Struggling with a 3 year old with possible PDA. Abuse from a Woman yesterday, feeling very low

Hello, my name is Marie. I have 2 daughter's, the youngest is Abbie (3) and we know there is something wrong. We have an appointment on the 27th Feb and I hope this is the start of getting some help and understanding and hopefully a diagnosis. After 18 months of research I have discover pathological demand avoidance, the signs and symptoms explain Abbies behaviour perfectly. Life can be extremely difficult, everything you ask of Abbie becomes a drama. Most days getting her to the school to take my eldest daughter is extremely challenging.  Her meltdowns are extraordinary and quite frightening. She had a terrible episode in Sainsbury's yesterday, and after getting her out of the lift she laid on the floor and screamed at the top of her lungs. If I attempt to touch her or even carry her when she's in a state like this she will hit her head on the pavement so I have to be very cautious in my actions. If I do manage to pick her up I can't hold her for long and could drop her. I was dealing with it well, I was calm and felt she may be coming out of it slightly, then this woman appeared and starting having a go at me for allowing my child to be on the floor and making so much noise. She told me that I was doing everything wrong and need to pick her up immediately. I calmly explained that I couldn't do that due to Abbie hurting herself and then this Woman tried to pick Abbie up. I asked her repeatedly to leave me alone to concentrate on my child and that she was making me emotional and to please leave us alone. She went on to tell me that I shouldn't be dragging a small child round the shop and that they get tired and that this behaviour wasn't normal and must be my fault. She proceeded to tell me how she has children and grandchildren so she knows all about it. Eventually she left after I used a few harsher words. I was left on the floor in tears. I can't take much more of the filthy looks and ignorance that I receive, sometimes even from friends and family as well as strangers. I feel so alone and lost. I've never written on a forum before but I really need some support and it doesn't feel like there is any in my world at the moment

  • Hello Marie, I am new to this forum malarkey myself and find myself here for the very same reason as you.

    My son is 10 years old and whilst not an official diagnosis (on the waiting list and likely to be autumn 2018 before he is assessed) we are told by our therapist that he is autistic (aspergers). On Saturday he had a meltdown in Tescos. Supermarkets seem to be particular triggers for children with sensory issues! My son reacted in exactly the same way as your daughter did but I was fortunate enough to not have to deal with "experts". Although I would very much have wished to have had some moral support from Former Member.

    The staff members who witnessed the struggle were marvellous and made sure I could see them standing by ready to be available if needed. My son is a big lad and I was having to physically restrain him to prevent him running out of the store and possibly into traffic. I was afraid to let him go in case he caused damage to property. He had already thrown down a toy he had taken with him. In the few times it has happened before I have been able to just hold him tight until he relaxes but not this time. The event was the worst I have had to deal with and left me shaken and upset. I was so upset because I felt I let him down. We have an individualised therapy programme and all the tools needed to deal with this and did none of it. I felt so guilty afterwards and that is so much worse than any embarrassment. 

    I have had a difficult week at work, been very tearful and generally unable to cope with life. I have discovered that I have a lot of work to do to ensure that we co-exist happily in my son's world and the little we have done so far (3 weeks into the programme) has made no difference. We still had to deal with this horrible incident. 

    I have since reflected on the situation and realise that however upsetting it was for me, my son was demonstrating his extreme distress at the chaos he continues to cope with every day. This set my resolve to do whatever I can, whatever it takes, to improve life for him. Having realised the enormity of the task and the changes I must make in my life to be able to cope I am still emotionally wrecked.

    Marie, your daughter is still young and I am not in a position to offer you advice but think about any sensory issues she may have such as sound, smell and lighting. These are the most likely triggers when visiting a shop, particularly a supermarket. What appears to be a behavioural issue is likely to be caused by a sensory processing problem.

    The two most important things that we have done for my son (our little family of three) is to de-register him from school to home-educate and pay for this individualised therapy programme. Those two things have made an enormous difference to my son's wellbeing but, as you have seen, do not prevent his susceptibility to the pressures he faces.

