I WROTE THIS IN 2020 IT WILL GIVE YOU A BRIEF INSIGHT INTO A DAY IN THE LIFE OF AN UNPAID CARER
Today my 13 year old stood in front of a moving bus…
He scared the crap out of the poor driver who totally refused to move for about 5 minutes until the situation had completely been contained. I couldn’t apologise for scaring him because I was too busy psychically restraining my child. I am that mum!
It was a really simple situation that totally went to sh*t in the blink of an eye.
All behaviour has a trigger even if you don’t realise it. At school today Oscar had a few small hiccups but nothing major. It was day one of his first full well back to school after months of being at home due to covid. He is trying really hard to make it work but he has new teachers to get to know and they have to get to know him too. This means there are a few small bumps in the road.
He also had PE today and as a child with Sever’s Disease PE can be very painful even if he enjoys it. So when I went to pick him up he was in a lot of discomfort which wasn’t a great place to be as we were off to the optician for a check up. Something Oscar isn’t happy about. However, he was fantastic, despite finding it really difficult and it taking a very long time he rallied and held it together until the end of the examination, exceeding both my expectations and those of the Dr.
Then the sh*t hit the fan!
It was Maisie’s turn and she decided in her wisdom to impart a piece of information that she knew would upset him but she hadn’t realized just how much.
“Oscar did you know there are bugs on your eyelashes?!”
…Light touch paper and run!
Those of you who read my posts will know Oscar is not only High Functioning Autistic but he also has OCD and this manifests itself as a fear of germs, bugs are germs for Oscar. He immediately starts pulling at his eyelashes and rubbing his eyes, the Dr tells him why this isn’t good for his eye but he isn’t listening at which stage she says “Oscar I will touch you if you don’t stop”…light touch paper no.2 and run for cover because now this sh*t is going to explode!
Oscar does not appreciate being threatened by anyone. This to him is a threat and he is livid immediately and I can see it. But before I can address this with the Dr. he proceeds to let rip at me, for about 30 minutes. Telling me what an awful mum I am, how someone (a nice busy waiting room) should call child services because I don’t protect him, calls his sister names, calls me names, threatens to slap me round the face, calls me and the dr Arseholes…if you can imagine it a busy opticians office and Oscar is going ballistic at me non-stop.
There is a lady sat there through all of this and I know she speaks English so I know she understands what he is saying and in turn what I am saying in response which is fairness isn’t a great deal. She made eye contact with me a couple of times, she was wearing a mask so i’m not 100% sure what her thoughts were but I am grateful she didn’t say anything negative no matter what she was thinking.
I am calm and I’m asking him if he is done, he’s demanding an apology for not standing up to the Dr. but I know that won’t end this because it has gone too far. He has to get it all out before we can have that conversation, so we ride the storm.
We finally manage to pay and leave and head to the car park with Oscar angry and emotional, I’m close by his side as I know he’s not feeling great but he isn’t ready to listen yet. We get into the car park and he stands in the middle of a very empty road, so I stand with him and wait while his sister sits in the car and gets a moment to herself to regroup.
Then it happens, a bus comes so he heads straight for it, places himself right in it’s path. This is the final point he can make to show me how much he is hurting. What can I do? I stand with him, wrapping my arms firmly around him and bringing him out of harms way. He fights to be freed but he knows that will not happen until he is calm again. I psychically restrain my child in public. Now is the time to talk, now he will listen.
So while I have a firm grip of him in the car park with a bus sat stationary and about 20 bystanders watching, including security staff of a hotel I talk him down. I explain where we are at and how it will be addressed, it won’t just be left and he will get an apology but also that he owes people an apology too.
After sometime I was able to bring Oscar to the car and get him inside and safe, to the shaking head of one of the car park attendants…not really helpful but not at all unexpected and I got us all home safe. We live about 15 minutes away and by the time we got home Oscar was in tears apologizing and saying he didn’t mean any of it but he didn’t know what to do because he was frightened and felt threatened. I explained that I didn’t get a moment to address the situation because his reaction was so fierce and immediate that there wasn’t time.
I know it wasn’t the doctor’s intention to cause such upset, she could never have known this would have happened but this is how today ended up. The good news is we all survived. The not so good news is having all of those bystanders staring added an extra level of stress for me to deal with. I know not all were judging, but I know some were and that makes me really sad.
What I can take away from these difficult days is that Maisie and I always have and always will love our darling boy unconditionally and I am so grateful for the strength we have to support and understand him even when it’s a really shit day.
Oscar you are our world and we adore you yesterday, today and always. Autism Different not Less xxx