With hand on her head, and tears rolling down her cheeks, Bimbo Ademola, a mother of four was devastated seeing her marriage of over 20 years crumble over her last child’s mysterious ailment.
The retired chief radiographer with Lagos State ministry of health, then was having a blissful marital life until her fourth child began to consistently fall sick.
“In my own case, my child at the age of one and a half had measles, and chicken pox in quick succession.
“And I cannot say I was careless because I work in the hospital and I took him for treatment, so we were all confused over this strange development.
“Afterwards I found out that my child was very hyperactive, he was not doing things as usual, this made my husband sad, and he began to suspect I was behind the boy’s predicament.
“I was thrown out of my matrimonial home because of my autistic child, and the cause of the illness is still a myth to me,” she said.
According to the retired radiographer, her husband acting in ignorance suddenly began to maltreat, and beat her up at every slight provocation. At one point the man threatened to kill her because he was made to believe that the sickness was a witchcraft attack from the wife.
“One day as I came back from work, I did not see any of my four children, and in my frustration I was running around my neighbourhood asking people if they per chance saw my children.
Nobody was able to ascertain where the children went to, until my house-help whispered to me that she overheard my husband saying he was taking children away, but she did not know exactly where he was taking them to,” she narrated.
After some days the husband came back without the children, and became more furious at her which led to more frequent beatings to a point a neighbor of hers had to go and beckon on her relatives to encourage her to separate from the man before the husband kills her.
“With my brother’s counsel, I was made to move out of my matrimonial home, because of my son’s mysterious sickness, and the fact that my husband was convinced that I was the one behind the illness,” she said, sobbing.
“How can I be the one behind my son’s sickness; he is not my first, second or third child, how could I suddenly become a witch hurting my son? My husband was hypnotised against me over our child’s ailment,” she added.
Some years after the separation, exactly on her birthday, her husband came visiting with a divorce letter. According to her all efforts by the lawyers to resolve the matter fail on deaf eyes as her husband insisted on divorce.
In face of all these developments, she was informed by a friend that her children were in different boarding schools in Kwara State. That was how she was able to trace and got his boy back.
Ademola got to know that her child was suffering from autism when the boy was 17 -year-old through her brother who lives in America.
When the brother saw the boy, he told her that the boy was behaving like the kind of children they attend to in the U.S, and that they are children with autism.
It was this information that stirred her to study about the sickness, and began to attend seminars and training on autism; it was in the course of this search for help that she met the founder of Patrick Speech and Language Centre at Ikeja.
Before then, she had engaged the services of therapists as recommended by her doctor colleague.
“The first set of therapists I got helped improve his situation but that group was disbanded maybe for financial reasons; so I had to begin to employ therapists privately.
However, one day, my neighbour called me and said these people you call therapist, they are using belts on your child.
Then I realised why my son was suddenly aggressive with me, he would struggle and fight with me. Initially, I didn’t know he was trying to report the therapists who were beating him with belt, but couldn’t do it the usual way,” she said.
In the face of her confusion, she found relief from Patrick Speech and Languages Centre at GRA Ikeja, where she took the child and was among the few fortunate Nigerians to get a scholarship for their autistic children, as the school offered to train the child free.
Like Bimbo Ademola, there are many women who are going through all sorts of harassment, and humiliation and many may have even been divorced because of autism mystery.
According to Dotun Akande, proprietress of Patrick Speech and Language Centre at Ikeja, “Autism is a complex developmental disability that typically appears during the first three years of life as a result of a neurological disorder that affects the functioning of the brain, impacting in social skills and interaction, communication and behaviour.”
Autism, also called autism spectrum disorder (ASD), is a complicated condition that includes problems with communication and behaviour.
It can involve a wide range of symptoms and skills. ASD can be a minor problem or a disability that needs full-time care in a special facility.”
People with autism have trouble with communication. They have trouble understanding what other people think and feel. This makes it hard for them to express themselves, either with words or through gestures, facial expressions, and touch.
It is however, regrettable that the government and many Non-governmental organisations are not paying enough attention to helping families with autistic children.
Experts believe that more children are diagnosed with autism now than ever before. However, they say it could be because of changes in how it’s diagnosed, not because more children have a disorder.
