Natural Autism Relief

Once we received the call from the school, we felt numb. Fortunately Grant and I were both home. We got in the car and left for the school immediately. Jess was in a room with another student who was visibly upset plus the year adviser and the school welfare officer. It took quite a while (several days) for us to understand the sequence of events that had taken place both at the school and with the assault.

It turned out that a boy (15 years old) that was known to Jess through a friend had requested some help with a history assignment. She is fairly naive and would not for a moment considered herself to be in any danger. She went to his home which was on the bus route home from school. There was nobody else at home. He took her into his room on the pretext of getting relevant books and then attacked and raped her. Apparently she was screaming all the way through but felt guilty that she didn’t fight more. She was so shocked that the fight went out of her. To add insult to injury, he asked that she didn’t tell anyone as he didn’t want his girlfriend to find out as he really loved her.

Jess came home and had a shower. She was due to work that night in the pizza store over the road from us. She went to work without saying anything to us. The only thing I noticed was that she seemed rather quiet and it was unusual for her to shower in the afternoon. Still it wasn’t strange enough for us to really take note of.

She went off to school the next day and apparently broke down in class. She confided in a girl whose aunt had been raped. She was then taken to the year adviser but couldn’t say what had happened. Eventually she wrote it down. This is when we were called.

We immediately took her to hospital as she didn’t want to go home. This continued to be a problem for some months as she associated home with the assault as it was where she went immediately after.

We went to emergency and were told that there is a special rape unit and we would have to wait to be seen by that team. Somebody else was being examined at the time so we had to wait quite a while. In the meantime the Child Protection Unit were alerted and they talked to us about what would happen and reassured Jess as much as possible. They were very good and assured Jess that things would move as quickly or slowly as she wished. She did not have to undertake an examination if she didn’t want to and it was up to her whether forensic tests were taken. She did agree to the examination which was undertaken by a very sensitive and experienced lady doctor. Unfortunately she did not agree to the forensic test which is very common apparently. She felt the whole thing was her fault in some way. The examination proved that she had been raped and there was a significant amount of bruising. She was given a morning after pill and tested for STD’s.

The next thing we had to deal with was her mental state which obviously was not good. She was shaking like a leaf and was almost incoherent. The Psychiatric Registrar was called along with a Psychiatric Nurse and they had her admitted to hospital immediately as they felt she was in danger of harming herself. Seven hours after arriving at the hospital we left to go home feeling absolutely numb and horrified. Immediate reaction was to find the little bastard who had done this to our daughter and maim him very slowly and painfully. However, common sense prevailed. She needed her parents and it was not going to help if one or both of us were arrested for assault or worse.

More to come…

As it turned out, Jess was really pleased to come home and naturally we were pleased, with a pinch of trepidation to have her home.

She came home at the end of school holidays and we didn’t launch her back into school straight away. An integration program was put in place to get her acclimatised to the school life gradually. There were a few hiccoughs along the way and some non attendance with our permission but gradually she was getting into it.

We found also that communication lines were far more open than previously. We had a much better appreciation of how she thinks and frankly how difficult life is for her at times so were able to be a lot more patient and tolerant of her sometimes erratic moods. We were going along quite nicely thinking, thank goodness we are getting our lives back again.

At the end of the third week that she was out of hospital, we received a call from Jess’ school to say that she had been sexually assaulted. We could not believe it and in fact spent a few minutes looking at each other thinking that this could just not be happening. Hadn’t we all been through enough already? Apparently not!!

Frankly the rest of the stay in hospital is a bit of a blur which I’m sure you will understand if you keep reading.

It was a bit of a nightmare logistically with working all day and then trying to visit on most days as well. We were extremely tired and upset at the whole situation.

