http://headedforhomeless.blogspot.com/ On May 23, 2008, my son was taken from our home against his will by his father. My son is autistic, borderline schizophrenic, suffers from respiratory allergies and struggles with OCD. Our warm, loving home and being taken care of by me, his mother, is "All" he has known. From that point on, my son's father (father only by biological & genetic standards, certainly not by the standards of love and nurture) began to use him as a mere, expendable "pawn" in a callously cold, cruel and calculated game of "HUMAN CHESS!" His father schemed to use my son as a simple "bartering tool" to get us both out of our home, that by court order, he had to make mortgage payments on after he committed acts of violence against both of us one year ago to the day that he took my son. He hired himself the best shark attorney that money could buy, and a long string of lies were concocted as well as a great deal of money moved around like a "shell game," ending with the outcome of a local Judge agreeing to allow my former husband to come into my home with 2 deputies and steal my son away from me without any prior warning or provocation. Please read My Son's Story. For 5 months he was forced to suffer from hunger, physical and emotional abuse. When my son didn't "adhere" to the stringent and unreasonable rules inflicted on any person, yet alone a person in his particular condition, he was refused any phone contact with me as a form of punishment. Throughout his entire existence, I was his one and only reliable, loyal and loving "Life-Line" and so in order to control the situation, he was determined to break down any and all possible contact between us. When his father found out that we were finally able to contact one another on line, he had the internet cut off. When my son was discovered to have been calling me by way of telephone, he had the phone turned off. All form of communication with the outside world was cut off and completely denied. His father disingenuously informed my son that they couldn't "afford" the internet, phone or cable while he continued to cash in my son's monthly SSI check. My son never saw a penny of his own money. Socially isolated with his dignity stripped away and his spirit crushed, this was his plight in the so called "custody" of his father. My son and I both documented the situation well. I even recorded his voice clips when he could figure out a way to call me. The desperation in his voice…the cries to come home. A week before his 24th birthday, on Oct. 8, 2008 my son was returned home to me by his father after my son attempted to commit suicide and the situation became more than his father was willing to try to deal with any longer. I only learned about my son's suicide attempt when i started asking questions after discover deep scars on his wrist when he was returned home to me. Now, to add insult to injury, I have just received an email from my attorney informing me that, via a past Consent Order (posted here), previously signed by the judge, my former husband will agree to be under legal constraint and "void" all present and future attempted guardianship or contact under very strict and devastating conditions. He will agree to leave us alone and allow us to get on with our lives if I agree to sign over my only valuable material asset, MY HOME, to my ex-husband. In other words, if I simply agree to give him my house to buy our freedom from his abuse, he will agree to stop threatening and terrorizing us and finally let us be! I love my son above all else and am determined to protect him from any further abuse, fear or physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual torture, so of course I agreed to deal. We will be homeless but we will be safe, alive and together! So now, to buy our safety and freedom from further abuse, the home that I have worked so hard to maintain, knowing that time, could be used to support my son in the event of my death, is now being taken from us and we suddenly have to be out of the home by the end of February. We have no family or friends that can help us so we are basically "Headed for Homeless." I am so scared! I don't want to lose my son again. I am sitting here shaking as I pour my heart out to you. If my former husband finds out that we have nowhere to go, he will once again try and take my son away from me and use him and his disability check as he wishes. I have contacted our Governor and state representatives, asking for help. I have contacted other ministries, organizations and still, no one has helped. Sadly, I can't go to the Department of Children and Services or any other social services for assistance, because they will say I am unable to provide adequate care for him and take him away from me again. That would just kill both of us, to loose one another again, after all we have gone through to finally re-unite! We have discovered a solution on our own, and that answer is now within eyesight but just outside of our current financial grasp. So we are now sharing our story...our heartfelt message…our plea for help with YOU! We have searched and searched and finally found a great deal on a used camper and have already been offered living arrangements at a campground so that we can live together in a way that adequately accommodates my sons needs and allows us to be together and far away from the terror of his father. I have only a single month to make this dream a reality for my son and I, and so we turn to you, asking from the bottom of our hearts for your help with donations of any size, $5, $10, $20, $50, $100 so that we can purchase the camper and live our lives together in peace and safety. Charitable donations may be sent to our PayPal account here: harleybeach@hotmail.com All donations ARE tax deductible. I will continue to regularly keep this site updated as we progress and we pray that you might pass the word of our plight along for us and tell any of your friends, family, associates, counterparts, family organizations or Christian fellowships about our dramatically precarious situation, by sending out our link here at Google Blogger or to our "Headed for Homeless" MySpace page. By the way, we're not just looking for a hand-out, as I happy willing to offer be in the position to offer you some highly valuable, experienced editing and freelance writing work in exchange for your much appreciated donations. We assure you that we will continue to update this page, to continue to show absolutely verifiable, physical evidence of our situation and progress of our circumstances on a regular basis. If you need further verification of our living situation, you may contact me at the following email address: headedforhomeless@live.com and I will forward email addresses for you to contact of people who are aware of our situation and who have graciously helped us and to get our story out. Please, let today be the day that you care enough to say yes, I'll "pay it forward"…..GOD BLESS YOU ALL!!!

