My 15 yr old son, who is severely autistic, non verbal, doubly incontinent and violent is about to leave us. it was my decision. My younger two children had seen me beaten too many times and im now scared of my boy.
i know its the right thing to do for everyone, including him.
i cant take the guilt. its eating me from the inside out. i cant stop crying.
can someone, anyone, tell me how they got through this?
My mother had to have me institutionalised when I was eight; in that I kept having spooky strange and or massively violent siezures, and during the intermissions I did not behave as people and doctors thought I should. No one knew about AS/ASD as far as I was concerned back then in the seventies - so standardised measures of reward and punishment were used in endeavours to control me; and nothing worked as such according to plan. My mother had spent five years solid trying to get help for me, and when that help was offered and accepted - it was well worth it in that my family as a whole needed the respite desperately, really desperately, and what I learned at the institution has put me in good stead also.
As far as the guilt goes - it will lose its intensity, and just when you think it is past it will do its thing again and again, but eventually it will pass providing you do not indulge in it too much. When the guilt comes breath deeply and feel your way through it a little at a time and allow those feelings to process themselves. Emotional states and feelings are quite good like that - as you do not need so much to think about or judge them. Just feel and breath them through deeply and know that no matter how many doubts you may have - you have done the best thing possible given the overwhelming magnitude of your family problems.
One of the things that caused my mother to feel immense guilt was the passionate relief that I was no longer there. In my absence a normal sense of family life came quickly and easily, with everyone knowing heaven sent bliss as opposed to the hellishly terrifying nightmares I gave them equally in their waking and sleeping hours. Everyone as such was scared of me ever coming back home again.
For me, I very much appreciate and respect my families feelings and actions as they were at that time, as I did not enjoy having siezures and scaring people out of their wits either, and I absolutely hated causing people bodily harm.
Although I very much disliked being at the insititution, being that it was one of those tough-love over-draconiaan sort of places, it was fascinating to talk about and do strange things in strange ways with strange people - becuase we were by proportion being the normal ones. That place was that place, but being amongst people that really were very different and really had amazing perspectives and insights - that much remains a treasure of my experiential trove.
You have done then very much the correct thing in my opinion; given what you have described - not unlike someone who has called an abulance becuase someone needs emergency medical treatment. Also, if this is not to forward of me, do you have people looking after you, 'and' a councillor - being that you have been through some seriously traumatising experiences, and having qualified help in winding down and catching back up with yourself emotionally could be essential, perhaps?
My mother had to have me institutionalised when I was eight; in that I kept having spooky strange and or massively violent siezures, and during the intermissions I did not behave as people and doctors thought I should. No one knew about AS/ASD as far as I was concerned back then in the seventies - so standardised measures of reward and punishment were used in endeavours to control me; and nothing worked as such according to plan. My mother had spent five years solid trying to get help for me, and when that help was offered and accepted - it was well worth it in that my family as a whole needed the respite desperately, really desperately, and what I learned at the institution has put me in good stead also.
As far as the guilt goes - it will lose its intensity, and just when you think it is past it will do its thing again and again, but eventually it will pass providing you do not indulge in it too much. When the guilt comes breath deeply and feel your way through it a little at a time and allow those feelings to process themselves. Emotional states and feelings are quite good like that - as you do not need so much to think about or judge them. Just feel and breath them through deeply and know that no matter how many doubts you may have - you have done the best thing possible given the overwhelming magnitude of your family problems.
One of the things that caused my mother to feel immense guilt was the passionate relief that I was no longer there. In my absence a normal sense of family life came quickly and easily, with everyone knowing heaven sent bliss as opposed to the hellishly terrifying nightmares I gave them equally in their waking and sleeping hours. Everyone as such was scared of me ever coming back home again.
For me, I very much appreciate and respect my families feelings and actions as they were at that time, as I did not enjoy having siezures and scaring people out of their wits either, and I absolutely hated causing people bodily harm.
Although I very much disliked being at the insititution, being that it was one of those tough-love over-draconiaan sort of places, it was fascinating to talk about and do strange things in strange ways with strange people - becuase we were by proportion being the normal ones. That place was that place, but being amongst people that really were very different and really had amazing perspectives and insights - that much remains a treasure of my experiential trove.
You have done then very much the correct thing in my opinion; given what you have described - not unlike someone who has called an abulance becuase someone needs emergency medical treatment. Also, if this is not to forward of me, do you have people looking after you, 'and' a councillor - being that you have been through some seriously traumatising experiences, and having qualified help in winding down and catching back up with yourself emotionally could be essential, perhaps?