Some of the time Jess seemed to be getting better and at other times there seemed to be no improvement at all. It was stressed to us that hospital was not going to cure her depression but rather act as an “asylum” to prevent her harming herself. As a family we were expected to attend weekly meetings which were confronting at times. We realized that we had got into some bad habits and lines of communication were not as open as they should have been. As parents we had got tired of the constant mood swings and at times total non-compliance from Jess. We had no idea that she was so depressed. It seemed that she was just being difficult and rebellious. How dangerous is that? If we hadn’t being seeing a psychiatrist that she trusted enough to tell, we could have lost her. It was very distressing to learn that she actually had a plan which involved a length of rope that we had in the garage.

Jess was feeling so low. She thinks so deeply and not necessarily rationally about things. Whilst in hospital, as well as the Aspergers Syndrome, she was diagnosed as having Generalised Anxiety Disorder. This is a crippling disorder in which real life situations are worried about excessively. In Jess’ case this manifested most obviously in her refusal to do any school assignments or homework. We thought she was just being contrary when in fact she was scared to complete the work in case she didn’t live up to the very high expectations she sets herself. Jess is very bright and proud of her intelligence. It would have been disastrous for her to have done poorly in an assignment, destroying the fragile self esteem that she has. It was preferable to her to put up with being told off by her teachers and us for non-completion of work in order to protect her self esteem. It is very difficult to understand and even more difficult to cope with but at least we developed an understanding of the way her mind works.

Jess spent approximately 3 weeks in the second hospital bringing her total hospital stay to nearly 5 weeks. During the time she was there, she was gradually allowed more freedom which extended to day home visits and then overnight visits. Most of these went quite well but some were very difficult and illustrated to us that it was going to be a long slow process to remedy some of the things we had been doing wrong. At least the lines of communication seemed to be opening with Jess at least willing to share some of her thoughts and concerns. We had a system whereby she could hand us a red pompom to indicate that she was feeling anxious and get us to back off if she felt that we were on her back. She also had a blue pompom which means take her to emergency immediately as she is in danger of harming herself. Fortunately we haven’t been presented with the blue one so far.

Finally the day came for discharge. The hospital had worked out a plan with her school for reintegration. I must add that the school has been marvelous and worked with Jess and ourselves to make things as easy as possible for Jess. They have bent over backwards to accommodate her and she has felt very special as a result.

Amazingly when Jess was finally discharged, she didn’t want to leave the hospital. We literally spent a couple of hours trying to persuade her to leave. She was absolutely distraught which seemed weird given her initial reaction. However, she had become quite institutionalized in a very short time and felt safe. Although her suicidal tendencies had subsided to a large degree, she was concerned that they would come back at home. We led her out of the hospital with a blanket over her head and by the time she got home, she was feeling much better and more positive. OMG what a nightmare that time was. Little did we know what was in store!!

We went to visit Jess the next day. It was a shock to find that we weren’t allowed to go off the ward without a staff escort. We took her to the hospital canteen and she was obviously in shock as she was quite non-responsive. After spending around 45 long minutes, we took her back to the ward. She started crying and said that if we didn’t take her home with us, she would definitely harm herself. She became more and more distraught until in the end I spoke with one of the nurses and asked if we could take her home. She was in as a voluntary patient so we thought we would be able to. The nurse said that she would call the Registrar and that he would come and assess her and “Schedule” her or in other words make her a non-voluntary patient. We felt that we were over a barrel. It was so upsetting to see our daughter so upset and scared. We went back to her an explained the situation. Amazingly, she seemed to accept this. If something seems logical and reasons are provided, she will often accept situations which have been causing so much angst up until then.

We left soon after this feeling absolutely drained. We phoned later that day and she was calm and playing a game with some of the other kids. Phew!!!

Our life has been an absolute roller coaster since around last May or June. Jess started getting more and more depressed and ended up being hospitalized for suicidal tendencies. We had several trips to the psychiatrist and initially he put the idea to us as an option that Jess be put into hospital as her asylum but after the third visit, he told Grant to take her to emergency straight away and have her admitted.