Well it is a new week, I have plans to try an make it a better one than last. Nothing much has gone on as of yet, but I know that just because nothing is going on right now just means that something big is not far along. Preston's accidents have stablized. They havn't stopped but we are now under control at least. I decided not to put him in pull ups. I am afraid if I do so he will just use them and I want him to know that his potty problems are a problem. This way when he has a accident he knows that it is a accident and maybe he will try to correct it. It is a long shot I know, but it is worth a shot. Preston's EA complained last week that I am not being proactive enough with preston regarding his potty issues. He refused to poop at school even though he needed to. (which is not unusual, he holds his poop all the time, and he will NOT poop in public) I told her that I didn't appriciate her getting angry with myself and Preston over this issue and that she should if anything be understanding of it. I know that this is a sensory concern and his OT and myself are working collectivly to help him and I don't feel that this is a problem that she needs to shove in my face. Arn't these people suspose to be experience with the different aspects of Autism? God! Sometimes I wonder what this school is actually doing to help him. They spend most of their time dening Preston has a problem and when he does somthing that fits into the spectrum they complain. I can't wait until Preston gets his diagnosis from the children's hospital and get things done. That is all for today. Till next time...

This week has been a terrible one. My husband was laid aff on monday, and now he has to fight the clock to find a job that pay comparilbe to what he has, other wise I may have to go back to work, leaving me less time to work with Preston. When we realized Preston had issues I had the luxuary to leave my job and work with Preston full time. This has helped him in many ways. With him being so sensitive to changes I am afraid he would regress if the unthinkable happens. I know that he is feeling our stress, His peeing accidents have multiplied by about 3 time since Saturday. I wish I could hide our stresses from him but I don't know how. We have gotten to the point that we are thinking about getting him pullups to wear just until things setting down again. I hope this is only a bump in our road and we will get back on track quickly. Here is hopeing, I'm crossing my fingers and toes