    Thank you for writing about your incident because it has made me feel that I am not alone. I know your struggle and also know that you are doing your best. Keep on keeping on.

  • Thanks, all signed and I've sent it on to get others to do the same x

  • Hi we have a government petition for health care professionals to recognise and understand PDA, we now have over 10,000 signatures please share and care our petition. Xx

    l.facebook.com/l.php

  • I have had lots of experience with this.  I got to a point where I don’t feel I need to explain to everyone my child has autism. I have had people give me looks, made comments, call me a bad mother and even my child is naughty.  My approach is simply pin them with a hard look and say I am the parent here and this is what is best. You don’t know my child so back away.  I got this attitude when my child was having a moment in nursery and the qualified teacher was using the term naughty. I am about to say something that probably would not have been nice when the EdPsy stopped me and simply told the teacher there is something else going on here. I don’t know sign language except for maybe 1 or 2 which I used, not really to my child but it keeps the know it all wolves away.

  • I totally empathise. People like her you have to pity really and laugh at, can you imagine being so ignorant and volatile towards a struggling parent or carer?! It amazes me how narrow some people are. You eventually develop a thicker skin and learn to blank people like her as if they are of no concern to you at all. .and if you think about it their not are they, your daughter is the primary concern in a situation like that not an idiot like her. You are not alone , I am in same boat as you as are a lot of others.  Please take solace in that. Hugs x

  • Bless you. Thank you so much. I'm just sitting here feeling down and that's just made me feel like I'm not alone xx

  • I have been in the same position as you before with my 4 year old, I wish I could have been there, I would have given you any support needed and a massive hug x

  • Welcome Marie, one thing you will get here is lots of identification and lots of loving support, understanding and acceptance. I can’t believe someone from the store didn’t intervene and get the woman out of there. I’ve pledged to always be vigilant when I’m out in public and wherever I see an autistic person struggling in any way, I have committed to doing something about it. I have always done this anyway but pledged it, through a campaign to raise awareness and support people.

    You’ll get the support you all need, hang in there and we are always here for you. There are some groups specifically for parents of children with PDA and it could be really helpful to you if you found a local autism support group for parents. I go to a group once a week and it’s like my salvation and my friend who has two children who are autistic, has her own support group and again, she gets so much from it. It will get better and you can do this. We understand. 

  • Wow, that lady is made of a special rock... Well, you may be right that she felt embarrassed if she had already started to interfer, hopefully there aren't too many of her sort around.

  • Thank you for your reply.

    I did tell this lady that Abbie is autistic because as far as I'm concerned she is and I even tried to explain PDA but it made no difference whatsoever to her! Maybe she was embarrassed by that point but I really thought she would stop once I'd said that Abbie has a condition.

    Thank you for your advice and kind words 

  • Hi, it's sad that some people have so little awareness and as a result so little understanding to make you feel so awful for not doing anything wrong, but if it starts to make you worry a lot about your daughters future then maybe try to keep in mind that nowadays there will also be people that do have the awareness and understanding to help your daughter and yourself, that was very different not so long ago. Not saying it's going to be easy, but at least there is help available now. Guess it will still hurt every time you get comments or looks of that sort, but perhaps once you have some kind of diagnosis it will become a bit easier to cope with that.

    Anyway, for now, could you perhaps just tell someone like that woman that your daughter is autistic? Just that, no PDA (most people will never have heard of that) or trying to explain the issues (because many people think they are optional). Even if she doesn't have a diagnosis yet (and you can't be sure that's what it is until she has been assessed). It's not something you can use for people staring and so on, but if someone comes like that then just this one word may stop them and they may quickly walk off. Don't know how you feel about it, but in situations like this it may help to stop others from making them worse.  

    Take care, hope you have a friend or relative you can talk to about this. Try to do that, even if it's just one person out of many, it would make negative comments etc. from the others matter a lot less.

  • oh poor you, how awful, you are going through a monstrous time.  I have no experience of this so no help to offer unfortunately. 

    What a monstrous old busy body!  She's gone now, forget her. 

    I hope you get some positives on here from others and that the appointment in February is the start of going in the right direction.