Yesterday, Pip broke another dining chair. That brings his total up to four and leaves us one dining chair short on Christmas Day.
This time, I knew the chair was broken and had been nursing it for weeks, so it wasn't too much of a shock. He stood on it, so it was and accident, besides it is weeks since the Great Chair Breaking Fest and I've got over it now.
It started off insignificantly enough, with an old chair, which could have broken for any reason. I wasn't unduly suspicious and my major concern was the fact that he was chewing the leg, which was varnished. The next one broke soon after. Within a week, I had four chairs glued and braced.
It was only when I caught Pip pulling a leg off, balancing on the remaining three, chewing the fourth leg and working on the computer that it finally twigged what was happening. I confronted him and he moaned that he had to chew the chair because I wouldn't feed him. Ella was on the phone to me and could hear the conversation. 'What's he doing?' she asked. 'Oh, it's ok, I've just discovered what happened to the chairs, he pulls the legs off and chews them because he is hungry.' There was silence on the other end of the phone, then that huge, warm belly laugh I love in Ella.
The fact is that Ella understands where we are coming from. Her sons have Asperger's (and probably a handful of other problems) and she is used to the behaviour, the eccentricities and the confusion which the Asperger's causes. We take it in turns to marvel over each other's problems, laughing at the surreal environments we live in. We discuss the response of 'normal' mothers, the ones who worry and fuss about homework, clothes, the state of the house and what the neighbours think. We joke about our shame, the reality of living with boys who are disturbed, who frighten people and who live in a closed, frightening world. Most of all, we don't judge each other. She knows that I am just a normal mother, in an abnormal situation, trying to make sense of the enigma which is my son. I offer the same safe haven.
In the meantime, a spot of glue and some strong twine should save us from hot-seating on Christmas Day.
Wednesday, 23 December 2009
Tuesday, 22 December 2009
An Early Christmas Gift
I received a copy of a letter from the ex-husband, Jay today. It reads as follows:
Dear Sir/Madam,
I am the respondent in the above case and represented myself at the initial hearing before District Judge X on 7th October 2009.
The appointment for the financial dispute resolution is due for 19th January 2010 at 2pm. I am writing to request a postponement of this meeting because I have a hospital appointment (which I have been waiting 5 years for) on 18th January 2010 that requires me to undergo an anaesthetic. The documentation from the hospital directs me to not work or sign any legal documents on the day following the treatment.
As regards the valuation of our marital home, I notice that an identical property in an inferior position in the same street is currently on sale for £40 000. I therefore must insist upon an up to date independent valuation of my jointly owned property. When we have a correct valuation of the property we can proceed on other matters.
I have to date received nothing from the applicant's solicitors in terms of orders or offers.
Yours faithfully
Jay Aspergers
Dr Jay Aspergers
copy
Mrs Aspergers
Mrs Aspergers' solicitor
If I wasn't at loggerheads with the man then I would laugh at the lies and misinformation in the letter.
Six years before he left home, Jay's father died of liver cancer. I put it down to his drinking, he always started the day's drinking straight after breakfast and by nightfall he was grinning inanely. Within weeks of his death, it was decided that he had probably died from colon cancer. Jay decided that he could develop the same thing and arranged for testing. So began the Great Endoscopy.
I suppose there are a few perverted people in this world who look forward to and positively relish an endoscopy, but generally it is something no-one appreciates as an experience. Jay took this dislike to new heights. Months before the intended appointment, long before he had a date, he would start getting angry. This anger would grow and grow, until it had reached the most incredible proportions. Then the letter would arrive, with tablet to be taken the day before. His whole mind would shut down at this point, apart from that part which thought about the endoscopy. The family's activities and plans had to revolve around Daddy's bowels. Food was discussed in terms of its effect on the bowels, the shopping list had to be rewritten so that it met his bowels' needs, I had to stay at home, for the day before hand, so that he could discuss his bowels, nothing else, just his bowels.
The entire family (apart from Jay) was shouted at to the point of trauma.
After the endoscopy he was actually quite pleasant, in the same way as his father used to be a relatively happy drunk. I put it down to the valium. Unfortunately, the hospital staff never thought to give me enough valium to keep him in that state until the next appointment five years on.
These endoscopies happened twice, and it was the last one which proved to be the final straw which precipitated the separation. This time, Jay received the letter and the tablets after a particularly difficult six months. He had been exceptionally abusive to the rest of us and we learned to be quiet and mouse like when in his company. Nina, our rather spirited teenaged daughter, fed up with listening to him abusing me and shouting at the children for no reason, used to beg me to kick him out. I would try to reason with her that he was under a lot of stress of work and couldn't help the shouting and anger. Was he under stress at work? I don't know but it was an excuse I always used when his temper got to much.
He received the appointment details before Christmas, so he degenerated into an awful caricature of a bad-tempered, rude and offensive teenager. On Christmas Eve he suddenly demanded that I leave the children and go off to Midnight Mass with him. During our lunch on Christmas Day, he entertained the children with complaints about how boring I was because I wouldn't go to pubs, betting shops and racecourses with him, which wasn't strictly true, said that the only good Christmas was one spent sleeping off a hangover, then promptly passed out for the rest of the day, waking up at nightfall to tell me that the wine had gone off and made him ill. Since he had only had three glasses and was clearly drunk before the bottle was opened, it was unlikely.
The next few days revolved around his bowels, until his prearranged appointment. He had left the letter and tablets on the dressing table for a month and by the day before the appointment it had disappeared. It was clearly my fault and I had stolen it to hurt him. In the meantime, I already had an appointment to attend a pottery workshop with the children, which I had saved up to pay for, so I told him to take his bowels and get to the hospital by another means. He got someone else to take him but I picked him up. This time he was grumpy because I had waited for the hospital staff to phone me and tell me to pick him up. The valium didn't make him into the cheerful drunk I had hoped for.
Within days, the atmosphere at home was horrific, with Jay walking around bad-tempered and abusive, the children scared that he was going to attack me again and me scared but determined not to allow him to frighten me. I took to sitting him down in the evenings and asking him why he was so nasty to me. He would sit there for hours, imitating a dead man, then shout that he had always hated me, I had forced him into marriage and my only redeeming feature was that I was a good mother. It wasn't true and he was the one who had pushed the marriage, but he often tried to hurt me and he knew this would serve the purpose.
Days later he left but I took care to tell him he could come back if he returned to the therapy sessions he had originally been prescribed by the psychologist. I even arranged for marriage guidance sessions but he wasn't interested.
He has since got married. Or rather, he started seeing a colleague, a rather plain, fat spinster many years his junior. He phoned me up four months later, demanding a divorce because he had to get married as he was sleeping with someone else.
Last week I received the appointment for the endoscopy and to be honest, I laughed and hastily redirected it to his new address. He would have to attend the hospital and the new wife would see a whole new side of him, particularly his bowels.
So the endoscopy appointment of which he wrote 'I have been waiting five years for' is a routine endoscopy which he only has every five years. He couldn't make an appointment any earlier and it was so important that he never bothered about telling them about the change in address.
As for the neighbour's house being up for sale, he first told me about it over a year ago, so it is hardly news. Yet he agreed to a value on our home at the court hearing.
