This summer I’ve been taking Dylan on overnight trips to different locations instead of for a week’s holiday to one place. Dylan loves staying in hotels and he responds well to variety so our summer trips have proved very successful so far. It also means that I am supporting Dylan for just 24 hours at a time which is sensible given that he is usually on 2:1 support ratios in the community. I love the time I spend with Dylan but it is demanding physically and mentally.
The overnight breaks have allowed me to take Dylan to places which are a little too far to travel to in a day but which we haven’t managed to visit from our previous holiday destinations. Recently we have enjoyed visits to Whipsnade Zoo and to see Anthony Gormley’s Another Place installation at Crosby Beach. My aim is to sprinkle these trips across the summer so that Dylan and I are able to enjoy the equivalent of a week away together.
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Taking a holiday myself is something that has been on my ‘bucket list’ since Dylan moved to residential care. Although I have had occasional weekends away over the years I’ve never been able to consider more than this. Once free of caring responsibilities, however, I still didn’t find it easy to contemplate. For the first half year I was focused on settling Dylan into his new home; as this involved regular visits there wasn’t the space for a break. Since then I’ve managed to find all sorts of reasons not to go away: work; decorating; poems; money. The usual excuses.
But sorting through drawers one day I found a voucher for ferry travel to France. A few years ago, when Dylan was very anxious and his ‘challenging behaviour’ at its height, I decided to cancel a holiday. Although I had travelled alone to France with Dylan before, it didn’t seem wise that summer. The holiday company with whom I had booked the gîte weren’t sympathetic but Brittany Ferries didn’t hesitate to issue me with a voucher for replacement travel. I had filed it away, assuming it would be used when Dylan was settled enough to travel at some point in the future. Suddenly, it seemed, the future had arrived: the voucher was due to expire August 20th this year.
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Since Dylan has moved to residential care I’ve realised, and come to accept, that he needs more support than I can give. Dylan benefits from 2:1 support in the community and responds positively to a ‘fresh face’ at times of anxiety; having access to more than one adult, so that a support worker can be strategically swapped, is good for Dylan and a more positive experience for his carer(s). These are things which aren’t possible when supporting Dylan alone. This is partly why I’m limiting the time I am in sole charge of him this summer and explains why, with some sadness, I have decided that it’s not possible for me to take Dylan to France by myself again.
But what to do about the voucher? Without it I would probably have hummed my way through the summer, fiddling with paint and trying to write a poem. It pained me, however, to sacrifice those ferry crossings. So oh joy and delight when a girlfriend declared she would be happy to put up with accompany me to Brittany for a week. Fantastic. We agreed easily on a location and gîte. Figuring out the crossings and bicycle rack was a bit trickier but we worked it out. What I was especially looking forward to, I told my friend, was reading on the ferry. During Channel crossings with my children I had watched others doing this and hankered after such space. Instead of having to hire a cabin for meltdowns and timeouts, and be on high alert, this time I could relax with a book.
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Planning the holiday wasn’t all plain sailing, however. In fact I had a whole bag of worries about it which I discussed at length with the manager of Dylan’s residential home. How would Dylan manage the longer than usual gap between my visits? What would we tell him and how? If there was an emergency, how would I be contacted? What if I couldn’t be contacted? These might be quotidian worries but they are not insignificant in the context of autism where happiness depends so much on reassuring routines.
Facing these anxieties and challenges seemed to be a necessary next step in the transition process, however. The parents of other residents, I was told, had experienced similar anxieties the first time they had left their son or daughter in order to take a holiday by themselves. The staff would keep Dylan busy while I was away, I was assured, and make sure that his favourite activities were scheduled. Confident that I had considered the situation from all angles, I booked the trip.
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What I hadn’t factored in, however, was Daesh. As the attacks in Europe increased in frequency and scope, the possibility of being caught in a random act of violence ratcheted up my anxiety. Rather than worrying about how Dylan would cope with my temporary absence, I started to consider the implications of my not coming back at all. The scenario was awful but not unthinkable. We are more likely to be victims of a traffic accident, my friend pointed out, especially on the wrong side of the road. She was right. Why then was Daesh increasing my anxiety about being away from Dylan?
