The Last Lap And The Car Wash

I think this might be the last lap. At least I hope so: I’m not sure I have any reserves left for what has been a two year marathon. Since Dylan left school it has been a frustrating time of dead ends and disappointments. I have coped this far but am exhausted; if the finishing post moves one more time I doubt I could manage another lap.

I’ve been enjoying writing some general pieces about living with autism recently. Such reflections keep my eyes on the skies instead of on the grubbing detail of the road. With things in the balance this week, however, I thought it a good time to record what is hopefully the last bit of the circuit. Who knows whether these reflections will indeed turn out to be my log from the home strait but hopefully they will be illuminating.

Replay

If you’ve been following Dylan’s story then you might recall that my original battle, after he left school, was to secure continuing education. Dylan had been happy at school and was a settled young man, calm and with no ‘behaviours’ other than a liking for letting off fire extinguishers and smashing light bulbs. Initially Dylan wasn’t provided with any post-19 education and the social care funding he was offered for day care wasn’t sufficient to cover more than three days a week. When I won a legal challenge against my local council, Dylan was given a patchwork of provision while an appropriate education setting was developed in the city where we live.

For the year after he left school Dylan appeared to cope with part-time care which lacked consistency and routine and which wasn’t autism-specific. I reduced my working hours so that I could support Dylan as much as possible. It was messy and difficult. I felt stressed from one day to the next, wondering how I would juggle different settings and collection times and key workers. So it’s not surprising, really, that by the end of that first year Dylan started to show signs of distress.

The ‘challenging behaviours’ started last June. Some of my posts in the last year have described my search for explanations and answers. With incidents happening daily I took Dylan for neurological and psychological investigation, attended intensive support services, removed sugar from his diet, banned films with ‘separation narratives’ and asked for help from the ‘sex nurse’ (she probably has a different title but that’s how I recorded appointments with her in my diary). All these roads, it turned out, led to what was likely to be anxiety: the best we could do was increase the structure and consistency in Dylan’s care and adjust his activities.

In the last 12 months I have moved from utter disbelief at the changes in Dylan to a realisation that if you are severely autistic with severe learning disabilities and very few strategies for communication, and if your life changes profoundly so that things which you rely on to keep you comfortable – structure, routine, a calm environment and familiar people – suddenly disappear (as happened when Dylan left school) – well, it isn’t surprising is it? Anxiety can provoke feelings of frustration and anger in any of us. In the context of Dylan’s disabilities, his anxiety must some days feel scary indeed.

U-turns, false starts and golden gates

Unfortunately for Dylan the changes in his behaviour triggered further changes. Although one care setting has provided on-going support, other providers (including Dylan’s respite setting) felt unable to, given the changes in Dylan’s behaviour. Following a separate battle for funding, I had finally secured health care support for Dylan; the challenge, however, was to identify a setting with the necessary expertise to care for him.

A number of my recent posts have described the agony and confusion of trying to choose somewhere to live for an adult with Dylan’s profile of need. There are few such settings. Where they exist they are rarely local. Because of their specification (generous space, adapted buildings, small groups, high staff ratios and individualised programmes) they tend to be expensive. Factoring in economic and practical considerations as well as the desire to keep Dylan nearby, it is not surprising that finding somewhere for Dylan would be so difficult.

And then there are the curved balls that can come spinning. I have described elsewhere the way I pulled a u-turn when I lost my confidence (and my bearings) for a setting which Dylan was due to move into after Christmas. It was brave but possibly foolhardy, I was told, to pull out of a perfectly good placement. So I was relieved to quickly find a replacement which seemed just as good and was closer to home. As I recorded subsequently, however, the plan for Dylan to move there after Easter had to be abandoned following a safeguarding issue. I had let myself believe in that placement; getting a phone call to say we would have to abandon felt like a false start (or finish).

I hardly dare write that I think I can finally see Golden Gates glinting up ahead. Like other writers I observe the rule of not talking about a poem until I’ve written it in case I lose the magic. Perhaps I’ll apply the same rule to Golden Gates so as not to break the spell. Besides, even if there is a gilded tomorrow, today there is still this view from the road.

The road

It’s not an easy road to be on if you are in crisis. Even when a setting has been identified the process of assessment and transition takes time. Something that has made these months particularly hard is the loss of Dylan’s respite. At the point at which I was in need of more support I got less. In fact I got nothing. I have written elsewhere about the contribution which respite plays to the lives of carers; having been without it for nearly six months I can confirm this support is vital.

My last night off was 18th December. Since then I have been on duty every weekday from 4pm to 9am and every weekend from 4pm on Friday to 9am on Monday. I have not had a break during this time; I have not been able to go out or even, given Dylan’s anxiety, to have visitors. This period, of course, includes Christmas and other public holidays and celebrations. As well as having an impact on my ability to work (during this time I have had to reduce my hours and resign a management role) I have been obliged to turn down opportunities to perform at events (as a poet) and to attend social activities.

