Special Saturday post........an avoidable setback!

This post is written as part of  Special Saturday and the theme today is Setbacks. So, here's my contribution. Special Saturday also has a facebook page so come check us out!

As I've previously blogged about, sometimes members of the public can be less than understanding when it comes to my daughter. It makes me mad and hurts my feelings and hers. I put it down to sheer ignorance.  We don't like it but we know it happens. So you can imagine my surprise when we met with the most outstanding experience of ignorance, bigotry and downright discriminatory behaviour imaginable and it resulted in a major setback at the time. Thankfully we have gotten over that setback and things have moved forward positively.  What makes this the worst one to date is that it came from someone it shouldn't have...............FD's father. When I call him father I actually mean sperm donor because he has been nothing of a father to her or Afro Boy. OH has been here through all FD's milestones and difficulties and offered support. The sperm donor has been largely absent most of her life.

This episode happened just before FD started her new, wonderful and lovely school. I had emailed her father to update him on the bullying and school situation (he refuses to take my calls or answer texts). He was furious that FD was moving to a Severe Learning Disability School and he phoned her and told her as much. He told her that that type of school was only 'for people with Downs Syndrome and people in wheelchairs', and demanded to know why she was going to 'a place like that'! Yes, you have guessed it. He's an idiot. Once he'd upset FD he then spoke to Afro Boy and told him that FD was spending far too much time with people with Learning disabilities and there was no need for it!!!! (banging head against wall at this point)! FD, who had been looking forward to attending her new school after getting over her worry about it, now began screaming her head off and refused to go!

Now, not being a wallflower when it comes to being protective of my children, I wanted to grab the phone off my son and give the man that is suppose to love my children, a piece of my mind. However, my son would not give me the phone and wanted to handle the situation himself. Which he did. He told his father, in no uncertain terms, that he was very wrong. But when you are dealing with someone with a closed mind it is very hard to reason with them. He got nowhere and ended the call.

FD's father obviously has still not accepted the fact that his daughter has special needs. His reasoning for believing she is 'normal'? She can read! Well glory be! A child who can read obviously has nothing wrong with them! GIVE ME STRENGTH!!!! I think you have probably guessed that I am more than a little angry at the man!!! Despite the fact that he has received psychologist reports over the years, school reports and Doctors reports, he believes that I have made the entire thing up! He sees his daughter twice a year and during those brief periods she doesn't go into meltdown because her brother is with her and he knows exactly how to care for her and avoid those triggers. Her father has no idea he is even doing this because he has not made any effort to find out anything about his daughter. He is unaware that before each of his visits we have a week of meltdowns, sleepless nights and lots of tears. She works herself into such a state because she is not only very excited about seeing her dad, but because she is worried about how she will cope. We do so much prep work with her around these visits to help her cope on the day! He does not witness a lot of her difficulties because when he visits he does not do any sort of activity whatsoever with her!

When her father leaves again we have meltdowns for weeks afterwards and lots and lots of upset. And so we do the whole prep thing in reverse! We cope with the comedown! The fallout! Whatever you want to call it. I find it amazing that he doesn't look at FD and instantly know that she is not the same as typical 13 year old girls. She is functioning as a 6/ 7 year old and its so obvious. Despite her autism, she has a learning disability. Her language is very childish. She likes childish things. Her understanding of things is heartbreaking at times and she needs lots of guidance and explanation. Does he see that or does he just choose to ignore it? I don't know. But he obviously has an opinion of people with special needs and its not a good one. Yet, his daughter is 'one of those people'. Special needs kids are her world. Her peer group. Its a group of people I am extremely proud of as I see the challenges they face every day. Yet, despite all the difficulties my daughter, her friends, and others in the special needs world face, they have more love, integrity and respect in them than that man I used to be married to!

This post was not meant to be a platform to say not very nice things about my first husband but to demonstrate that the most stupid of comments or thoughtless behaviours can cause so much hurt and upset that all the work parents do to make sure that their special needs children feel comfortable in their own skin can set back days, weeks or months or work. It was the most shocking example I could think of. This setback for FD took us a long time to manage and we had to do all the prep work with her all over again. It was a major setback at the time but thankfully we have got past it and FD is doing wonderfully in her new school. She accepts that yes she is special but she knows that doesn't mean something bad. She knows that special means that she holds an extra 'special' place in our hearts and has 'special' talents that others don't have. We love her lots.