Having a dependent child or adult to care for makes us feel vulnerable. In such a situation there can be a tendency to become risk-averse, as I explore in this post. But what are the implications for autistic children and adults at times of conflict? I reflected on some possibilities in this post and in this book review. When I wrote those posts, not so very long ago, the war in Syria felt like news from another country. Now, suddenly, it involves us all.
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I thought I’d let you know, I told Dylan’s care home manager, that I’m having second thoughts about my trip to France. I probably would go, I told her, but I was trying to think through the implications of the recent attacks. I needed to be comfortable with my decision, I explained, or else I wouldn’t be able to relax. Earlier that day I’d watched a public information video about what to do in the event of a ‘terrorist attack’. The advice came down to this: Run, Hide, Tell. I watched the video through trying to imagine how I’d follow the guidance if I were with Dylan. It made no reference to people with disabilities or the vulnerable. It seemed to assume we are all fit, agile, able-bodied and verbal.
It would be impossible to keep Dylan safe in such a situation. He wouldn’t follow an instruction to run. He doesn’t understand the concept ‘hide’. He would behave erratically and probably noisily, drawing attention to himself and others. One of the pieces of advice in the video is to always show yourself to be empty-handed, particularly at point of rescue. This is important, apparently, because police might otherwise assume you are holding a weapon and mistake you for a terrorist. There is no way that I could persuade Dylan to show you his hands; in the community he hangs tight onto the arm of whoever is supporting him, burying his hands deep under their arms. If police are casting around for someone likely to be concealing a weapon, Dylan may well arouse their suspicion.
So I asked the care home manager what training staff had received for managing a ‘critical incident’ while supporting a resident in the community. Was this covered as part of staff training? And given the current level of anxiety among the general public, were staff aware that the erratic behaviour of a resident might cause alarm and suspicion in the community? The manager assured me that staff had received training for explaining autistic behaviour to the general public but couldn’t, of course, allay my fears about a terrorist incident. I think we just have to get on with our lives, she said.
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I’d been letting three things get in the way of me and Dylan living our lives: my anxieties about his ability to survive an incident; my concerns about my own safety given his dependence on me; and my worries about not being there for him.
But my response to these anxieties, I realised, had been what my daughter would call ‘cotton wool’. Would you put that cotton wool back in your pocket? she asked me one day as I told her to take care on some play equipment. I suspect I’ve never quite taken the cotton wool from Dylan but I have, at least, learned to let go of it a bit since he moved to residential care. But wrapping myself in cotton wool instead? I can only imagine what my daughter would say to that.
Happily, the friend I will be holidaying with understands these anxieties and has listened while I talk them through. Something I’ve found useful is identifying a practical response to an anxiety: things that we will and will not do while we are away, for example, and how we would travel home in an emergency. Such concrete plans feel better than the softest of cotton wool – even if, in truth, they probably wouldn’t be much use. I suppose that’s also the point of Run, Hide, Tell…
wishing you a safe and happy summer…
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The photos of Anthony Gormley’s Another Place (on Crosby Beach) were taken by Liz, July 2016.
When I looked back in my diary last weekend I discovered it was exactly a year since Dylan went for his first night’s respite at the house where he now lives. Although he had spent occasional nights there during his time at a nearby National Autistic Society school, Dylan hadn’t had any contact with the setting since his transition to adult services. An escalation in ‘challenging behaviour’ after Dylan left school meant I had been unable to find a respite provider willing to accommodate him. As Dylan had not therefore spent any time away from home for months, it was with a mix of relief and trepidation that I dropped him off for an overnight stay a year ago.
The Log Cabin on the coast which Dylan’s care provider have rented is being shared across the week by the residents at the home. The young people take turns to have a couple of days away, one by themselves and one shared with another resident; Dylan was first to go on Monday morning and he was joined the next day by another young man who took Dylan’s place in the cabin on Tuesday night. Apparently Dylan had a lovely time and thoroughly enjoyed himself.
So when I got an email last week asking whether I thought Dylan would like to join an early evening running group, and if so would I mind rearranging our Facetime session, I jumped at the suggestion. Physical exercise is one of the best ways of involving Dylan in community activities and I loved the idea he could take part in a fun run with staff from the home and members of the public. That would be great, I replied, and no problem at all about the Facetime session.