This is part of his plan to stall the financial settlement. At the moment he pays maintenance for the children but refuses to pay any maintenance for me because I should be going to work (the disabled child just being an excuse I invented with the help of a bent consultant psychiatrist). He has also decided that I am living with someone, so any additional expenses which relate to the children should be paid for by my live in lover. The fact that no-one else's name appears on the electoral roll just goes to prove my dishonesty. The fact that the children have never seen or heard the man who shares my bed just goes to prove that I have poisoned them against their father.
Years ago we attended mediation, in an attempt to get a financial settlement. I knew we were on to a loser there because he couldn't discuss things during the marriage, other than the odd, evil insult carefully chosen and lobbed at me to frighten me our of any ideas of talking. The mediation required both of us to provide details of our finances but he wouldn't. Instead, he launched into a careful, controlled tirade of insults about me poisoning the children against him. The mediators suggested that a court hearing to establish contact was a possibility. He took that to mean that they, or I, could take me to court and force me to arrange access. I tried gently, to tell him that the children didn't like him, one of them threatened to leave home if he ever came back and the police had told me they would contest any attempt at establishing visiting rights for him. He dismissed it as lies. In the meantime, I was paying £150 per hour for him to wriggle out of any hope of a financial settlement. The mediation suddenly fell down when I, devastated by Nina's recent diagnosis of an auto-immune disease, was repeatedly accused of having Munchausen's by proxy.
Mediation could never work because of his Asperger's Syndrome.
There then followed two years of my solicitor, Mr Harker requesting financial details, offering my financial details, making an offer, having the offer turned down because 'Mrs Asperger has earning capacity and refuses to work.'
There then followed a strange flurry of letters between Jay and Mr Harker, as Mr Harker tried to establish if Jay had remarried. Yes, he had but he didn't live with his wife, so no correspondence must be sent to her house. Mr Harker said that a court wouldn't expect a newly married couple to live apart, I told him that Jay wouldn't live with me when we first got married because he already had a home with his mother and she wouldn't let me live in her home. Mr Harker's eyebrows have a way of rising up his forehead whenever I tell him about some of Jay's eccentricities. Poor Mr Harker, I sometimes worry that he will be forced to take early retirement after this.
Finally, in desperation, my solicitor warned me that Jay had no intention of making a financial settlement and we were left with no choice but to take him to court. Even now, he's playing for time. He requested a postponement of the first hearing on the grounds of his ill health, too much work and a holiday. I suppose he could have thrown in that his car didn't work, his breakfast wasn't made or his suit wasn't pressed. Now he has made up this little knot of lies.
So, I have an ex-husband who has a poorly understood concept of the truth, can't understand my lack of enthusiasm over his bowels and has thought up another reason for delaying the financial settlement.
Dear Sir/Madam,
I am the respondent in the above case and represented myself at the initial hearing before District Judge X on 7th October 2009.
The appointment for the financial dispute resolution is due for 19th January 2010 at 2pm. I am writing to request a postponement of this meeting because I have a hospital appointment (which I have been waiting 5 years for) on 18th January 2010 that requires me to undergo an anaesthetic. The documentation from the hospital directs me to not work or sign any legal documents on the day following the treatment.
As regards the valuation of our marital home, I notice that an identical property in an inferior position in the same street is currently on sale for £40 000. I therefore must insist upon an up to date independent valuation of my jointly owned property. When we have a correct valuation of the property we can proceed on other matters.
I have to date received nothing from the applicant's solicitors in terms of orders or offers.
Yours faithfully
Jay Aspergers
Dr Jay Aspergers
copy
Mrs Aspergers
Mrs Aspergers' solicitor
If I wasn't at loggerheads with the man then I would laugh at the lies and misinformation in the letter.
Six years before he left home, Jay's father died of liver cancer. I put it down to his drinking, he always started the day's drinking straight after breakfast and by nightfall he was grinning inanely. Within weeks of his death, it was decided that he had probably died from colon cancer. Jay decided that he could develop the same thing and arranged for testing. So began the Great Endoscopy.
I suppose there are a few perverted people in this world who look forward to and positively relish an endoscopy, but generally it is something no-one appreciates as an experience. Jay took this dislike to new heights. Months before the intended appointment, long before he had a date, he would start getting angry. This anger would grow and grow, until it had reached the most incredible proportions. Then the letter would arrive, with tablet to be taken the day before. His whole mind would shut down at this point, apart from that part which thought about the endoscopy. The family's activities and plans had to revolve around Daddy's bowels. Food was discussed in terms of its effect on the bowels, the shopping list had to be rewritten so that it met his bowels' needs, I had to stay at home, for the day before hand, so that he could discuss his bowels, nothing else, just his bowels.
The entire family (apart from Jay) was shouted at to the point of trauma.
After the endoscopy he was actually quite pleasant, in the same way as his father used to be a relatively happy drunk. I put it down to the valium. Unfortunately, the hospital staff never thought to give me enough valium to keep him in that state until the next appointment five years on.
These endoscopies happened twice, and it was the last one which proved to be the final straw which precipitated the separation. This time, Jay received the letter and the tablets after a particularly difficult six months. He had been exceptionally abusive to the rest of us and we learned to be quiet and mouse like when in his company. Nina, our rather spirited teenaged daughter, fed up with listening to him abusing me and shouting at the children for no reason, used to beg me to kick him out. I would try to reason with her that he was under a lot of stress of work and couldn't help the shouting and anger. Was he under stress at work? I don't know but it was an excuse I always used when his temper got to much.
He received the appointment details before Christmas, so he degenerated into an awful caricature of a bad-tempered, rude and offensive teenager. On Christmas Eve he suddenly demanded that I leave the children and go off to Midnight Mass with him. During our lunch on Christmas Day, he entertained the children with complaints about how boring I was because I wouldn't go to pubs, betting shops and racecourses with him, which wasn't strictly true, said that the only good Christmas was one spent sleeping off a hangover, then promptly passed out for the rest of the day, waking up at nightfall to tell me that the wine had gone off and made him ill. Since he had only had three glasses and was clearly drunk before the bottle was opened, it was unlikely.
The next few days revolved around his bowels, until his prearranged appointment. He had left the letter and tablets on the dressing table for a month and by the day before the appointment it had disappeared. It was clearly my fault and I had stolen it to hurt him. In the meantime, I already had an appointment to attend a pottery workshop with the children, which I had saved up to pay for, so I told him to take his bowels and get to the hospital by another means. He got someone else to take him but I picked him up. This time he was grumpy because I had waited for the hospital staff to phone me and tell me to pick him up. The valium didn't make him into the cheerful drunk I had hoped for.
Within days, the atmosphere at home was horrific, with Jay walking around bad-tempered and abusive, the children scared that he was going to attack me again and me scared but determined not to allow him to frighten me. I took to sitting him down in the evenings and asking him why he was so nasty to me. He would sit there for hours, imitating a dead man, then shout that he had always hated me, I had forced him into marriage and my only redeeming feature was that I was a good mother. It wasn't true and he was the one who had pushed the marriage, but he often tried to hurt me and he knew this would serve the purpose.
Days later he left but I took care to tell him he could come back if he returned to the therapy sessions he had originally been prescribed by the psychologist. I even arranged for marriage guidance sessions but he wasn't interested.
