On Saturdays and Sundays, S attends a special needs youth club. It's run by a private company, but paid for by 'direct payments' (the taxpayer). He has one-to-one support because the doors work on (easily kicked-open) magnetic locks and S has a history of 'doing a runner'. He loves his youth club (OA). They love him. And we have no complaints, other than they lose his shit, but then I don't know a service which hasn't. The main thing is, they know how to interact with him and they are not scared of him. This contrasts with his weekly social services respite, where they are shit scared of him and haven't the faintest idea how to relate to him. One of my non-disabled progeny - who works in special needs herself these days - simply refers to the social services lot as "wankers". There are a number of reasons why we can't give up this respite. Our ongoing battle to get him moved will be the topic of future blogs, I assure you.
You might think we get quite a lot of respite, but follow this blog for a while, and you'll understand. My son is lovely. My son is great fun to be around. My son is a human being. But he is also exhausting and, not infrequently, a royal pain in the proverbials. In fact, looking after him drove me to the brink of insanity. I wouldn't say I was back to normal yet - like Plath post-ECT, I'm patched up but still basically fucked up.
Or should I say fucked over?
Speaking of fucking... despite all this time S spends galavanting off to less boring places, my partner CJ and me struggle to find time together. CJ has an ultra-responsible job working in health, plus a mum who needs help with the weekend shopping. On top of that, S is an early riser and late to-bedder. We also have one other child still malingering at home, older than S, but this weekend she was out partying. CJ and I thus took full advantage of this short period of peace and quiet to bonk one another senseless. Most people find having children inhibits their sex-life due to night feeding, and illness, and their offspring's innocent oblivion to adult needs and privacy. But having a child with severe autism is sometimes like sharing your life with an eternal toddler.
Funny, re-reading this, I suppose I have provided quite a bit of background. Let me summarise, and fill in some of the gaps. Me = married. Partner is health professional. Three kids, one with severe autism referred to herein as 'S'. Said child goes to a youth club and weekends and a shitty social services respite thing mid-week. I'll finish by mentioning that S is a day pupil at a not-for-profit special school, run by a charity but paid for (along with daily transport to and from) by our education authority. His present teacher is gifted, but our battle with social services is turning our relationship with him into something like a wierd love triangle. Incidentally, there used to be a unit for children with severe autism nearby, managed by the education authority. But it was so crap, they closed it. S never went there, but did used to attend a local special school which was equally dire. The fight to get him moved to his current gaff is yet another tale for another time.
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