As Facetime is fundamentally about communication maybe it is no surprise that Dylan should feel anxious. Although it is visual, Facetime still requires direct interaction in that it demands a face and assumes speech. For Dylan, for whom eye contact and voices provoke anxiety, this is not ideal. During one session, realising that Dylan was uncomfortable, I fell silent and started making simple actions: putting my tongue out, touching my nose, pulling a funny face. After a while I had Dylan’s attention. Gradually he started to copy some of my actions. I heard Dylan’s support worker laughing at us (in a nice way). It felt a bit weird but it was probably the most relaxed I’ve seen Dylan on Facetime recently.
There had been an incident and I had decided it probably best to abandon our planned activity. So I had dropped Dylan off at the home before lunch on Sunday, rather than at the end of the day, and was pondering my next move from a nearby cafe. I’d probably been undone by my own hubris that morning, I reflected. I had been too relaxed. I had taken my eye off the ball. I had forgotten that with Dylan I must be vigilant and prepared for the unexpected. It was good to be reminded of this, I told myself – and lucky that it had been in such a safe environment.
And then it kicked off. The film wasn’t in the cinema Dylan wanted it to be in (up the escalator). He became an Angry Bird. I saw, in the split second before Dylan did it, what was about to happen: backpack off, frog-jump as high as he could manage, popcorn falling everywhere, like snow, and then Dylan squirming in it, on the floor, yelling in anger. The staff had clearly had autism awareness training and were prepared; they appeared with brushes and pans and a ‘hazard’ sign, asked me whether it had been sweet or salty (for a replacement) and what they could best do to support me.
When I dropped Dylan off at his residential home a member of staff told me I had done exactly as they would by encouraging Dylan to sweep up the mess and then changing the activity. And, she suggested, I might not have to give up cinema trips altogether, just avoid the multi-screen for a while. Still, I sat staring into my soup, feeling disappointed not just about the day but the loss of future days. How could I possibly take Dylan to the cinema again, I wondered? It hadn’t occurred to me before that a trip to the cinema might be as much about the auditorium and environment as the film itself for Dylan. I searched through all my cinema memories, asking myself how many times we had been upstairs and how many downstairs. Which films had we watched in which auditorium? I knew Dylan usually headed for particular seats. Now I realised that this varied by auditorium; in one cinema it is row F on the far right, in another it is row A on the far left and in another it is the very back row, far left. Perhaps that morning Dylan had wanted to sit on a particular seat rather than in a particular auditorium?
It’s two years – virtually to the day – since I made my
For me, the most interesting writing is transforming; if I don’t come out of the process seeing the world differently, I’m not really interested in finishing it. This is true of any piece of writing, whether it is a poem, a short story or an academic article – so perhaps I shouldn’t be so surprised that writing posts for this blog turned out to be a vehicle for learning and development.
As I begin to think about writing poetry again I ask myself if blogging will have spoiled my poems the way squash once ruined my tennis (or so I claimed in the summer of 1986). What, I wonder, is the impact of one form on another? I am convinced that we take it into our deep subconscious; I know by instinct, for example, when I have written a sonnet-length piece.
paintings, absorbed by the experience to the point of trance. At home I quite often discover Dylan standing stock still and silent, staring at a favourite print. This love of art is something Dylan is at times moved to share; our most frequent ‘conversations’ are about his favourite pictures.
Grayson Perry, in the 2013 Reith Lectures, noted that our aesthetic is constructed by contexts such as family, education, nationality and religion and validated by ‘experts’ – artists, curators, dealers and critics. Thus as well as being guided by expert views, our response to art is shaped by what is usually a linear narrative through the socio-economic and political contexts from which it arose. Such organisation is helpful, Barnes claims in his essay on the visual arts, because the ‘conversation’ between successive movements is clear and helps us to understand innovation and shifts in beliefs and practices. When paintings are placed next to each other which are not in conversation, he suggests, the result is an ‘aesthetic squabble’ which can leave the viewer disoriented and confused.
In Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch, thirteen year old Theo and his mother are caught up in a terrorist attack while visiting a museum. In the moments following the explosion (in which his mother dies) Theo impulsively takes his mother’s favourite painting – ‘The Goldfinch’ – from the wall. The painting will draw Theo into a world of violence and criminality but also serve as a vehicle for the longing he feels for his mother. Towards the end of the tale Theo’s Guardian, Hobie, reflects on the way a painting can take possession of us:
Alain de Botton, in his book Art as Therapy and in his pioneering work at The School of Life, argues that we need fresh ways of thinking about our relationship with art. The problem with museums, he suggests, is that they tend to display art using academic and historical categories rather than grouping paintings according to their essential ‘function’. Art, he claims, has seven key functions: remembering; hope; sorrow; rebalancing; self-understanding; growth and appreciation. ‘A more ambitious, and beneficial, arrangement’ of paintings in a gallery, de Botton argues, would be one in which works were arranged ‘in line with the concerns of our souls, bringing together those objects which, regardless of their origins in space and time, address the troubled areas of existence. ‘ (p.91)
I’ve been wanting to write about accessibility for a while but have hesitated because ‘Tinc’ (who blogs at 
If I encounter the term ‘Autism-Friendly’ I assume adjustments have been made to a venue or event with specific reference to the needs of autistic visitors. Such adjustments could include the selection of material; trained staff; adaptations to the environment to reduce sensory stimuli; changes to the timing and sequencing of an event; production of autism-specific resources; or ring-fencing of places to the autism community.
Of course not everyone who is autistic requires adjustments in order to access ‘the arts’. Even with severe autism and a language and learning disability, Dylan manages perfectly well without adaptations in some settings. Libraries, for example, are fine; in fact they are one of Dylan’s favourite places and a regular fixture on his weekly schedule. It might be more of an issue if Dylan needed to access the adult section of a library but the material he is interested in is located in the children’s section which tends to be less formal.That’s not to say issues don’t arise: he has had to learn not to remove library labels from books and to accept that an item he wants might have been borrowed by another library-user. These are reasonable lessons, however, rather than accessibility issues.
Because Dylan doesn’t read or write his interest in books is based on his love of illustration. Dylan’s strong orientation to the visual world means that art galleries are also of interest to him and, as with libraries, he manages these without adjustment. Although Dylan negotiates the space idiosyncratically, no adaptations are needed. Dylan has had to learn not to touch and to accept that if other people are looking then he will have to wait; equally he knows that if he stands too long before a painting I will encourage him to move on. But, again, these are reasonable things for Dylan to learn. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an art gallery advertise ‘inclusive’ viewings and I don’t think this is something Dylan needs. I do sometimes wish, however, that separate sessions could be scheduled for those who look askance at Dylan for being vocal or for moving quick, quick, slow.
Sometimes an adjusted setting can be a stepping stone to a regular setting and I have used inclusive cinema screenings for this purpose with great success. Dylan has been passionate about film since he was young but because his habit is to watch alone the cinema did not appear to be an option; after various attempts to take Dylan ended in failure I gave up. The introduction of monthly ‘inclusive screenings’ at a local cinema, however, offered me the confidence to try again.
Having spent the last four years taking Dylan to inclusive cinema he is now able to access regular screenings. The first time I tried this it was motivated by self-interest: The Borrowers had just been released and I wanted to see it. It was half term and the cinema was full with school children. I’d managed to get Dylan’s preferred row and seat (right hand side, four from the back, far aisle) but I felt hemmed in and anxious as the trailers started. Luckily it was a Studio Ghibli production which I think helped Dylan through an unfamiliar film in darkness with surround sound and chattering children. At inclusive cinema screenings I had been modelling appropriate behaviour, encouraging sit and ‘sshussh’. It turned out I had coached Dylan well; he pointed to a noisy child seated nearby and said ‘shouting! sshussh!’.
One experience which has not been a stepping stone to mainstream events was a ‘relaxed performance’ of Peter Pan at the RSC in Stratford-Upon-Avon last year. Having had some positive experiences of accessibility initiatives an advert for the production caught my eye. Dylan is a serious fan of Peter Pan and it seemed a wonderful opportunity. I loved the idea of being able to take Dylan to the RSC in the same way that I might take my daughter; this was my dream of inclusion.
After writing this I’ve realised that understanding goes a long way to making mainstream settings feel inclusive and that special initiatives don’t necessarily make Dylan feel comfortable. I’m also reminded that language-based arts are challenging for Dylan and that the most inclusive arts tend to be visual. Perhaps not surprisingly, cinema is one of the most readily-adapted art forms where small adjustments can make a significant contribution to the quality of someone’s life.
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.
If you’ve been following 
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 
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 
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.
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.