He has since got married. Or rather, he started seeing a colleague, a rather plain, fat spinster many years his junior. He phoned me up four months later, demanding a divorce because he had to get married as he was sleeping with someone else.
Last week I received the appointment for the endoscopy and to be honest, I laughed and hastily redirected it to his new address. He would have to attend the hospital and the new wife would see a whole new side of him, particularly his bowels.
So the endoscopy appointment of which he wrote 'I have been waiting five years for' is a routine endoscopy which he only has every five years. He couldn't make an appointment any earlier and it was so important that he never bothered about telling them about the change in address.
As for the neighbour's house being up for sale, he first told me about it over a year ago, so it is hardly news. Yet he agreed to a value on our home at the court hearing.
This is part of his plan to stall the financial settlement. At the moment he pays maintenance for the children but refuses to pay any maintenance for me because I should be going to work (the disabled child just being an excuse I invented with the help of a bent consultant psychiatrist). He has also decided that I am living with someone, so any additional expenses which relate to the children should be paid for by my live in lover. The fact that no-one else's name appears on the electoral roll just goes to prove my dishonesty. The fact that the children have never seen or heard the man who shares my bed just goes to prove that I have poisoned them against their father.
Years ago we attended mediation, in an attempt to get a financial settlement. I knew we were on to a loser there because he couldn't discuss things during the marriage, other than the odd, evil insult carefully chosen and lobbed at me to frighten me our of any ideas of talking. The mediation required both of us to provide details of our finances but he wouldn't. Instead, he launched into a careful, controlled tirade of insults about me poisoning the children against him. The mediators suggested that a court hearing to establish contact was a possibility. He took that to mean that they, or I, could take me to court and force me to arrange access. I tried gently, to tell him that the children didn't like him, one of them threatened to leave home if he ever came back and the police had told me they would contest any attempt at establishing visiting rights for him. He dismissed it as lies. In the meantime, I was paying £150 per hour for him to wriggle out of any hope of a financial settlement. The mediation suddenly fell down when I, devastated by Nina's recent diagnosis of an auto-immune disease, was repeatedly accused of having Munchausen's by proxy.
Mediation could never work because of his Asperger's Syndrome.
There then followed two years of my solicitor, Mr Harker requesting financial details, offering my financial details, making an offer, having the offer turned down because 'Mrs Asperger has earning capacity and refuses to work.'
There then followed a strange flurry of letters between Jay and Mr Harker, as Mr Harker tried to establish if Jay had remarried. Yes, he had but he didn't live with his wife, so no correspondence must be sent to her house. Mr Harker said that a court wouldn't expect a newly married couple to live apart, I told him that Jay wouldn't live with me when we first got married because he already had a home with his mother and she wouldn't let me live in her home. Mr Harker's eyebrows have a way of rising up his forehead whenever I tell him about some of Jay's eccentricities. Poor Mr Harker, I sometimes worry that he will be forced to take early retirement after this.
Finally, in desperation, my solicitor warned me that Jay had no intention of making a financial settlement and we were left with no choice but to take him to court. Even now, he's playing for time. He requested a postponement of the first hearing on the grounds of his ill health, too much work and a holiday. I suppose he could have thrown in that his car didn't work, his breakfast wasn't made or his suit wasn't pressed. Now he has made up this little knot of lies.
So, I have an ex-husband who has a poorly understood concept of the truth, can't understand my lack of enthusiasm over his bowels and has thought up another reason for delaying the financial settlement.
Tuesday, 15 December 2009
Knitting for Britain
May and I are busy knitting. She knits slowly, carefully and methodically, in her germanic way. She keeps her knitting carefully rolled up in a wicker basket, which fits so neatly on her arm. I hurry through mine, dropping stitches, missing patterns and sewing it up with a burning thread. I ram it into plastic carrier bags, dropping the needles down the side of the couch as I tidy it up. She knits to make herself clothes, I knit to calm myself down. She is still on her first jumper, I have a wardrobe full of brightly knitted socks, jumpers and hats. I still manage to sleep, I function as a responsible adult and I don’t jump when the phone rings, so it must be working.
On Saturday afternoons May comes over, with her basket over her left arm. We take out the growing handiwork and marvel at the colours and the textures, repairing any faults and discussing the pattern while the kettle boils. Saturday afternoons are her oasis of calm, after caring for an over-active toddler during the week. Her oasis is my chaos, as I rush around looking for teapots and clean mugs, sweeping children off the sofa, tripping over gaming station wires, sorting out Pip’s anxieties and listening to yet another of his hairbrained schemes, not agreeing to them but not refusing them, in a determined effort to keep his temper sweet in front of guests. After the tea is brewed I put the cup beside her feet, so that someone will knock it over before it goes cold. The coffee table is rammed against the far wall, with a lazy stack of Nina’s birthday presents covering it.
May and I then pick up our knitting and start putting the world to rights. What is it about women ? The older they get, the more political they become, the more they grumble and the more they seek out and campaign against injustices. I suspect I would just sit at home, quietly whining, if I was alone in this, but May and I goad each other on, planning our campaign of awkwardness and public moaning.
And we do make our moans public, anyone who hasn’t heard us must be deaf. We plan visits to our local MP, questions to prospective parliamentary candidates and petitions. May even confronted one in the vegetable aisle at Tesco’s. We perfect our arguments over our knits and purls, ready to unleash them on the unsuspecting public. And we are so careful to choose our grouses. Not for us some trite, Daily Mail, Middle England battle. Rather we choose some obscure government plan, made on the hoof, designed to placate the Daily Mail reading public, for which we feel we are especially knowledgeable, in contrast to the rest of the country.
So what is our most recent problem ? Home education.
We don’t have a problem with it, to the contrary, we love it. Both of us have used it for all of our children, in desperation, when traditional schooling just didn’t fit their needs. As we sit there knitting, our passion for home education exhudes through our pores, as we reminisce over the marvellous, dedicated earth mothers who make home education such a diverse, thriving community. They say that reluctant converts make the most rabid worshippers and we worship the ideals of home education. Both May and I chose home education when there was no alternative, when we could no longer placate our children or offer them any hope. I home educated for 6 years, saved Pip from the misery of mainstream school and met some wonderful and inspiring people. May continues to home educate her special needs son and he is a wonderful credit to her.
The government, however, sees us as a group of potential abusers, failures who want to brainwash their children and propagate their own disturbed views against schools. We are all keeping our children off school to hide our crimes and to prepare them for early and unsuitable marriages. Or maybe we are using home education to hide the most evil of crimes – a refusal to accept childhood immunisations ? Who knows, but we have to be identified, numbered, questioned, investigated and tested.
As with all games of chinese whispers, some of the message got lost in the telling. We started off as potential abusers, but the word potential seemed to disappear with the telling and retelling. Before long I had other mothers patiently telling me that home educators keep their children at home to hide their crimes. But in truth, home educated children are usually to be seen in the community, being educated in the streets, parks and museums which are available. The only time we stayed at home was when the home education inspector warned us of truancy patrols, which he knew would upset Pip.
