Imagine that your girlfriend or wife just gave birth to a beautiful baby girl and then one month later told you she was leaving you for your best friend and abandoning the child. Now imagine that you also have Asperger’s syndrome. That’s exactly what happened to one man and his story is so touching that we wish there was a global dad of the year award to hand out.
Here’s his story as he tells it:
“You know all my life I’ve struggled with emotion… friendships relationships … facial expressions … and like most aspies although these things are present in our lives, they are not always easy to understand or develop ….. Faith (my daughter) changed my life… Faith was the first and only time I understood what love was ….
I remember the pregnancy … it was a bump…. just a bump on my then girlfriend’s body…. no more…. no less…. “cold” you’re probably thinking….. but as the saying goes… “if a tree falls in the forest does it make a sound?” …. you haven’t heard the sound. .. I didn’t see a baby…. truth is, I was more concerned about the changes in my safe routine than I was the soon to be new addition to my life …..
So it began…. the baby shopping…. clothes for the bump…we brought the cot…sometimes I’d stare at it…. trying to imagine … and I have to say for someone with a condition that’s meant to make me more imaginative than most… I didn’t have much luck….. see my life spiralled out of control when Walkers changed their salt and vinegar crisps from blue to green… so you can imagine the shock I was in….
But that aside… the day came. … the contractions started…
Me being me I was prepared for the bump… we grabbed the overly prepared hospital bag and set off for the hospital …. it was coming!!!!! I was going to be a dad … me…. a father …..
14 hours. .. screaming… bright hospital lights… nurses speaking what sounded like a foreign language. … the smell of hospitals making me sick…. my ex in pain…. me stressed. .. there wasn’t a detail I couldn’t see or missed … my senses were about to explode and …..
Silence…..
Pure silence…..
The nursery revealed from underneath the bloodied blanket this baby….. nothing else existed… in what seemed like slow motion this beautiful baby appeared into the world…. holding her all negativity dropped from my body…. for one of the very few moments in my life my brain just stopped…… I couldn’t stop staring…. she was mine! I made her….. from that moment…. I was suddenly re-filled with excitement! !! Love!!! Hope!!!! I WAS A DADDY!!! I was the proudest man on earth! !!!
Shortly after …maybe a month… I found out that Hannah was leaving me for my then best friend … she was leaving Faith with me…..
It was hard….. what was I meant to do!!!!??? My princess Faith left with an idiot (Me) I hated who I was and what I had!.. my parents told me to give her up for adoption…. the kindest thing they said….. …. but thinking about it… laying there on the sofa alone holding Faith in my arms …she looked me in the eye and grabbed my little finger … barely able to grab the whole thing…. I’ll never let you go I said….
I quit my 2 jobs the next day. … applied for benefits ….. I was going to do this!!!!! Me and Faith against the world!!! …. and we did… and it was hard. …. to ask me what it is like for a man with Asperger’s Syndrome to raise a child is to ask what does a woman go through on a daily basis …. probably the hardest thing I have or will experience ….
The crying was unbearable … my sensory issues were always on edge… my depression worsened… I didn’t sleep… eat… my sole purpose was to look after this girl! She was depending on me! There were times I’d scream after putting her to bed… I’d lock myself in the bathroom and cry fully clothed in the bath tub until I fell asleep.
With Asperger’s we need a time out… I had no support… no safe haven … just as for a woman this baby was my job.. my purpose…. the only difference was I didn’t come home from working… she was there when I slept… and there when I woke up… even going to the loo was hard … but do you know what… I used logic… our biggest ally as an Aspie!… babies love routine!… so dinner bath and bed by six dead on time… she has slept perfectly through the night no arguments… just a bed time story, a good night daddy God bless I love you…
Over time it got easier… cause I took control… it went from being scary… to having a best friend… she’s always been a daddy’s girl… she’ll always be my princess… I learned how to do hair… dress her nicely… we go shopping together now!… she talks to me about her fears… what she likes… we have movie nights haha…
I may never be a perfect dad… but I try perfectly hard… and I love her truly with every fibre of my being and she loves me… Faith taught me of unconditional love.
This girl will depend on me forever! That’s a long time… I got my jobs back… I went to University whilst she was in nursery… things only got better.”
Like we said at the start of this story — this man deserves a dad of the year award.