I don’t mean to sound complaining. I’m not. I accept all of the above as the price of caring for someone who is my responsibility and my world. But to be a carer I need to stay well and healthy which means being able to rest and recuperate. I haven’t been able to do that; I’ve found that trying to rest during the day is no replacement for the benefits which come from having a break from caring overnight. For me they are these: not having to bathe and put Dylan to bed in the evening then stay awake until he is settled; not having to be alert through the night in case I am needed; not having to get up early enough to juggle my own self care with waking Dylan in time to bathe and shave [I often skip this stage in truth – I have a lot of sympathy with men on this one] and dress and feed him before it is time for his bus; not having to pace the house waiting for the bus and willing it to arrive in time for me to get to work.

Gardens, mud and dirt

Dylan’s anxiety has been acute in the last few weeks and his aggressive behaviour has escalated. I have gone on trying to identify triggers but can’t always predict or head off incidents. I am no match for Dylan physically (21 and more than six foot tall, fit and strong) and after being hurt on a number of occasions I have learned to prioritise keeping myself safe. Recently, I have spent a lot of time in the garden where I go, now, to sit and wait until Dylan has calmed down. Sometimes it is five minutes, sometimes 50. Sometimes I am barefoot, sometimes better prepared. Sometimes it is fine, sometimes raining. Sometimes it is light, sometimes dark. Always I wait with my heart in my mouth for it to be over, praying that Dylan doesn’t hurt himself.

I am better at keeping myself safe than I was; I have learned to make judgements about when I can intervene safely and when I can’t. I have agreed strategies with Dylan’s social worker such as keeping my mobile phone with me and when to call for help (I haven’t so far). Clearly it would be better if Dylan could be helped not to feel so frustrated but for that he needs specialist care and support in an environment with the space he needs. I don’t believe, however, that there is a magic formula which will eradicate Dylan’s anxiety; I suspect he may be prone to it through these difficult early adult years. And because life with Dylan can be so unpredictable (and I must stress that it isn’t like this all the time – we have wonderful joy-filled days too) what he especially needs is more than me.

Dylan and I have always had an active life and I’ve continued these activities at weekends. He needs this: he’s a fit and active young man. With incidents happening increasingly often, however, I have recently found myself in compromising situations where I have been hurt or Dylan is at risk (sometimes both) away from home, in vulnerable locations or public space. Three times I have fallen in the last few weeks when trying to catch or restrain Dylan (without adequate training) in order to keep him safe. One incident a couple of weeks ago left me terrified by the combination of Dylan in violent meltdown, an unleashed dog (with slow-to-act owner), bleeding ear (mine) and fast approaching road.

I’m not sure why Dylan was out of control that day; we were in a familiar valley which we have walked many times. Dylan loves to be near water but it can sometimes lead him into a trance-like state which in turn triggers a violent outburst. This  may have been what happened on that Sunday afternoon walk. It was a wake-up call and a turning point for me; I managed to get Dylan back to the car, albeit muddy and bloody, and the next morning I phoned his social worker.

The car wash

It took quite a lot for me to admit that I couldn’t keep Dylan safe anymore. Some people have suggested that I might get more support with Dylan if I didn’t appear to cope so well. You appear too competent for your own good, one friend told me. Well I was perfectly happy to admit, now, that I wasn’t. I couldn’t manage weekends alone anymore, I told Dylan’s social worker. Neither Dylan nor I were safe. For Dylan’s well-being and my own safety, I said, if I can’t access some support at weekends then I shall just drive away. I shall leave. I could hardly believe what I heard my mouth say. I wasn’t even aware that I had thought it. I certainly wasn’t sure I could ever do it. But in the silence that followed my announcement, I thought that this must be how breaking point feels.

We explored various options in the aftermath of that incident but in the timescales it wasn’t possible to put together an acceptable alternative for the following weekend (i.e. last weekend). In the end, therefore, I decided to support Dylan myself but agreed that I wouldn’t  access the community with him and that I would put some simple procedures in place to stay safe at home. I approached last weekend with anxiety and trepidation. Fortunately the weather wasn’t remarkable – it’s easier to stay home, somehow, when it’s raining – and I hadn’t lost my creativity. Racking my head for an idea which bent but didn’t break the rules, I decided to take Dylan for a joy ride in the country and then to the car wash. The car wash would, I hoped, be enough to give Dylan the pleasure of running water but without the danger; it was what I judged a ‘contained risk’. Happily, Dylan seemed calm enough as he watched the water cascading down his rear window…

Postscript

I heard yesterday that some emergency respite for Dylan has been approved for this weekend. Dylan hasn’t had any since December mainly because we have struggled to find a provider who felt able to support Dylan given his needs. I’m pleased to say that the place I refer to in this post as Golden Gates are happy to have him. Dylan already knows the setting and the staff and residents and will have a lovely time I’m sure. I’m hoping that although this is emergency respite, it will be the start of what in time becomes transition. May the finishing post stay still long enough for me to guide Dylan through 🙂

Images:

The photographs of fire hydrants and of Dylan curled on one of our local paths were taken by me. They are images I particularly associate with anxiety and meltdown.