I have a particular hatred of the new home education bill, which cannot be explained away just by happy memories of halcyon days, surrounded by my children as we discovered the marvels of the natural world. My dislike isn’t a salute to the friends I made during those times and it isn’t a snub to the teachers who ignored Pip’s obvious disabilities, accusing him of stupidity and laziness to cover up their own ignorance. I hate the home education bill with a vengeance because I’m fed-up with experts trying to put square pegs into obviously round holes.
My biggest gripe is that all of the experts I have met, for all their expertise, experience and qualifications, are not experts. They don’t understand the needs of children, they don’t understand the day to day upsets and anxieties of vulnerable children and they can’t appreciate that text book methods aren’t the only ways to bring up children and in some cases aren’t even an appropriate way of bringing up a particular child.
I could write about the dozens of children I know, who’s needs are not being met by the experts, but for the sake of simplicity, I will just mention Pip’s. Pip clearly had problems in nursery. While other children were happily dressing up, playing and listening to stories, he sat there in a corner, unable and unwilling to join in. The only time he became animated was during the story time. Rows of children would sit there, their heads raised, expectantly, at the teacher. Pip would grudgingly sit awkwardly, his pudgy arms folded but the hands in tight little fists, a scowl spreading across his forehead. The story would start and Pip’s anxiety would increase. He would shout out, walk towards the teacher and stroke the pictures as the assistants would reach out to catch him and control him. He couldn’t tell them that he hated stories, could only listen to facts and hated sitting down to listen to something new. The teacher thought she was setting a routine, with milk and biscuits quickly followed by a story but it wasn’t a routine, it was a different tale every day, a change from the familiarity he craved. The teachers could see that Pip came from a chatty family and that I enjoyed an easy and loving familiarity with him. His withdrawn and unhappy behaviour at school must have made them realise that he was having problems with the school itself. I look back at his old school reports at the time and they all describe classical Asperger’s Syndrome but no-one at the school thought to treat him like a child with Asperger’s.
The teacher and her assistant hatched plans to get Pip to conform. They brought out a star chart, explaining the logic, the research and the years of experience behind it. It lasted a week. Then they arranged for the assistant to sit beside him, that lasted for a couple of days. Finally, they arranged to teach him a lesson. An hour later, when it was clear he wouldn’t stop howling, they called me up to arrange collection. Over the next few weeks he sobbed out his experiences to me, of being dragged along the corridor, into the reception class, to be humiliated in front of the older children. The teachers denied it, but his sister had watched it all. The teacher, furious that I questioned her professionalism, came round to my home and harrangued me on the door step ‘Do you know how much you are ruining that boy without disciplining him ?’ ‘We were only doing what was best for him, he needs a firm hand’ ‘He was setting a bad example to the other children, we had to teach him a lesson’ ‘You are totally ruining Pip, he’s going to end up bad’ ‘Do you really want him to end up as some sort of scientist in an ivory tower ?’ Then, and now, I’d have given my eye teeth to have that sort of security about Pip’s future. Besides, I argued, his Dad was a scientist in an ivory tower and it payed the mortgage. As I slammed the door, my body slid down the wall and I sat in a crumpled heap, sobbing. I was the failure, they were the experts, it was just such a shame that Pip had to be so upset when they took him in hand.
Over the next three years, and three schools, I kept reassuring myself that Pip had to conform, that he needed the sort of discipline that schools offered, that he’d soon knuckle down and succeed. But he turned into a sullen, taciturn child who distanced himself from everyone, including me. I became used to teachers taking me on one side and explaining to me that I wasn’t up to much as a parent, somewhere amongst the school drop outs, child neglectors and drug addicts.
Finally, after some relatively mild event, which even I, in my downtrodden state, couldn’t accept as ‘good teaching practise’, I went home and asked my husband, Jay for advice. It’s never a good idea to ask Jay to take responsibility for anyone other than himself, I could see he was getting angry but I was desperate and I forced the issue. The next day he had told the headmaster that we would be educating Pip at home.
When I look back over the 21 years of marriage, I remember few things which Jay gave to me. He refused to buy jewellery as I already had a wedding ring, when he was the sole breadwinner he objected to wasting his money on me, besides, he gave me housekeeping money every month, which nearly covered our food bills. I look back at those 21 years and I remember he gave me fear, confusion, poverty, three children, a roof over my head, Pip’s home education and finally, my freedom. I will remain forever thankful for the last four of those.
Years later, emboldened by my success as a home educator, I fought to get Pip into a specialist school for communication disorders. After an amazing honeymoon period things began to go wrong. Staff began to leave, being replaced by inexperienced and untrained temporary staff who couldn’t maintain any sense of order in the school. Behaviour deteriorated, morale fell and chaos ensued. The headteacher sought to hide the problems by lying to parents who complained. Dissatisfied parents started meeting up to discuss the problems. We complained to her employers, to OFSTED and to the Department of Chidren, Schools and Families. It was a waste of time, as the latter two didn’t even listen. Her boss probably did and she looked for another job but not before she had written to our local authorities, accusing us of abuse, inadequacy, and cruelty towards our vulnerable children. I can honestly say that the accusations against me were totally unfounded and the authority took it no further. However, not all parents were as fortunate. Two parents were investigated and were asked to put their children into care voluntarily. One of them, already in a caring profession, stands to lose her job because of the accusations.
And these are the experts, the trained professionals, the caring and committed people who know so much about our children that they can rise above our unprofessional, inexperienced inadequacies and can meet the needs of our children where we fail them. These are the people who will be coming to our homes and inspecting and judging our provision for our children.
In the meantime, May and I just sit and knit, waiting for this world to calm down
On Saturday afternoons May comes over, with her basket over her left arm. We take out the growing handiwork and marvel at the colours and the textures, repairing any faults and discussing the pattern while the kettle boils. Saturday afternoons are her oasis of calm, after caring for an over-active toddler during the week. Her oasis is my chaos, as I rush around looking for teapots and clean mugs, sweeping children off the sofa, tripping over gaming station wires, sorting out Pip’s anxieties and listening to yet another of his hairbrained schemes, not agreeing to them but not refusing them, in a determined effort to keep his temper sweet in front of guests. After the tea is brewed I put the cup beside her feet, so that someone will knock it over before it goes cold. The coffee table is rammed against the far wall, with a lazy stack of Nina’s birthday presents covering it.
May and I then pick up our knitting and start putting the world to rights. What is it about women ? The older they get, the more political they become, the more they grumble and the more they seek out and campaign against injustices. I suspect I would just sit at home, quietly whining, if I was alone in this, but May and I goad each other on, planning our campaign of awkwardness and public moaning.
And we do make our moans public, anyone who hasn’t heard us must be deaf. We plan visits to our local MP, questions to prospective parliamentary candidates and petitions. May even confronted one in the vegetable aisle at Tesco’s. We perfect our arguments over our knits and purls, ready to unleash them on the unsuspecting public. And we are so careful to choose our grouses. Not for us some trite, Daily Mail, Middle England battle. Rather we choose some obscure government plan, made on the hoof, designed to placate the Daily Mail reading public, for which we feel we are especially knowledgeable, in contrast to the rest of the country.
So what is our most recent problem ? Home education.
