lost my sons to adoption

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hi i'm a 25 year old guy and i was diagnosed with aspergers a year ago. i was a single dad with two sons aged 2 and 4. after i was diagnosed i was given a social worker to help me with my problems. she suggested having the boys took into care temporarily as i was having a depression and she suggested i have a break, i was reluctant to do this but agreed. well my boys never came home, the social services made an application to have them adopted and i had to go family court. the judge decided to have them adopted, i couldn't believe it when he told me, i think i went into shock, i tried to appeal the decision but it was blocked, the adoption has now been officially processed and i've lost my boys for good, i may get them back when they are adults if they want to know me but i've had the right to bring them up n see them grow up taken away from me. wat did i do to deserve this punishment, i was a good dad n loved them. just cos i'm an aspie i get punished, i am trying to get my head round this but everywhere i go i see boys their age with their dads and its so hard to know i had that and it was taken away.

Thats awful *big hugs*

Ive had problems with social servcies for the last 3 years now. The come every week and give me a very hard time. Ive had to work so hard on everything to be able to keep my children and it is exhausting and terrible experience, and the social workers are never satisfied.

The do not understand aspergers or take it into account, rather they hold haveing aspergers against one and see it as an inability to meet the childrens needs.

I know another dad who lost his 3 children to social services who has aspergers so i think, if there are several people on forum experienceing this then there must be lots of people in the outside world expereinceing this also.

I dont know what can be done about it though, even Tony Attwood says in his 'complete guide to aspergers' that the asperger parent should not get custurdy. I feel too hopeless about it to think of good ways to solve it.

Its such a hard road, filled with pain, its just awful.

I so sorry this happend to you and send you thoughts of warmth and strength.

*more hugs*

Sorry for you is all I can say, rest I can think off it just a bunch of emotion I don't really understand.

That is .... terrible. That's like one of my worst nightmares, right there. I don't understand how any system can do that to a loving parent :/

That is terrible, I'm very sorry.

thank you, i am having to accept whats happened as it won't be reversed now. i didn't realise Tony Attwood had said that, i've read part of but not all of his book. does he say why? i never thought i deserved to lose custody, i was bringing them up well and making sure they had active lifes n good social lifes and trying my best not to pass my bad traits on to them.

Are you in England?

yes I read everything i could find on asperger parents to try and support my case, but found most books were actually very negative about asperger parents so could not support me at all. In the 'complete guide to aspergers', he talks about parents with aspergers from p311-313, and its all quite negative. He meant custody in a divorce though not from social services. He says aspies cant meet childrens emotional needs and wont have good judgement about what they need.

I dont know what can be done to change societies narrow view of what parents should be.

have you contacted family rights group
http://www.frg.org.uk/

I did not find them helpful myself but they maybe help to you.

Im thinking it probably is down to resourses of the borough as we have lots of interventions in place to ammeliorate my effect upon the children and I can see that if they did not have funding for them they would have taken the children by now.

we have
the children go into foster care for a day every fortnight so they can experience 'normal' family life.
they have befrienders take them out one day a week so they experience 'normal' behaviour on outings and to model 'normal' social interactions.
my youngest has councilling at the NSPCC every week.
They have to go to playscheme every holiday to experience 'normal' social interations.
I have to go to CAMHS every month to 'gain understanding of how my parenting impacts the children'.

I am so genuinely sorry to hear about what has happened to you.

While I'm sure that "they" don't feel that they took your children from you "simply because you have Aspergers," I'm equally certain that "they" have no idea what it is like to live in a world where you so often can find yourself doing/saying "the wrong thing" over and over and over again without ever understanding the how/why behind the "wrong" of it all.

While I don't mean to minimize the horror of murder, I've taken lately to telling people that being on the ASD spectrum can feel what it must be like to be a prisoner of Al Quaeda or some other terrorist group---feeling like you are the only sane/rational person in the room doesn't change the terror of being held prisoner in a world that is incomprehensible to you in every way, nor does it change the likely outcome of the situation or what is going to happen to you.

As ASD folks, right or wrong, I fear that we are almost always going to "lose" to the others in the room, regardless of who is metaphysically "right."

Again....I am so sorry for you. They have no idea what this will result in for you or even for your kids, I'm sure. Rather than work towards understanding and resolution it sounds as if they just took the easy way out--marginalize you and pretend like you don't exist or matter.

I think this is outrageous. How can it be legal to take someone's children without their knowledge and without giving them a hearing? You can't commit someone to a mental hospital that easily.

That is just totally awful.

I had visits from the social services for protection of children when my son was 2-3 years old, but between my NT partner, ( my son's papa ), and my own dissembling skills and a super tidy house, ( for each visit anyway! ) I managed to avoid them taking action. But it was terrifying.

I have no advice at all to give, but I wish you all the best and hope that you can find an advocat or other support services to help you appeal against this.
.

it was done with my knowledge and i did get a hearing i had a day in family court. the social workers gave their case for adoption and i gave mine for why i should keep my boys, i was aided by a solicitor. i was advised to stay calm and polite at all times and address the judge as sir which i did. when the judge made his decision i sat calmly and listened to what he was saying, it didn't really sink in at the time, i was in shock i think. the judge told me he could see i loved the boys but that he felt the boys would be better off with a mum and a dad and that my aspergers could cause problems for them growing up.he offered for me to see a consellor if i wanted to to help me come to terms with the decision and i said yes i did. my solicitor told me to thank the judge for the counselling and i calmly said 'thank u sir' and smiled. now i've been sent to group therapy for men with 'issues'. its run by a woman who treats us all like we're kids, some of the men are in their 50's and 60's i'm sure they don't appreciate it.

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Last edited by aleutianrocks on 12 Aug 2010, 5:41 am, edited 1 time in total.

...which reflects exactly what I've said, Mustard---a group for men with problems run by a woman doesn't equate with guaranteed failure...but....it sure doesn't smell right, either....

In a day and age when white professors are deemed unsuitable to teach about slavery, and when men are rejected as rape counselors (I'm in the medical field, and I know, at least in the USA), it's rather surrealistic to have a group of men being counseled on their problems by a woman. We've taken the whole "walk a mile in my shoes" thing too far in Western society. We needn't go backwards, but we do need some kind of middle ground.

....to say nothing of the ASD aspects of the situation.

Your best bet, Mustard--aside from whatever legal recourse you may have at present--would seem to be to bite your tongue, swallow the blood that goes with biting your tongue, play their "game," and let the clock run. You'll probably get farther in the long run by conceding the short run for the time being.

Hang in there, and know that you are not alone, though at times it surely feels that way....

I'm sorry, to hear that. I don't really trust "The System", and the way that they think of AS.