If you don’t have to fight for a right to an education that doesn’t harm your child, for your child to feel a true sense of belonging and acceptance for who they are by those they call friends -then count yourself lucky.
We see that look of fear in parents eyes when they hear the words: H is having a party… your child is invited. . . The party doesn’t happen…
Don’t think for a moment that my child doesn’t see these things or that they don’t feel hurt by the rejection…
At age 3 he said- Mummy I don’t know how to make friends…By age 6 he spoke of ending his life because he didn’t feel he could be himself because his autistic-adhd stimming attracted unwanted attention at school, he felt he was a failure because his friends could do the school work he couldn’t - not because he’s intellectually impaired but because the curriculum is tailored for a very specific skill set.
What is it that drives this? Likely Fear! Fear of the unknown and judgement of my child’s behaviours that occur as a consequence of unmet needs and a hostile environment.
The LEA want to prosecute me because I won’t force my child into school but instead support my child’s mental health.
5 years of fighting now and we are again at tribunal- which should have happened yesterday- (that was cancelled 5 days before the tribunal date) the LEA won’t communicate with me and the courts have yet to respond to my objection. (Local MP now involved)
Age 3-4 I had to fight for H to get his Autism and ADHD assessments because no one believed me - saying he’s too intelligent and suspicious as to why I had only just realised (I’m Autistc and so his autistc behaviour’s were not alien to me). The ‘professional’ was found to have delayed the process by 6 months - only discovered because of my relentlessness and paper trail and a meeting with the Primary Care Trust who were willing to protect said professional to the detriment of my child’s well-being …until I showed them the paperwork to prove the failings - I asked them to write to my child’s paediatrician, who I had already written to months earlier in desperation, they refused so I pushed them to agree and insisted they sent me the draft copy before it was posted- when I saw the draft copy it was full of lies so I corrected them. They made amendments to the letter and off it went. A week later I get a call to offer us an assessment for H with the consultant paediatrician! We had been moved up the waiting list by 6 months to where we should have been had the ‘professional’ done their job right.
From the day he was born it’s been a complete shit show in regards ‘support’.
I asked for help at the beginning because I was struggling with my mental health and getting out the house to baby weigh groups
(I didn’t know I was Autistic-ADHD at this point. I felt like a shell of a person with no sense of who I was and why I was different)
and ended up being assessed as to the suitability of my parenting! Some ‘professional’ with a clip board and pen entered my home critically quizzing me on the set up of our home and my parenting choices (all baby led parenting- breast-feeding on demand and co-sleeping)
I got my dx age 40! Autism + ADHD. Before this I too was told I would never achieve and I wasn’t very clever just like we were told at parents evening about H. How can the education system still be failing people like this? Maybe it’s because it’s 200 years old and has hardly changed in all that time!
I am now ready to do my final year of the MA in Autism but I’m taking a year out because I feel like I need and deserve a break from deadlines and want to focus all my attention on my family but I feel this highlights how wrong those people in power can be- those professionals who are rigid thinkers making decisions and comments that leave a trail of devastation.
Autistic people are 9 times more likely to end their life than non-autistic people. That statistic increases again if you’re Autistic-ADHD and I can totally see why. The only thing that stops me ending my life is my children.
Suicidal ideation - For me- it’s a free fall into a loop of doom - an intense need to self harm, to stab myself multiple times and hit my head as hard as possible all because I just want the intensity of everything to stop. Every cell in my body is feeding back - burning, boiling, trembling uncontrollably desperate to be switched off.
Is this the fault of being Autistic-ADHD?
No. It’s because Autism + Environment = Outcome (Beardon, 2017).