We don’t have a problem with it, to the contrary, we love it. Both of us have used it for all of our children, in desperation, when traditional schooling just didn’t fit their needs. As we sit there knitting, our passion for home education exhudes through our pores, as we reminisce over the marvellous, dedicated earth mothers who make home education such a diverse, thriving community. They say that reluctant converts make the most rabid worshippers and we worship the ideals of home education. Both May and I chose home education when there was no alternative, when we could no longer placate our children or offer them any hope. I home educated for 6 years, saved Pip from the misery of mainstream school and met some wonderful and inspiring people. May continues to home educate her special needs son and he is a wonderful credit to her.
The government, however, sees us as a group of potential abusers, failures who want to brainwash their children and propagate their own disturbed views against schools. We are all keeping our children off school to hide our crimes and to prepare them for early and unsuitable marriages. Or maybe we are using home education to hide the most evil of crimes – a refusal to accept childhood immunisations ? Who knows, but we have to be identified, numbered, questioned, investigated and tested.
As with all games of chinese whispers, some of the message got lost in the telling. We started off as potential abusers, but the word potential seemed to disappear with the telling and retelling. Before long I had other mothers patiently telling me that home educators keep their children at home to hide their crimes. But in truth, home educated children are usually to be seen in the community, being educated in the streets, parks and museums which are available. The only time we stayed at home was when the home education inspector warned us of truancy patrols, which he knew would upset Pip.
I have a particular hatred of the new home education bill, which cannot be explained away just by happy memories of halcyon days, surrounded by my children as we discovered the marvels of the natural world. My dislike isn’t a salute to the friends I made during those times and it isn’t a snub to the teachers who ignored Pip’s obvious disabilities, accusing him of stupidity and laziness to cover up their own ignorance. I hate the home education bill with a vengeance because I’m fed-up with experts trying to put square pegs into obviously round holes.
My biggest gripe is that all of the experts I have met, for all their expertise, experience and qualifications, are not experts. They don’t understand the needs of children, they don’t understand the day to day upsets and anxieties of vulnerable children and they can’t appreciate that text book methods aren’t the only ways to bring up children and in some cases aren’t even an appropriate way of bringing up a particular child.
I could write about the dozens of children I know, who’s needs are not being met by the experts, but for the sake of simplicity, I will just mention Pip’s. Pip clearly had problems in nursery. While other children were happily dressing up, playing and listening to stories, he sat there in a corner, unable and unwilling to join in. The only time he became animated was during the story time. Rows of children would sit there, their heads raised, expectantly, at the teacher. Pip would grudgingly sit awkwardly, his pudgy arms folded but the hands in tight little fists, a scowl spreading across his forehead. The story would start and Pip’s anxiety would increase. He would shout out, walk towards the teacher and stroke the pictures as the assistants would reach out to catch him and control him. He couldn’t tell them that he hated stories, could only listen to facts and hated sitting down to listen to something new. The teacher thought she was setting a routine, with milk and biscuits quickly followed by a story but it wasn’t a routine, it was a different tale every day, a change from the familiarity he craved. The teachers could see that Pip came from a chatty family and that I enjoyed an easy and loving familiarity with him. His withdrawn and unhappy behaviour at school must have made them realise that he was having problems with the school itself. I look back at his old school reports at the time and they all describe classical Asperger’s Syndrome but no-one at the school thought to treat him like a child with Asperger’s.
The teacher and her assistant hatched plans to get Pip to conform. They brought out a star chart, explaining the logic, the research and the years of experience behind it. It lasted a week. Then they arranged for the assistant to sit beside him, that lasted for a couple of days. Finally, they arranged to teach him a lesson. An hour later, when it was clear he wouldn’t stop howling, they called me up to arrange collection. Over the next few weeks he sobbed out his experiences to me, of being dragged along the corridor, into the reception class, to be humiliated in front of the older children. The teachers denied it, but his sister had watched it all. The teacher, furious that I questioned her professionalism, came round to my home and harrangued me on the door step ‘Do you know how much you are ruining that boy without disciplining him ?’ ‘We were only doing what was best for him, he needs a firm hand’ ‘He was setting a bad example to the other children, we had to teach him a lesson’ ‘You are totally ruining Pip, he’s going to end up bad’ ‘Do you really want him to end up as some sort of scientist in an ivory tower ?’ Then, and now, I’d have given my eye teeth to have that sort of security about Pip’s future. Besides, I argued, his Dad was a scientist in an ivory tower and it payed the mortgage. As I slammed the door, my body slid down the wall and I sat in a crumpled heap, sobbing. I was the failure, they were the experts, it was just such a shame that Pip had to be so upset when they took him in hand.
Over the next three years, and three schools, I kept reassuring myself that Pip had to conform, that he needed the sort of discipline that schools offered, that he’d soon knuckle down and succeed. But he turned into a sullen, taciturn child who distanced himself from everyone, including me. I became used to teachers taking me on one side and explaining to me that I wasn’t up to much as a parent, somewhere amongst the school drop outs, child neglectors and drug addicts.
Finally, after some relatively mild event, which even I, in my downtrodden state, couldn’t accept as ‘good teaching practise’, I went home and asked my husband, Jay for advice. It’s never a good idea to ask Jay to take responsibility for anyone other than himself, I could see he was getting angry but I was desperate and I forced the issue. The next day he had told the headmaster that we would be educating Pip at home.
When I look back over the 21 years of marriage, I remember few things which Jay gave to me. He refused to buy jewellery as I already had a wedding ring, when he was the sole breadwinner he objected to wasting his money on me, besides, he gave me housekeeping money every month, which nearly covered our food bills. I look back at those 21 years and I remember he gave me fear, confusion, poverty, three children, a roof over my head, Pip’s home education and finally, my freedom. I will remain forever thankful for the last four of those.
Years later, emboldened by my success as a home educator, I fought to get Pip into a specialist school for communication disorders. After an amazing honeymoon period things began to go wrong. Staff began to leave, being replaced by inexperienced and untrained temporary staff who couldn’t maintain any sense of order in the school. Behaviour deteriorated, morale fell and chaos ensued. The headteacher sought to hide the problems by lying to parents who complained. Dissatisfied parents started meeting up to discuss the problems. We complained to her employers, to OFSTED and to the Department of Chidren, Schools and Families. It was a waste of time, as the latter two didn’t even listen. Her boss probably did and she looked for another job but not before she had written to our local authorities, accusing us of abuse, inadequacy, and cruelty towards our vulnerable children. I can honestly say that the accusations against me were totally unfounded and the authority took it no further. However, not all parents were as fortunate. Two parents were investigated and were asked to put their children into care voluntarily. One of them, already in a caring profession, stands to lose her job because of the accusations.
And these are the experts, the trained professionals, the caring and committed people who know so much about our children that they can rise above our unprofessional, inexperienced inadequacies and can meet the needs of our children where we fail them. These are the people who will be coming to our homes and inspecting and judging our provision for our children.
In the meantime, May and I just sit and knit, waiting for this world to calm down
Wednesday, 9 December 2009
A lesson in brevity
This month's homework is to write a summary of P's disabilities and their effect on his life and mine. It's an easy task, I've already filled in enough diagnostic forms, special needs statementing reports and assessment of needs forms, but this time the problem is the intended audience.