At the time we had my mother-in-law (Grant’s mum) staying. Given that she is in her 80’s, she is of the age group who feels that mental illness is somewhat indulgent. It was very difficult for her to understand that Jess was seriously in danger of harming herself. I mention this as we had to manage Grandmothers opinions and believe me she’s outspoken as well as dealing with the fact that we had a severely and in fact dangerously depressed daughter.

After a long wait, Jess was reviewed by a Psychiatric registrar and admitted to hospital. This was in early June 2007. She stayed in this hospital for the following 10 days and was then transferred to an adolescent psychiatric ward. This facility made the original hospital look like a luxury resort. It was a complete shock to her and our systems as the ward was more like a prison as far as first impressions went. The rooms were stark – no curtains, no glass –Perspex only for safety, patients were not allowed shoe laces, cords (so no electrical equipment – tragedy!!), no caffeine allowed etc etc. After the initial shock wore off, we could see that real efforts had been made to make the place as comfortable as possible with a couple of communal areas for eating, watching tv, playing computer games as well as a dedicated school room for the kids. The environment is obviously designed to keep the patients safe rather than for aesthetics.

Anyway, we reluctantly left Jess after her admission with the promise of visiting the following day. We felt really awful leaving her in that place and hoped that it would be for a very short time.

This is going to take a while to document so more to come over the next few days.

Over the next few weeks we will finally update Jessica’s story.  So much has happened in the last 9 months we just have not had the time or more probably the inclination to write posts but this has now all changed as we start to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

We are hopeful that Jessica will finally receive a discharge from hospital on Monday 10 March and her new story can begin.  Jess has only been home on leave in the past and only for a few days at a time but we will update those times in the next posts.  Needless to say they were not always successful.  She is home now and has even been back to school for a few days.  In fact she has had 3 days back at school and from memory that is the only consecutive 3 day period since August last year!!

We will start the updates tomorrow hopefully.

Since our post of September 10 so much more has happened and we are now starting to wonder if we want to share the dramas in our life or do we just keep it all to ourselves?  As mentioned previously we were so pleased with Jessica’s progress through her teenage years but that has all changed completely.

After Jessica’s period of time in the hospital she did return home and  statrted to get back to a routine of school even though it was a gradual process.

If you have read Jessica’s Story on the website you will have noted that we had been experiencing considerable improvement in Jessica’s condition which we put down to the Omega-3 or fish oil capsules that she had been taking.   We must also mention that Jess has always had her own psychiatrist and she had been meeting with him on a regular basis.

You can possibly imagine our shock when at her latest meeting with the psychiatrist he said that he thought that Jessica should be admitted to an adolescent psychiatric ward  as she was almost suicidal!!!  We didn’t know what to think or do as this news came as a terrific shock to us.  The doctor said that he would try and get her a bed in one of these wards but that it could take some time as there are only 2 or 3 such facilities in or around our city and they have a very small number of beds.  In the meantime it was suggested that we keep an eye on Jess and if we felt it necessary we could take her to our local hospital emergency department.  We did not think this the case so we just kept an eye on her at home.

A few days later we all met with the psychiatrist again and after meeting with Jess alone we were advised to take her straight to the hospital!!  We did as was suggested and took her to the hospital where we sat and waited to talk to the appropriate staff.  After several hours the hospital agreed that Jessica should be admitted but as the hospital was a general hospital she would be put in the pediatric or children’s ward with a nurse to be with her 24 hours a day.  This was to be a temporary measure until a bed could be found at a specialized unit in another hospital.  I suppose that we were fortunate at this time that the hospital was only a short 10 minute drive from our home and it is quite a modern and comfortable facility.

We will continue shortly with her stay in this hospital……

After much procrastination and traumatic events in our lives we can now start our blog posts for the Natural Autism Relief website.

Initially we will probably update Jessica’s story as much has occurred since we started the website several months back.  We will endeavor to keep this updated as events happen.