There's a Panda in my Bellybutton

May 2009 sees us as a family begin the Positive Parenting Programme, taking steps towards managing children’s behaviour. It was a very good programme which we all benefited from and our mentor/facilitator gave us excellent support and guidance and it was through her that we first considered the option of moving Ryan to a different school. Ryan had another major meltdown in school because he had chipped his front tooth the night before in the bath and wanted to go to the dentist but couldn’t understand why he had to wait two days for the appointment. He expects his feelings to be met and catered for but doesn’t accept or even comprehend that anybody else has feelings in return.  I used to find this so hard to deal with.  He said to me when he goes to places that has lots of people he “ Feels like a flower going home”.  When I asked him what that meant. He said (quite calmly and as if I was thick and surely must have known what he meant) “Like a flower; going back down into the gro

Mental Health Concerns. We didn’t have the best start to 2009 either. Ryan’s violence continued to escalate as did my concern for his mental health. He was still very violent & disruptive. He wanted to kill everyone or himself. His head was ‘Full of zombies & voodoo’ (no he wasn’t playing computer games at this point). Several more instances and meltdowns resulted in him bolting from the house and school. This is where the Education Psychologist (EP) comes in (remember I mentioned her in Horror Friday ). She first met Ryan in March 09, he was seven at this point, and she agreed that he was a very challenging boy. The EP provided a very detailed report on her day spent observing him and offered some excellent advice and strategies for managing the situation going forward. Things did improve slightly for April and one of the strategies of Ryan being moved ‘up’ a class for his Maths seemed to work well. Giving Ryan some much needed boost to his self esteem. Oh I do have a knack

Hi Ryan here again. Cheese wasn’t my only friend at the time, but he was the best. He is yellow if that wasn’t already obvious enough. He likes chocolate milk. He is real, sort of. He is from a TV programme – Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends, but he has lived with us for quite a while now and technically still does. He went off to college for a while, but then came home in an ambulance. There is always that one time in college maybe a celebration or something. You get drunk and do something you didn’t mean to. Then you might get expelled or come home in an ambulance maybe. That is cheese's story.  He is still at college I think. Or he might be travelling the world. I am not sure.  Cheese - Fosters Home

Autism Ryan saw the Paediatric Team for the first time on Wednesday 12 November 2008, two days after his 7th birthday. The paediatrician we saw was the first person to take me seriously and agreed that we had a right to be concerned about Ryan’s development and mental health to date. That day was the first time that the term Autism was used officially. The paediatrician made an urgent referral to the Educational Psychologist team, gave me a bunch of questionnaires to complete and some that the school needed to do and off we toddled with a further appointment for 6 months time.  I make this episode sound light, but it really wasn't. We had spent over an hour with the Paediatrician who had taken an in-depth history of our lives thus far (fortunately I had kept diaries which really helped answering the myriad of questions). The reason I make this sound light hearted was simply because of the relief we felt that we were finally being taken seriously. Remember I had first raise

May 2008 Ryan, now six years old, completely trashed his classroom. This was the biggest most violent episode we have seen to this point. I started a food diary and once again turned my attentions to my suspicions that several food colourings, but particularly the preservative E211 Sodium Benzoate, seem to cause him to be extremely hyperactive. I paid for Ryan to have a full set of allergy tests done on Wednesday 25 June 2008. We found from those that Ryan has many intolerances to food, the worst of which is Gluten, closely followed by Wheat and all Dairy products. Also Oats, Barley, Oranges, and Yeast. I took this information to my GP as I wanted to request a more detailed assessment for behaviour due to recent developments in school. The GP however did not agree that food intolerances even exist let alone have any impact on behaviour. He did try a refer Ryan for a behaviour assessment but was told they would not see someone as young as Ryan. Unfortunately Ryan trashed his classro

