PTSD in ASD families

[MannyGoldstein]

In her book Making Peace With Autism, Susan Senator writes of the periods when her family must manage her son’s most difficult behavior, “we live as if under siege.”

In her blog, Jess from A Diary of a Mom talks about her feelings in the early days following her daughter’s diagnosis as “that awful, combustible mixture of heart-wrenching pain and abject fear.”

In the archives of my Twitter feed is a tweet I wrote during a particularly difficult school vacation, when Bud’s behavior made me afraid to leave the house with him: “I feel like a hostage.”

...

It was in the middle of one of our more heart-rending conversations that one of the moms, whose husband has been serving active duty in the military, said, “You know what this is, right? This is PTSD. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. It really is."

http://momnos.blogspot.com/2011/02/asd-and-ptsd.html

As the parent of a son who's had severe issues in the past (but who's infinitely better these days thank God!), this rings true for me.

[Throckmorton]

1. As a family living it right now,

This is so true.

My 16 year old Aspie son got us reported to DCF two weeks ago. It seems that some person at his high school thinks his Psychiatrist supplied treatment plan is Neglect.

This is the school system, which after paying 70% of the tuition to a school that specialized in As-berger's children, decided that they could handle him in there regular high school, and refused to pay more than 40% this year. Our arbitration hearing resulted in an increase to 60%, but we cannot afford the 45,000. We were asking for more like 90%, as my wife lost her job last fall.

[mzteris]

2. If she's not working,

they homeschool him.

There are thousands of successful aspie children being hs'd as we speak.

[Throckmorton]

3. Unfortunately his is hospitalized at the moment

Tried to kill himself in despair.

Fortunately beating your head against the sidewalk if front of the school isn't terribly lethal.

[mzteris]

4. im so sorry...

Though all the more reason NOT to send him back there!