OK, now this is interesting. Last night I sat my some, and talked to him about his behavior in class and why he yelled at his teacher. At first he just told me "I yelled at Mrs......." I explained to him I knew that and asked why, then he recited the rule: "JJ do not yell at teacher", and added "I sorry daddy" in a meek little voice. I was very proud, but decided to press my luck. "Did you make a fist at Mrs...?" "Yes" "It's not nice to make fist at anyone." "It's nice to make fist" he responded smiling, almost laughing. [I will explain my thoughts on this below] I repeated: "No, it's not nice to make fist at anyone." "It's not nice to make fist at anyone." he repeated. I continued, "Where did you learn that, from? I queried. He started focusing on something else and playing with it. I tickled him a little and he laughed and he re-focused on me. "Where did you learn to make fist?" I asked again. "From Bob, in free center", he answered softly. He considers Bob to be his best friend at school, and free center is when they get to pick the learning station they want for that time period in his class. I explained to him that even if Bob does this, he should not copy it, "it is not nice". "Not Nice" he repeated. I asked him if he was going to tell his teacher "sorry" tomorrow, he got this thoughtful look on his face and said "ok". This morning when my wife took him to school and walked him to his class, she did have to prompt him... "JJ is there something you wanted to tell Mrs.....?" he then told her: "Sorry Mrs..." and on his own, completed un-rehearsed with us he went on to tell her what he was sorry for: yelling, showing his fist, etc... and even explained that showing your fist is not nice and even if Bob does it he shouldn't. My wife told me about this, but boy how I wished I could have been there to see it. Today, I am once again a very proud dad. Seeing his progress gives me strength. Sometimes he wil say the opposite of what we do and think it is a game, or that it is funny. I think this stems from therapy techniques, where sometimes to prompt him into participating and focusing on a task at hand we will say something about the task that we know he knows is completely wrong (ie: pointing to a red sweater and calling it 'blue pants'). He then laughs and correctly identifies the object and will usually stay focused on the task till completion. On occasion he will stop and and we re-focus him using the same technique. Of course I cannot be sure, but I know my son and his behaviors enough to know it is a strong possibility.

It's frustrating how there are good days and then bad days. Lately it seems to be happening in blocks of days. Or just certain behaviors change for a small amount of time and then those specific behaviors only to have a different group of behaviors change for a day or longer. After a great week last week at school and a good weekend, I get an email from his teacher stating that he is doing his attention seeking negative behaviors, yelled at her "No" and then showed her his fist. Sometimes it is just so dis-heartening and really drags down the day, making it harder to (figuratively) get up, dust off, and find a new way to try and change the behavior back.

There has been alot going on in the last week, but nothing really productive. Preston's OT went to school with him last tuesday, but for some reason he had a perfect day. This is good in it's own respect, but causes problem in another. The school insists there is nothing wrong with him, but his OT and myself agree that he has obvious issues. We are afraid they will drop his funding for a EA that he needs to progress in school with his peers. With that said his OT decided to goto school with him again, she is a great advocate for him and his needs and she is confident that she will see things next time and that he was just having a great day that day. Once that is done we will meet with the school and list out his needs so that they will pay more attention to him in school. While Preston is in school he doesn't vocalize his need and often plays by himself, because of this the school pays little to no attention to him and because of that they are not noticing any symptoms. I was there before Christmas break to observe him and I documented and pointed out several thing he was doing that was not normal for a child his age, for example, he sat and rocked during circle time, played by himself and did not socialize during free play, and hand flapped on several different occations. He also tip toe walked the whole time. The whole time I was there the EA and teacher only talked to him 3 times for a couple minutes each and never noticed anything because they were too busy with their over crowded classroom. When I pointed this out they aggreed that they were too busy to work with Preston. His EA is a shared EA with another High needs child, but she seemed to play and work with all the other children and not the ones she was hired for. This angered me a great deal. I will stop rambleing on about school now. The rest of the week consisted on Daddy being on holidays. having him home the whole week disrupted Preston's routine and his accident started up again. I am hoping that with dad back to work he will slip back into his routine again, and maybe I will have to do less laundry this week, lol.

I just wanted to mention once again that I have started a Girl Scout Troop for the State of Maine for girls with varying abilities. We meet in Augusta the 1st and 3rd Saturday of the month. If you know of a girl who you think might be interested, could you please pass this information along to her mother. My email for the girl scout troop is gstroop36@aol.com. Also, it is Girl Scout Cookie Time! Yes, I sampled a few. (Ok, I took a entire sleeve of thin mints..) If anyone is interested in helping this girl scout troop please email me. I guess I could mail them, or people can buy a box for central Maine's Family Violence Project. We'll be delivering to the Project and they will be distributing them to the displaced mothers and children. Go Troopers!

http://abcnews.go.com/US/Story?id=6640478&page=1 Every time I read an article in the media, or hear a news story about discipline problems at school with a child with autism it happens... I start to wonder about what if this was my child How would I handle it, how ballistic would I go, how much would I fear for his safety and well being in his future at that school, or the next school, etc... My wife and I do as much as we can in communicating with the teachers, therapists, even other parents, anyone we can think of to hopefully prevent any kind of issue like this. Still even with taking all the precautions we can think I know this is still a possibility.