Last month I took my ex-husband, Jay to court, to force him to agree to a financial settlement which didn't involve him getting everything. Still, that's a better proposition to the one he originally planned when we were newly married. The news had been full of a trial involving a man who murdered his wife and hid the body for years. When she was finally discovered he got a suspended sentence. Jay saw the possibilities in this and announced it was more sensible to murder me, keep the house and at worse spend a few years in an open prison nestling in the English countryside, rather than divorce me and lose half of his house. So that's what he would do if it ever came to divorce. It came out of the blue, it wasn't a threat, just a statement of fact and apart from my general grumpiness that he refused to live with me for the first year, I had never given him an indication that he needed to divorce me. But by that time, I had realised that I was married to a very unique man.
It started within 24 hours of our wedding. He wouldn't book a honeymoon. It seems such a minor little thing in itself, but that was the first clue I had to his real nature. Instead, he came to live in my flat for a week, sitting inert and unresponsive in a corner. I decided that he was annoyed that he had missed out on a honeymoon, so I booked all I could afford, four days in a hotel way out in the suburbs of Paris. The hotel was basic and functional but we spent our days in the city centre, relying on Jay's amazing ability to negotiate the streets back to the hotel. The route led through a red light district, which would be wakening up as we walked back to the hotel in the dusk. I probably pointed out the crudeness and directness of the adverts on the club windows.
One evening we discovered a small cafe tucked in a side street, with strong wine and a relaxed service, and came back to the hotel quite late. The meal had been candlelit, we had drunk a carafe of wine, we were newly married and I linked arms with him as we walked back.
Suddenly he dropped my arm and hesitated, then bent down to fiddle with his perfectly tied shoes. I waited for him and he told me to go on ahead of him, he'd catch me up. I felt stupid, the wine had made me confused, I wasn't sure of the direction of the hotel and I wasn't even certain of its name. I waited for him but he remained bent down, urging me to go on. I looked round and found we were in the red-light district, the clubs were beginning to open, the lights were going on and black-suited doormen were half-heartedly attracting the attention of passers-by. I felt cold and scared but slight ashamed that I didn't know where the hotel was. He stood up and waited, I tried to link his arm again and rekindle the previous mood but he pushed me away, 'I'll follow you on and meet you at the hotel'. I looked round, conscious of the doormen watching as another couple had an argument about his porn needs. But we weren't like that, we were just married, I was attractive and loving and he didn't need anyone else. I felt so ashamed and the cool air stung my burning face as I tried to wipe away the tears that were welling in my eyes. He finally agreed to carry on, but I had to walk ahead of him 'because I like to look at you walking ahead of me'. I walked on slowly, feeling for his presence behind me.
We walked past a sex club, a group of doormen surrounded him with offers of cheap sex but I knew that he wasn't interested and would excuse himself from the misunderstanding and run to catch up with me, muttering at their stupidity for thinking he was wanting that sort of thing. But he didn't. The doormen, surprised at his interest, led him quietly into the building as he looked expectant and relieved. I was completely sober by then, aware that I didn't know how to go back to the hotel and ashamed by his indifference. I sank into survival mode and ran back, shouting 'he's my husband, leave him alone, he's with me!' my face raw with embarrassment and shame. The doormen, unsure of the play that was unfolding on their doorstep and clearly sorry for this silly, english-woman, stood back and left him to me. I grabbed his arm, hung tightly to it and marched back to the hotel, only relaxing my grip as we reached the reception desk.
We never spoke about the incident, it was put away but never resolved. I was so ashamed and humiliated that I put it from my mind, denying it for years. He rarely spoke anyway, reserving all his conversations to brief recounts of basic facts or snapping a criticism at me.
Six weeks later he had gone back home to his mother's house. There was no break-up, no argument, it was just that his work was too far away and he didn't want me to look for a job closer to my home. He vaguely offered to look for a job for me at his place of work. In the meantime, he reiterated that I would be unfaithful if I socialised with my male colleagues, so I settled into a solitary existence. Within five months I had handed in my notice at work, packed my bags and told Jay I was coming home to be with him. He patiently explained that his mother wouldn't let me live in his home, there were no flats to rent in his big vibrant city and he couldn't buy a house because I wouldn't like his choice. 'You can go back and live with your parents', he argued, 'they love you, they thought they'd lost you when we got married, well now they can have you back, I'll visit you at weekends.' And so started the second, equally unsatisfactory, stage of our marriage.
But back to the present, Jay's problem is that he has decided that our son, P isn't disabled. Ok, he has a few quirks like his dad, but he isn't disabled. Whilst I agree with Jay's former statement, I have to accept that a psychiatrist has diagnosed those quirks as Asperger's Syndrome and mild ADHD. I sought the diagnosis, to get P the help he needed, but I still refused to believe it, arguing that P can just snap out of his behaviour when he pleases, it's just that he doesn't want to yet. Besides, as time goes on, he becomes increasingly like his father, who has a good job and a healthy salary. Ok, when I finally got Jay to go for help, he was diagnosed with a small selection of personality disorders, but Jay always argued that it never happened with such determination, anger and force that even I began to doubt it.
So here we are with a son so disabled that he cannot even settle in a special school, can't change his clothes and is abusive to anyone who challenges him. I spend my days organising his future, apologising for his present and shaking my head with disbelief over his past. His father spends his days stewing over my laziness and refusal to work and ignores my pleas for a financial settlement. Hence the recent court case.
On the day, the judge listened with a slight impatience as Jay argued that his son wasn't disabled. She wrapped up his bleatings with a terse 'do you accept the psychiatrist's diagnosis?', then declared that since the government considered P disabled enough to require a full-time carer, Jay couldn't argue further. But Jay came back with comments about how our son had been different but certainly not a challenge when Jay lived with us. By that time, garrulous old me, desperate to please the judge who had agreed with me, asked her if she wanted further evidence of P's disability. I mean, just describing our typical day would be enough to convince anyone. She declined but suggested that I could provide it in a letter to Jay, since he was the one who needed convincing. Hence the homework.
Now I'm left with providing a summary of P's disability, without giving away any details of the lives we now live or without hinting at the amazing people our other children are turning into. Don't get me wrong, I don't want him to be part of my life, I'm fed up with his control and manipulation, but I accept that he has to know what P's problems are. It's the other children who don't want him to know anything about their lives and don't want him to take part in their future.
Dear Jay,
As you know, P has a diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome, dyspraxia, dyslexia and dysgraphia. He also suffers from mild ADHD. You are aware he has shown obsessive-compulsive tendencies for the last twelve years. As you know, he attended three mainstream schools before the age of 6. When his third placement failed and I asked you to help me complain to the headmaster you de-registered him and told me to teach him at home.
His extremely poor hygiene standards continued after you left and he now stinks. He blames it on my refusal to buy him anti-perspirant, so he can make holes in the can or spray it at his brother's face. He has sensory issues, which mean that he has a limited and inappropriate wardrobe, which we have to shop for in all-night supermarkets. I still take his rubbish directly to the tip, to prevent him from foraging in the dustbins.
When you left he couldn't use a knife and fork, choosing to eat his mashed potatoes and gravy directly from his grubby fingers. I've since taught him to use a spoon for sloppy food. If his brother sits nearby then he throws the food at him and I have to pick mashed potato out of a rush-seated chair. That won't be a problem in the near future, as he is slowly taking our dining chairs apart. He removes one leg, balances on the other three and chews the free leg. If I challenge him then he argues that he is hungry and I won't feed him.
