Friday, July 10, 2009

I Hate Autism!!!

This week has been a very trying one for me.....it is school holidays, that is always trying but this week I have had my step daughter and step son who is autistic here as well.

He loved me to bits when I first met his dad when he was just over 5 years old. He would let me do anything for him and liked to be with me. Now he is 9, he hates me, well he hates me when it is me by myself, I am fine when there are other people around, which is what makes me feel the worst of all,,,,,I feel like a child basher!

To give a brief history, his dad had virtually full time custody of him for the first 15 months after I met him, his mother wanted little to do with him. After 15 months of constant breakages in my house, literally cleaning shit off walls and off the child (he even will eat the stuff!!) I was reaching breaking point and confronted the mother saying that she needed to take responsibility for her son and not just her other son and daughter. At this point she had her other son (my hubby's stepson) and her daughter 50% of the time but the son with autism only when hubby had to travel for work. After confronting her she began to have him for 10 days each month. Last year she decided...due to the new laws relating to family tax benefits/child support etc that she would take all the children and not let us have any contact with them at all. We went through hell and ended up having to take her to court to get some visitation rights. Now over a year later we are due to return to court for final orders in two weeks time and we have hubby's son and daughter half of school holidays and every second weekend but don't see his stepson at all. Well since this visitation started back in November last year I have been going through hell.

I live in dread of school holidays when hubby has to go to work because I can get Mr9 to do absolutely nothing for me. I end up avoiding him as much as I can, but that is hard when I have to take him to the toilet every half an hour or so as he is toilet timed not toilet trained. He starts to cry as soon as I tell him to go to the toilet. He will then shut up and sit on the toilet....I have to stand there and watch him otherwise he will just run off and not go. He will sit/stand there and then as soon as I tell him to pull his pants up he does so and then drops to the floor and screams. By screaming I mean ear piercing screaming that sounds as though he is being murdered. I then have to get behind him and hoist him up which can often take 3 attempts as he has learnt to make it harder by raising his arms above his head so I can't get a grip. I then get him into the bathroom to wash his hands where I have to prompt him every step of the way. He knows how to wash his hands perfectly well but for me he won't do it. I tell him to turn the tap on, he does so and just holds his hands under the water, I tell him to use soap, he picks up the soap. I tell him to rub his hands, he does it, I tell him to rinse his hands off and he will just stand there with the water running over his hands refusing to turn the tap off. I tell him to turn off the tap and he just drops to the floor and screams again with the tap still running. I go in there and turn off the tap and then once again have to hoist him up. Finally I get him back up and he will refuse to dry his hands, so I have to do it for him which makes him once again drop to the floor, pulling the towel off the rail with him. I am at my wits end....thanks for listening I just needed to vent,,,,thank goodness school is now back and he has returned to his mother for the next 10 days!!!!!

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