I was happy to receive this message "In response to the tough economic times, the Maine Support Network has decided to offer individual sessions for folks who aren't able to attend the entire conference." The conference runs January 24th (parent session) through the 26th (parent and educator sessions) at Point Lookout in Northport Maine. You can read all about the conference, the sessions, and register at http://www.mainesupportnetwork.org/ Hope to maybe meet some folks there! Dawnella

Today was a poductive day with my struggle to get preston's final diagnosis. Today the Children hospital development clinic called to complete the intake quetions for Preston refferal. And we are now on the official waiting list. The list is long and we have to wait for another 6 to 12 months before he gets in. However small this step was it is one step closer to getting the diagnosis for Preston and the government support that our Province provides. I was also able to video tape Preston today while he was Presenting some of the symptoms that Preston has been presenting so that I can show it to not only to the doctors at the childrens hospital but also at his school, So that they can see that I am not crazy. In the video he is tip toe walking, flapping his arms and hands, repeditively rolling his shirt up to the back of his neck and back down, and rubbing the product tag from his pillow around his mouth. He is doing more in the video, I just don't have the time this evening to discuss it all. Things are going better for us now since School is back in and routines are back to normal from the holidays, he has even been 4 days since he has had his last potty accident. That is all for today. More to come as thing continue in our household.

It's so crazy how a parent can totally accept a disability one day and their mind can refuse it the next? I mean, I am aware of my child's diagnosis and am an active participcant in making sure I know all I can, and advocate tot he best of my ability, and yet... some days I cry, I can't help it. I cry so hard, and it can happen anywhere. Walmart, McDonald's, Burger King, Macy's, the Grocery store... I'm sure they all have me on camera breaking down. It could be a song, or whatever-sometimes just my own thoughts get me going. And the break down starts, and I grind my teeth and hold back tears and fear and anxiety. It can be crushing and overwhelmning. I know I am not alone in these moments, but it certainly feels that way. I feel like I am in a bubble outside of the rest of the world in my fear and concern and frustration. It is a lonely place. How is it that we can feel so lonely while part of such a large community?!

After months of fight with doctors and not getting people to listen Preston has finnally been place on the waiting list for the Developmental Clinic in the local Childrens hospital. He is having a good day and is accident free so far. After the holidays being so rocky with him I am happy to have a good day. He is at pre-school right now and the house is quiet. Strange. lol. His OT has made plans to observe him at school next week. I hope she comes to the same conclusions as I have so we can continue to move forward with him.

Help I have tried everything to get my three year old to keep his PJs on at night. I put sleepers on backwards with button down shirts. I used safety pins and the kid is nude. I go in and get him dress he takes his clothes off minutes later. Life would not be so bad but he pees and poops in crib and on carpet. Help, does anyone make special PJs for special kids. I am willing to pay!!!!!!!!!

We work to heal our children from autism spectrum disorders, but how do we, as parents, recover from the immense financial, personal and emotional loss. Share your secrets with me.

Well this was last weekend before JJ starts back to school. And while we were visiting some friends we decided to take JJ and their son to the nearby park. While we were there my son climbed up the monkey bars and actually swang himself and moved one hand to the next bar and so forth all the way across. It was awesome to watch it was his first time, then we made such a big deal out of it, he just kept doing it again and again until he wore himself out. I was a great end to the Holidays.

Well, it's the first day back to school after the long holiday break.The good thing about it is there was a 2 hour delay so I had a chance to sit and enjoy my coffee. The other good thing is it gives my vacation vampires(up all night, sleep all day)a chance to get a little more shut eye.Vacation was nice, but it will be nice to get back to work and on a schedule again.I have an IEP meeting tomorrow and I'm hoping it goes well.Jarren does extremely well in school, honor roll etc.but still has mild social issues. I'm hoping they don't uncode him.I think the coding gives him the security he needs to excel. Have a good day all. Linda