I was reading this horrific story http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/domestic_abuse. But it is the underlying message in the story that is so much more appauling. Legislation should be brought it so say that in order to have #children you have to be a responsible parent. Being a responsible #parent doesn't stop at just #parenting your children but also being aware of other people be children or adults who could your children may feel uncomfrotable being with This is not a case of just feeling shy. Sometimes its just a case of feeling that something is not right that a child will not be able to verbally explain. But it is for you as their parents or guardians to be aware of a change in your children's mood or mannerisms that indicate they do not feel right in the company of someone you think is friendly.
I know from my own experience as a child when my parents introduced me to one of their friends. 'He comes into my bedroom, he sits on my bed and he rests his hands on my thigh. I leave him there as I run out of the room tell Mother how uncomfortable I feel and she says to me, "don't be rediculious he's just come out of a mental hospital, he's totally harmless. Yes he had that ineffectual look. But because I did not know I was going to be troubled by autism I couldn't have known the feelings I didn't know how to filter that made me feel very uncomfortable in his presence.
However, here come's the crunchline. This male friend of my parents only occasionally visited. Nevertheless since i didn't know as I would be disganosed on the #autism #spectrum opne day, I couldn't have known that once he lay his hands on my thigh, my emotional response would make it impossible for me to be comfortable in the close presence of any male adult. I would fear something I did not understand. These feelings would manifest whenever ever I was in the vincinity of any other adult or even children of my own age genre. This is why today abuse should not be tolerated. It causes so much stress for adults who have experienced some type of abuse in their childhood. Be it this abuse has been instigated during their todler years, their #adolenscence or fully grown adults. It doens't matter what the abuse is it is likley to effect that child throughout their life in one way or other.
It is another reason I had to write my Aspie and Me story, get the message out. On no account can any form of abuse be tolerated. I hope one day in the future will mean you will not be allowed to have children if abuse in your past has affected you in such a way that you might abuse a child or adult in the future. We all need to act now and stop #abuse dead in its tracks before it festers into an unstoppable disease.
Be you be a man or woman, you have a responsibility to admit whether you have suffered any form of abuse. The worse thing you can do is shun it, hide it under the covers hoping it will never surface then decide to fall in love, father or mother children and hope you past never re-surfaces. Regrettably, the chances are no matter how emotionally strong you are, your past will manifest itself into the presence.
While reading the above horrible article it brought home another appauling story, that affected me personally that I have mentioned in an earlier blog. It concerns a friend who went through two marriages hoping his wives could give him a child or two. They couldn't so he went and found a wife who could.
This friend was amongst my most trustworthy people I knew. Although more recently I hadn't seen him as regularly as I used to, when I used to we travelled abroad on business together and to far away places around the world.
Now he was a family man enjoying the fruits of parenthood. Never in my wildest dreams would I think something from his past would affect his ability to be a responsible father or that a terrible tradegy was in the making. He was a very financially successful man unusual that he had no material interests, but he also had a very quiet temperament that often worried me wondering what was going on inside of his head during this quiet moments. When we travelled we were often in a car together for days and hours would past and he would say nothing. My #aspergers found this trait of his very challenging to get on with.
Something also must have gone very wrong in his marriage, his children now at junior school, for whatever reason he was no longer the happy parent or possibly husband. Mentally he had snapped and apparently tried to take his life on more than one occasion.
Remembering those times we were travelling and his extremely trying invisble quiet moments he must have been undergoing enormous mood swings. Perhaps he didn't like the way his wife was raising their children. He had waited so long to have children than he was no youngster only beginning Fatherhood in middleage. I can only think something inside didn't make him the ideal parent.
Of course I am writing this in hindsight as the inthinkable was about to happen when he loses control of his mind. Just as the Father in the BBC story entices his children back into his home only to burn it down with them inside, something similar happened to him, he decides if he can't have access to his children because this is what essentially happens nor can his wife and one of their children perishes at his hands.
For me, living with Aspergers Syndrome only very recently have I been able to emotionally protect myself from such devastating stories. Somehow, I have been projecting my past into my present and when such stories are manifested I become part of the victims story, feeling their emotional pain.
Actually it was one of my children who inadvertently came to my emotional rescuse without the intention. All he said, "Dad, you appear to project any bad news into your life". I then made an appointment with my hypnotherapist and suddenly I have at last found peace not to be so disturbed by such stories. Nevertheless I am aware it is abuse from my past that has been the conduit for all of my emotional trauma and this is why all types of abuse needs to be thwarted in whatever way possible.
For me, it is remarkable that with all the therapy throughout my life, none of the therapists I have seen be it the psychotherapists or CBTwere able to give me the answers to why I was so often traumatised by reading other people's stories. Now thankfully I can write about them in the hope that people who may read this blog can tell their own story and get the benefit from doing so.