A Rollercoaster Ride

Well the last few weeks have been a bit of a rollercoaster ride since the passing of our beloved cat, Harley. It was such a devastating loss for our boy that he just fell apart under the weight of his grief.

He was staying awake for 24hrs, then sleeping for 12hrs. He wouldn't leave his room. Refused to get dressed, do his lessons, barely ate. He was so angry and just didn't know how to deal with it. Luckily he didn't become violent, just depressed, which wasn't good but better than hitting us or harming himself.

It has taken a good 6 weeks for him to get through this. We tried everything. Looking at old photos of the cat and talking about the daft things she used to do. These seemed to help. But by far and away the best thing was the sleeping cat memorial stone we ordered for her grave. It is beautiful. Black with gold flecks. My boy decided it was far to good for the garden so it is now on the hearth in front of the fireplace and I have to admit it looks just perfect there. As if it should always have been in that exact spot. We have now picked out another stone for the garden as we don't want her grave to be bare. Since the stone cat arrived he's been much calmer and started to get back to normal. The addition of medication has helped.

'Due to his behaviour' (the exact wording from head of home tuition dept) his home tutors have been withdrawn because he wasn't engaging in the lessons. She didn't seem to understand that he is a child trying to grieve that doesn't know how to interpret his emotions, or how great a loss this was for him. To her it was only a cat, to my boy our cat was his closest friend, who only ever gave comfort and never judged. She was there at the end of his bed waiting to greet him every morning when he awoke, sat with him being stroked and helping him to remain calm with her relaxing purr during lessons, and snuggled up to him as he drifted off to sleep every night. However this head of dept could only see a naughty child who refused lessons. The tutors were withdrawn just as he was beginning to make an effort to take part again. He'd even nearly managed the full hour of his lesson but that wasn't good enough. When I told him what had happened he was very upset and quite angry as he'd tried so hard to get back into his learning. It was totally demoralising. He just couldn't understand it. So yet again he is without an education.

There was a meeting at his new school this week and I am pleased to say that his new SENCo was fantastic, as was his Psychologist. They supported everything that I said concerning his grief and the need for him to work his way through it. His psychologist even added that due to his autism he is a child with severe problems relating to the processing of emotions along with his social communication difficulties that it is totally understandable that he struggled with how to cope with his grief. They also argued that to 'slap him in the face' by removing his tutor just as he was starting to recover was wrong in the extreme. However, even this hasn't led to his lessons resuming. They want him to start integrating back into the school environment first with his lessons taking place in the local public library which is located within the school premises once he has got used to going there and spending time with his TA. (Fortunately he used to visit the library quite often and has just started doing so again.) Considering the home tuition departments title is 'Integration Support' you would expect them to do this as it is within their remit, but sadly no, they have firmly off loaded my boy onto the school. Playing pass the buck and forgetting the child in the middle of all this.

All is not lost as the school SENCo is so helpful and accommodating. We have put a plan in place and we will action it ourselves, which will mean that the school will have control over this and we can go at my boys pace. I'm fully expecting the anxiety levels to escalate but we will have to see.

The medication he has recently started taking has certainly helped him as he is going out for a short while each day. He even managed a visit to my parents' house, something that hasn't happened in over a year. We are trying to keep up the momentum with his trips out and a having started off with things that he used to like doing we will start to add in new outings each week in an effort to build his confidence. However we will also make sure that he has quiet time to himself that will allow him to process everything and help him to adjust to the new routines within the week. Let's hope this is the start of a more confident child.