on my bedroom floor right across the bedroom door. Not good when your dieing to use the little girls room.

I took a picture to share with you all.