He has an addiction to fizzy drinks, which propel him into a sugar-induced adrenalin rush. During his last one, I had to jump in front of his sister to protect her. However, the security guards at the airport were alerted to his behaviour by his shouting and were already on the way to see what was going on.
Our last holiday was ruined by a five day tantrum and I spent one night awake, checking that he hadn't run off. He started threatening me when I was negotiating a side road on a blind bend, so I hit him. Still, that was better than the previous one, when we were threatened with eviction from a camp site because of his foul language, screamed across the slopes of Mount Snowdon.
His obsession with knives continued after you left and he now has an impressive collection to go with the BB guns and the baseball bats. He uses the BB guns to shoot at targets made from photographs of the management at his previous school. Fortunately, the guns wear out reasonably quickly. On a more positive note, his fascination with fire burnt out soon after he accidentally set fire to the dining room.
I have learned to live with his suicide attempts. His sister hasn't and still gets upset when he self-harms. She never really got over the day when she walked into his room and found him with a rope wrapped tightly around his neck.
In the interests of my personal safety, we have banned parties, even when he isn't in the house. The one exception, our daughter's 18th birthday, was followed and marred by a five week trail of destruction and abuse of me. My closest friend's husband was a bit shocked when I walked into their house and burst into tears. It's not quite polite for a visitor. Still, he did insist that she keep the door unlocked at all times, so I can just wander in and claim refuge when things get tough.
P has attended two specialist schools for communication disorders in the last four years. He wants to leave his current school because they challenge his unacceptable behaviour. He has very few qualifications, is abusive when things don't go his way and cannot accept authority. When I say he is abusive, I mean in the sort of way that you were. Don't you remember our daughter phoned 999 once when you were chasing me around the house, threatening to kill me? It was the policeman who described it as abuse and it was the domestic incident team who asked me to press charges against you but at the time I was still in love with the idea that I could cure you.
Our local social services argue that P does not meet their criteria, but refuse to tell me what their criteria are. I suspect it is because he has a high IQ. Our local mental health services once suggested that I lock up all the knives because he tried to strangle himself. When things were really bad last year, a psychiatrist offered me a prescription for Risparadol, which I never took. They have a six week waiting list for new referrals, which they feel more than makes up for the fact that they will not tackle Asperger's Syndrome. All our consultations seem to take place on the phone and centre around my obvious distress. I think they think that my distress is the cause of all our problems and can be switched off by a few patronising words by a mental health worker.
Once, when he was threatening to kill me, I contacted NHS Direct, thinking they might have a magic cure which my GP didn't know about. They did, it's called the Police, who come round, arrest the child and take him away. My friend uses them as a respite service when things get really crazy. With luck, they keep her son in the cells overnight and send him home in a police car the next day.
And in spite of all this, I love our son and it breaks my heart to see him like this. He, like you, has decided that I have let him down with a stupid list of silly little events which prove to him that I am an untrustworthy liar. Everyone who knows us well, and knows the amazing support I give him on a daily basis, is shocked to see how he views me and how he treats me.
Yours sincerely,
Mrs Asperger
No, too much information, how about-
Dear Jay,
As you know, P has a diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome, dyspraxia, dyslexia and dysgraphia. He also has mild ADHD.
Details of these conditions, and how they impinge on his life can be found in any standard textbook on autistic spectrum disorders.
Yours sincerely,
Mrs Asperger
Well, at least it's a start.
Last month I took my ex-husband, Jay to court, to force him to agree to a financial settlement which didn't involve him getting everything. Still, that's a better proposition to the one he originally planned when we were newly married. The news had been full of a trial involving a man who murdered his wife and hid the body for years. When she was finally discovered he got a suspended sentence. Jay saw the possibilities in this and announced it was more sensible to murder me, keep the house and at worse spend a few years in an open prison nestling in the English countryside, rather than divorce me and lose half of his house. So that's what he would do if it ever came to divorce. It came out of the blue, it wasn't a threat, just a statement of fact and apart from my general grumpiness that he refused to live with me for the first year, I had never given him an indication that he needed to divorce me. But by that time, I had realised that I was married to a very unique man.
It started within 24 hours of our wedding. He wouldn't book a honeymoon. It seems such a minor little thing in itself, but that was the first clue I had to his real nature. Instead, he came to live in my flat for a week, sitting inert and unresponsive in a corner. I decided that he was annoyed that he had missed out on a honeymoon, so I booked all I could afford, four days in a hotel way out in the suburbs of Paris. The hotel was basic and functional but we spent our days in the city centre, relying on Jay's amazing ability to negotiate the streets back to the hotel. The route led through a red light district, which would be wakening up as we walked back to the hotel in the dusk. I probably pointed out the crudeness and directness of the adverts on the club windows.
One evening we discovered a small cafe tucked in a side street, with strong wine and a relaxed service, and came back to the hotel quite late. The meal had been candlelit, we had drunk a carafe of wine, we were newly married and I linked arms with him as we walked back.
Suddenly he dropped my arm and hesitated, then bent down to fiddle with his perfectly tied shoes. I waited for him and he told me to go on ahead of him, he'd catch me up. I felt stupid, the wine had made me confused, I wasn't sure of the direction of the hotel and I wasn't even certain of its name. I waited for him but he remained bent down, urging me to go on. I looked round and found we were in the red-light district, the clubs were beginning to open, the lights were going on and black-suited doormen were half-heartedly attracting the attention of passers-by. I felt cold and scared but slight ashamed that I didn't know where the hotel was. He stood up and waited, I tried to link his arm again and rekindle the previous mood but he pushed me away, 'I'll follow you on and meet you at the hotel'. I looked round, conscious of the doormen watching as another couple had an argument about his porn needs. But we weren't like that, we were just married, I was attractive and loving and he didn't need anyone else. I felt so ashamed and the cool air stung my burning face as I tried to wipe away the tears that were welling in my eyes. He finally agreed to carry on, but I had to walk ahead of him 'because I like to look at you walking ahead of me'. I walked on slowly, feeling for his presence behind me.
We walked past a sex club, a group of doormen surrounded him with offers of cheap sex but I knew that he wasn't interested and would excuse himself from the misunderstanding and run to catch up with me, muttering at their stupidity for thinking he was wanting that sort of thing. But he didn't. The doormen, surprised at his interest, led him quietly into the building as he looked expectant and relieved. I was completely sober by then, aware that I didn't know how to go back to the hotel and ashamed by his indifference. I sank into survival mode and ran back, shouting 'he's my husband, leave him alone, he's with me!' my face raw with embarrassment and shame. The doormen, unsure of the play that was unfolding on their doorstep and clearly sorry for this silly, english-woman, stood back and left him to me. I grabbed his arm, hung tightly to it and marched back to the hotel, only relaxing my grip as we reached the reception desk.
We never spoke about the incident, it was put away but never resolved. I was so ashamed and humiliated that I put it from my mind, denying it for years. He rarely spoke anyway, reserving all his conversations to brief recounts of basic facts or snapping a criticism at me.
