Help

Dunno where to start! I just feel like a mum who’s failing her son, because I can’t get anyone to take us seriously.  I’ve been telling health visitors, nursery nurses, doctors and teachers that my son was different since he was two, and no one has listened, I’ve been brushed off at every turn! And now he’s nearly 10 and falling behind at school. 

I eventually got my gp to refer him to paediatrics , but School let me down by getting someone to fill the getting to know me form in , that had never even met my son let alone coped with him in a classroom setting. So despite me crying down the phone, paediatrics denied us an appointment. A year later and it’s bought to my attention that his class teacher is giving him balls of blue tac to stop his hands fidgeting while he works!!  So now they do a proper 5 min assessment on him and fill in the getting to know me form again. Fingers crossed we get an appt at least this time. 

Hes very friendly , almost too friendly, thinks nothing of hugging people, always smiling, but left alone he will destroy books, paper etc , rip wall paper and when asked about it , he “doesn’t know why,”  he needs to know where I am, can walk past living room door, but always has to say hi, like he’s been out the house. He talks to anyone who will listen, often divulging stuff he really shouldn’t and if I’m honest I think if someone in a car offered him sweets he’d get in, he doesn’t understand stranger danger, thinks everyone is good.  Please help me! I’m sure there is something on the spectrum that  my son is suffering from ... which means there will be a course on ways to handle it better. I feel I’m letting him down all the time.

forgot to say he’s nearly 10 

  • Hes very friendly , almost too friendly, thinks nothing of hugging people, always smiling, but left alone he will destroy books, paper etc , rip wall paper and when asked about it , he “doesn’t know why,”

    Often emotion is a slippery eel. It sounds like a build up of frustration, angst and anxiety. It can be difficult to identify the emotions I feel and even more so to verbally express a build up (so a cascade sometimes rather than one specific event) that can cause such a meltdown.

    At the age of 43, I internalise, take life on the chin and then in my own quiet way release by crying, listening to music, engaging with nature as a release. I guess that kind of means that I’ve learnt strategies. But each moment in life creates a residue of angst.

    can totally identify with @Song response. 

  • If I am at home and walk into a room with any one in it I say hello to them. If I walk past a room at home that people are in i say hello. So from my perspective that is perfectly normal autistic behaviour. Stranger danger, I didn't understand that one untill i had messed up so so many times, and at 51 years of age i would still consider myself to be at risk. Ok to the destruction of stuff,  well I don't know if it's the same for everyone with an ASC but I could no more tell you why I do things like that than fly to the moon.

    So that is my personal perspective on these thongs as I said I am a 51 year old autistic woman who is never without blutac. Has a degree and had a great career.is married and has 5 children.

    I have no ideas about how better to handle things except to say that the one thing I know would have improved my childhood would have been love support and understanding, acceptance that I had my way of doing things that was different than other peoples. Which I am sure you will do.

  • Thank you, I just feel like I’m failing him, especially now he’s falling behind at school. It’s frustrating more than anything   And to keep telling myself it’s not his fault 

  • Hi Loz.

    Welcome

    Firstly.IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT. Have you got that? It's not your fault and you have been doing your best to get them to listen for the last eight years, so you know what that means? It means that YOU ARE A GOOD MUM.