Okay, I know I haven't blogged for a while again and that there is tons of stuff that we did this summer that should come first, but I was so stinking frustrated today that I had to journal it.
The day started great, we got a lot of stuff done around the house and decided to hit a matinee show before getting groceries and heading home.
We were shopping at Winco when K threw one of his infamous freak outs and the first thing he went to do was to hit Kent. So as I am trained to do through the CPI program, I restrained him so that he couldn't hurt Kent or I. I never once yelled at him, raised my voice, disparaged him, but all the while he was screaming at the top of his lungs. I just held him while Kent went and put some groceries back on the shelf.
While I was holding him I calmly talked to him saying I need you to have a safe body. You must have a safe body before I can let you go.
When Kent came back we did the release and he calmed down and as I went through the check out at Winco the teller seemed really cold to me at first. Then as I was bagging the groceries the lady who had been in front of me in the line informed me that:
"You should have taken him out rather than put the rest of us shoppers here through that".
I was shocked. So I came back with have you ever dealt with an autistic child before, do you know what its like. She said "Yes". I said: "You have an autistic child". She said "Yes".
I said well, I work at his school and he can be very violent....
She cuts me off and says: "I don't want to know anything about you and I don't want you to know anything about me".
So I said, well the next time, I'll let you handle it and see how well you do not to get hurt. At this point I was so shocked and angry that someone would say these things. So I said to her, I think your lying, you do not have an autistic child. You are a liar.
I think that if anyone has an autistic child, at some point in time, the child has overloaded and freaked out in public, and for a parent who supposedly has an "autistic child" to be so judgmental and absolutely cruel is unheard of, it just wouldn't happen that way.
Part of the reason that I'm writing this is because some of my friends have said that I should blog about our experience with a child with medical/autistic issues so that other parents can relate and understand. I had really held off because I don't want it to be the focus, but I also really needed to just let the anger go somewhere for a while.
I know, for those of you who know K that he is not "autistic" but on the "autistic spectrum" but in this situation, there is no way to spend the time explaining that fine hair!
On to the other note on this situation, K behaving like this has been fewer and fewer between situations. He has gotten older and has better control of himself, but we also have him on medication that has really helped with his behavior (Thank you psychologist!).
I don't know what I hope to accomplish by writing this except to let it go, I hope that I can.
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