Six weeks later he had gone back home to his mother's house. There was no break-up, no argument, it was just that his work was too far away and he didn't want me to look for a job closer to my home. He vaguely offered to look for a job for me at his place of work. In the meantime, he reiterated that I would be unfaithful if I socialised with my male colleagues, so I settled into a solitary existence. Within five months I had handed in my notice at work, packed my bags and told Jay I was coming home to be with him. He patiently explained that his mother wouldn't let me live in his home, there were no flats to rent in his big vibrant city and he couldn't buy a house because I wouldn't like his choice. 'You can go back and live with your parents', he argued, 'they love you, they thought they'd lost you when we got married, well now they can have you back, I'll visit you at weekends.' And so started the second, equally unsatisfactory, stage of our marriage.
But back to the present, Jay's problem is that he has decided that our son, P isn't disabled. Ok, he has a few quirks like his dad, but he isn't disabled. Whilst I agree with Jay's former statement, I have to accept that a psychiatrist has diagnosed those quirks as Asperger's Syndrome and mild ADHD. I sought the diagnosis, to get P the help he needed, but I still refused to believe it, arguing that P can just snap out of his behaviour when he pleases, it's just that he doesn't want to yet. Besides, as time goes on, he becomes increasingly like his father, who has a good job and a healthy salary. Ok, when I finally got Jay to go for help, he was diagnosed with a small selection of personality disorders, but Jay always argued that it never happened with such determination, anger and force that even I began to doubt it.
So here we are with a son so disabled that he cannot even settle in a special school, can't change his clothes and is abusive to anyone who challenges him. I spend my days organising his future, apologising for his present and shaking my head with disbelief over his past. His father spends his days stewing over my laziness and refusal to work and ignores my pleas for a financial settlement. Hence the recent court case.
On the day, the judge listened with a slight impatience as Jay argued that his son wasn't disabled. She wrapped up his bleatings with a terse 'do you accept the psychiatrist's diagnosis?', then declared that since the government considered P disabled enough to require a full-time carer, Jay couldn't argue further. But Jay came back with comments about how our son had been different but certainly not a challenge when Jay lived with us. By that time, garrulous old me, desperate to please the judge who had agreed with me, asked her if she wanted further evidence of P's disability. I mean, just describing our typical day would be enough to convince anyone. She declined but suggested that I could provide it in a letter to Jay, since he was the one who needed convincing. Hence the homework.
Now I'm left with providing a summary of P's disability, without giving away any details of the lives we now live or without hinting at the amazing people our other children are turning into. Don't get me wrong, I don't want him to be part of my life, I'm fed up with his control and manipulation, but I accept that he has to know what P's problems are. It's the other children who don't want him to know anything about their lives and don't want him to take part in their future.
Dear Jay,
As you know, P has a diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome, dyspraxia, dyslexia and dysgraphia. He also suffers from mild ADHD. You are aware he has shown obsessive-compulsive tendencies for the last twelve years. As you know, he attended three mainstream schools before the age of 6. When his third placement failed and I asked you to help me complain to the headmaster you de-registered him and told me to teach him at home.
His extremely poor hygiene standards continued after you left and he now stinks. He blames it on my refusal to buy him anti-perspirant, so he can make holes in the can or spray it at his brother's face. He has sensory issues, which mean that he has a limited and inappropriate wardrobe, which we have to shop for in all-night supermarkets. I still take his rubbish directly to the tip, to prevent him from foraging in the dustbins.
When you left he couldn't use a knife and fork, choosing to eat his mashed potatoes and gravy directly from his grubby fingers. I've since taught him to use a spoon for sloppy food. If his brother sits nearby then he throws the food at him and I have to pick mashed potato out of a rush-seated chair. That won't be a problem in the near future, as he is slowly taking our dining chairs apart. He removes one leg, balances on the other three and chews the free leg. If I challenge him then he argues that he is hungry and I won't feed him.
He has an addiction to fizzy drinks, which propel him into a sugar-induced adrenalin rush. During his last one, I had to jump in front of his sister to protect her. However, the security guards at the airport were alerted to his behaviour by his shouting and were already on the way to see what was going on.
Our last holiday was ruined by a five day tantrum and I spent one night awake, checking that he hadn't run off. He started threatening me when I was negotiating a side road on a blind bend, so I hit him. Still, that was better than the previous one, when we were threatened with eviction from a camp site because of his foul language, screamed across the slopes of Mount Snowdon.
His obsession with knives continued after you left and he now has an impressive collection to go with the BB guns and the baseball bats. He uses the BB guns to shoot at targets made from photographs of the management at his previous school. Fortunately, the guns wear out reasonably quickly. On a more positive note, his fascination with fire burnt out soon after he accidentally set fire to the dining room.
I have learned to live with his suicide attempts. His sister hasn't and still gets upset when he self-harms. She never really got over the day when she walked into his room and found him with a rope wrapped tightly around his neck.
In the interests of my personal safety, we have banned parties, even when he isn't in the house. The one exception, our daughter's 18th birthday, was followed and marred by a five week trail of destruction and abuse of me. My closest friend's husband was a bit shocked when I walked into their house and burst into tears. It's not quite polite for a visitor. Still, he did insist that she keep the door unlocked at all times, so I can just wander in and claim refuge when things get tough.
P has attended two specialist schools for communication disorders in the last four years. He wants to leave his current school because they challenge his unacceptable behaviour. He has very few qualifications, is abusive when things don't go his way and cannot accept authority. When I say he is abusive, I mean in the sort of way that you were. Don't you remember our daughter phoned 999 once when you were chasing me around the house, threatening to kill me? It was the policeman who described it as abuse and it was the domestic incident team who asked me to press charges against you but at the time I was still in love with the idea that I could cure you.
Our local social services argue that P does not meet their criteria, but refuse to tell me what their criteria are. I suspect it is because he has a high IQ. Our local mental health services once suggested that I lock up all the knives because he tried to strangle himself. When things were really bad last year, a psychiatrist offered me a prescription for Risparadol, which I never took. They have a six week waiting list for new referrals, which they feel more than makes up for the fact that they will not tackle Asperger's Syndrome. All our consultations seem to take place on the phone and centre around my obvious distress. I think they think that my distress is the cause of all our problems and can be switched off by a few patronising words by a mental health worker.
Once, when he was threatening to kill me, I contacted NHS Direct, thinking they might have a magic cure which my GP didn't know about. They did, it's called the Police, who come round, arrest the child and take him away. My friend uses them as a respite service when things get really crazy. With luck, they keep her son in the cells overnight and send him home in a police car the next day.
And in spite of all this, I love our son and it breaks my heart to see him like this. He, like you, has decided that I have let him down with a stupid list of silly little events which prove to him that I am an untrustworthy liar. Everyone who knows us well, and knows the amazing support I give him on a daily basis, is shocked to see how he views me and how he treats me.
Yours sincerely,
Mrs Asperger
No, too much information, how about-
Dear Jay,
As you know, P has a diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome, dyspraxia, dyslexia and dysgraphia. He also has mild ADHD.
Details of these conditions, and how they impinge on his life can be found in any standard textbook on autistic spectrum disorders.
Yours sincerely,
Mrs Asperger
Well, at least it's a start.
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