Sunday, March 15, 2015

I experienced firsthand today what Anthony's assigned staff member at the service provider did last week.

Anthony had been a little on edge at times yesterday, and had not had a bowel movement.  My wife and I discussed whether it would be all right to take him to church this morning, and ultimately decided to do so with the idea of taking him home immediately if he started acting up.

Since I'm always looking for ways to get him (and myself) more exercise, I chose to walk with him to church. This 15-minute trip isn't terribly unusual for us when the weather is reasonable.  My wife and other two kids were planning to come a few minutes later by car.

Within three or four minutes, Anthony started trying to hit my arm as we walked; that is an indication of dissatisfaction.  I didn't give it a great deal of thought because he hadn't been completely happy yesterday either.  After a few more minutes though--but still a few from our destination--he had progressed to the highest level that I customarily see, wherein he lowers his head and tries to butt it against my elbow multiple times.  We were now closer to the church than to home, so I tried to just keep him at a distance, use a stern tone with him, and get him to keep walking.

However, he next swung his clenched backhand and hit me in the jaw. I have never seen him do that before, but I am certain this is what his handler described to me as his punch.  At this point, I abandoned designs of making it to church and turned around.  But Anthony was now in full attack mode.  I was simultaneously concerned with getting him home; keeping him from attacking me; keeping him from wildly flailing himself into traffic--we were by this time out of the purely residential area onto a main street, albeit two lanes--and hoping I wouldn't end up with a ripped suit through it all.

I tried staying behind him and directing him to walk; I tried walking a little away from him to the side; I tried walking in front of him.  But rather than getting him to return home without further incident, he instead charged at me every few moments, head down, trying to butt me in various places.  He succeeded in butting me in the chin (the same spot he got me with his backhand), the elbow, and the wrist.  My elbow doesn't feel anything to speak of, but my chin and, to a lesser extent, my wrist, are somewhat sore.

I tried calling my wife but got voice mail--probably because she was trying to get the other kids out the door.  Anthony and I were by now back in the residential area.  A lady and her daughter or, perhaps, granddaughter, were crossing the street in front of us while Anthony was howling because I was doing my best to stay away from him.  I called out to them, "Please keep your distance.  He's autistic and he's really upset right now!" Anthony was so unpredictable at this juncture--kicking a water meter cover, throwing himself on a lawn next to the sidewalk--that I just didn't know if he would have any sense of reason if other people were nearby.

My wife and other kids finally showed up in our smaller car rather than the SUV (as I anticipated, which was why I tried to call so they would change vehicles).  We discussed whether they would return home and get the SUV or go to church since they were running late, and then have my wife drive home and change cars.  We decided on the latter.

Perhaps due to the break in the action, so to speak, with me talking to my wife while Anthony was standing a way apart, after they left I was able to get Anthony to walk with me without charging.  He was still howling quite a bit and clearly not happy, but I managed to keep the distance AND get him to come along without another attack.  Because of this, I called my wife again and told her I thought we would get home without her needing to come retrieve us.

As I was outside with Anthony, at one point putting him in a headlock to reduce his ability to butt me (while in a suit!), and then later after we had gotten home, I realized this incident would not have gotten very far had we been in a controlled environment.  Here at home, I would have gotten him into the headlock as soon as his intentions were clear.  I would have wrestled him to the floor and, possibly, leaned on him to make it uncomfortable to breathe.  Those strategies have worked well enough for me in the past, effectively taking the fight out of him after a while.

But those tactics aren't available outside.  Even if I weren't in a suit, I would not have wrestled him to the sidewalk.  And it's even worse for those working with Anthony, because they would not choose the same tactics--even though I would give them permission to do so--because of perceived potential liability issues. It is little wonder that the police officer put Anthony in handcuffs the other day.

The overarching aspect of all this that is particularly unsettling to me is the escalation beyond anything we have seen previously.  I have never really feared Anthony before, but I did a little today.  Of course, I was not in the position to use the usual tactics at my disposal, as I wrote above.  But my wife agreed with me that if it had instead been her walking with Anthony, the ferocity of his attack would have left her crumpled on the sidewalk with a concussion.

Naturally, this opens a new can of worms for us.  When upset, Anthony has always been willing to attack if he thinks he can hurt someone.  That has uniformly precluded adult males.  But if he has gone beyond that, and if he continues to be even more aggressive than in the past, that will change entirely the way we look at who he can be with, and when he can be with them.  It is altogether possible that we will be without alternatives to either keeping him at home or getting him into a facility that is designed to handle those who are dangerous to others on a regular basis.

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