There are only two times when I feel stressed:  Day and Night. This was the shape of things to come over the next 3 years. I spent more time at the school dealing with Ryan’s inability to cope and increasing violence (he had just turned 4) than I did at home. I was frightened every time the phone rang, dreading what had happened this time and became increasingly embarrassed each time I turned up at the school to find out what he had done this time. We were the 'English family' in a small rural Welsh village.  Everyone knows everyone and everyone talked about everyone.  Ryan had quickly become top gossip. Dadi Skilts & I slept on different shifts and often in different rooms as Ryan had no need for sleep. Sleep was for the weak. DS & I became a formidable tag team of good cop/bad cop and had to synchronise our cycles to be sure we didn’t PMT at the same time. (Permanently Meltdown Together). We learnt restraint techniques as Ryan was becoming bigger and stronger.

Life changing decision. 2005 was not a good year as they go. In fact it all started in November 2004, the 5th to be exact when Dadi Skilts (DS) was rushed to hospital. He had been ill for most of the preceding year and thought he had discovered a brilliant new diet where you drank litres of water and lost loads of weight (although you had zero energy and slept most of your life away). I assured him women across the world would have sussed that one, millennia ago. I don’t know why, but I encouraged him to get a diabetes test as the local pharmacy were offering free ones. After copious nagging and most likely just to shut me up, he went; but unfortunately it appeared their test kit was faulty because it gave a stupidly high reading and it was suggested he should visit his GP for a more reliable test. More nagging and an eventual Doctors visit on that fateful day once again showed a reading so stupidly high that the Dr thought his machine was also broken until DS commented that wa

After Maternity Leave I finished my statutory maternity leave during 2012 and it was time to return, once again, to the world of work. Ryan enrolled in Private Day Nursery where his brother already attended and positively thrived. Ryan got on well to begin with, they were pleased that Ryan already had a routine. He went every day from 8am – 6pm. It wasn't long however that cracks began to show. The term I heard on an almost daily basis was ‘ He’s a busy child isn’t he ’. This became the most over used phrase known in Ryan’s life over the next 5 years. Ryan wouldn't settle, wouldn't eat, wouldn't interact with the other children. I began getting more and more calls asking to collect him. I wasn’t enjoying generally not seeing my children for long hours. They were spending longer at Day Care then at home  with us . I asked work to be considered for flexi hours, my boss said to me “We dictate your hours, not you. You chose to have children so you choose between wor

Hi I'm Ryan.   I used to play Xbox and games like Call of Duty and Minecraft. Other games are available. Now I am a PC gamer. I play Warframe, Terraria and CSGO. I am not religious, I used to have Asthma, I am hyper-mobile which means I can dislocate my thumb and roll my belly muscles. I can move my diaphragm downwards at least I think that’s what it is. I remember Nanny and Granddads’ house in Birmingham with the humongous stairs. There were about 5 flights, but I don’t remember my own home. I don’t really remember the 1st house we lived in when we moved to Wales, but I do remember there was a snow day and we played outside. I sort of remember the farm house though. At the second house we moved to in Wales there was a pigsty and a little cubby hole in the middle of the stairs. I was probably the worst behaved child in the entire school. I only really remember one of the teachers with many names, Evil Edna, The Soul Taker, Mrs Reaper. I trashed the year 2 class room. I thr

Once upon a Saturday morning.  10 November 2001, only hours after leaving my job on the Friday evening to start my maternity leave, I gave birth to my second son. For the previous nine months I had convinced myself that I was having a girl. I already had a wonderful son and a little girl would complete our small family perfectly. I didn't even have a boy's name picked, so when the midwife congratulated my disgustingly easily labour and invited me to say hello to my beautiful new son my first reaction was total shock and my first words were (yes I am almost embarrassed to say) "I didn't order a boy, I am having a girl, her name is Megan. Can you send him back?" Of course, this shock only lasted a matter of seconds for the moment the midwife placed him in my arms I was hooked to this utterly gorgeous bundle of tiny awesomeness. I cannot pinpoint the day or time exactly when I started to suspect that things were slightly amiss, but very early on in Ryan's li