Autistic and in a Custody Battle (trigger warning)

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Hi guys,

Has anyone here been in a custody battle over their child? Was the fact that you were on the spectrum used negatively against you? For anyone, but especially if your child is also on the spectrum. I'm afraid if I come out of the closet as autistic, that it could cost me custody forever, as they'd likely look at it as the blind leading the blind.

Our story is long, but I'll try to make it as short as possible.

My son is 3, and was taken away after my ex and I had some fights that resulted in me having lots of meltdowns. This has been a constant source of torment for me for the last year and a half, as I never hit my son, we always had a beautiful relationship with each other. I was abused, physically and sexually, by my parents. I went to child services for help, but they didn't believe me, and left me with my parents. Part of the reasons I'm only just now confronting my autism at age 35 is because my parents used that diagnosis as a way to control and abuse me further, so all mental health treatment I have had in adulthood is for PTSD, I figured it couldn't be autism if that diagnosis comes from them. Since my son was taken from me, I have gone into meltdowns and hit myself a lot, figuring I'm worse than a pedophile and/or I'm a whore who deserves to be molested if I wasn't taken from my parents and I've been fighting to get my son back for the last year, and the grandfather who my son is currently living with tried to assault me. My ex didn't believe me, and that's what ripped out marriage apart. And it's driving me mental that the law won't help me.

Then, after my son was taken, the people who did the evaluation diagnosed him as autistic, and recommended that he lives with my ex with me having limited access. I work in the yoga industry, and am in a great position to use this to help him. I also did a lot of research about the proper diet for autistic kids, which is gluten and dairy free, but his father and grandparents refuse to implement it. He hardly got sick when I was feeding him, now he is going to the ENT specialist next week apparently. The more I read about this, the more I figured I actually do have autism after all. And fortunately in the 2010's unlike the 1990's, there's lots of people out there who see that autism isn't a disorder, but rather a unique way of thinking that's much more effective than what's considered normal, as long as it's nurtured properly.

Because of uncertainties about whether coming out of the closet is a good idea, as well as cost and the fact that I live in Holland but Dutch isn't my first language, I'm going the self-treatment route, with the higher purpose of using myself as a human guinea pig, if it works for me it's also likely to work for my son. I figure if anything, it should be a plus in a custody battle being on the spectrum when your child is too, but most people aren't that enlightened.

Anyone?

goodmorning, I'm no expert in the matter, but i would not mention (your) autism anyway or anywhere while in the battle, be as good as you can be!
i've seen on wp mothers who had their autism used against them, maybe fathers too but i haven't seen that.
how about co-parenting, isn't that the common option these days?

Yup, family court these days is very biased against women, it was different 20 years ago but now there's a huge backlash against feminism. So anything that would make the mother seem as crazy is zoomed in on, and often makes her more crazy.

It's been a year and a half since my son has even spent the night with me. During my fights with my ex, I had a lot of meltdowns, which in hindsight are probably autism related. But still, what I was reacting to was him taking his father's side when his father assaulted me, so no matter what my reaction was, that doesn't absolve either of them from responsibility. My ex's mother was even in the room when it happened, and she told child services it didn't happen. The law is so stacked against me, I even went to the police demanding to know how the 8 cm cut ended up on the back of my son's head, which I have pictures of, and they refused to help me because child services evaluated it and they say he's safe where he is. He's not safe where he is, and when I had a meltdown, I was arrested. This was last July, and it does make me bitter as f**k that if I try to protect my child, I'm thrown in jail for it. I was abused as a child, and my worst nightmare has always been finding out that my child is being abused, and unfortunately that's come true.

I definitely need a plan for fixing the damage to my reputation, and my legal standing, resulting from my meltdowns. Now that I have made the connection with autism, it's much easier to avoid meltdowns. At least I can honestly say that when my son and I are by ourselves, I never have meltdowns, my son is by far the most calming human being in my life. But there's no way I can prove this. And I feel so isolated, to the point where I have been suicidal, and the only thing stopping me is there's some hope, albeit small, that I might be allowed back into my son's life.

I'm trying to go for co-parenting, but they're (child services here, called "Jeugdzorg") so resistant, and my ex is manipulating them. To be honest, I'm starting to think that I may need to have a final goal of full custody, or if my ex does shape up to where co-parenting is possible, at the very least his father isn't allowed to be around my son unsupervised. Our marriage unravelled when my ex's father hit his other grandchild, in front of my ex and I, while I was pregnant with my son, that was the incident that triggered record numbers of meltdowns that didn't stop for the rest of our marriage. My ex and his mother swept it under the carpet, and my ex said I was being ridiculous and his father would never hit our child when I told him very firmly to talk to his father and make sure he knows if he ever hits our son, we will have a problem. My ex said repeatedly that he regretted having a child, and doesn't want any more children.

And they're clearly manipulating this for money too. In Holland, if you have a child who is disabled, you get €17,000 per year from the government for their treatment, but it would be so easy to spend all of this on the latest gadgets if you wanted to. Which my ex is very likely to be doing right now. Or it's also likely that since child services is calling all of the shots right now, that they're pocketing the money, and made sure he got that diagnosis because of both the money and that they could use it to justify delaying my son's reunion with me.

If I had a good outlet for these emotions, the hell I'm going through as someone who grew up being abused and is now forced to stay away with her hands tied behind her back keeping her from protecting her son who is also clearly being abused, meltdowns would be non-existent. It's much worse than being molested by my father, who got away with it by using my autism diagnosis against me and saying I was making it up. I didn't think any bigger hell existed, but it does, and my son and I are currently living in it.

It's even more complicated by the fact that my ex is Dutch, and I'm American, if you have children with someone here and break up then you can't leave the country with your child without getting your ex's permission, which my ex made very clear he's not giving to me. Even if my business fails and I can't get a decent job here, because of my heavily accented Dutch that's probably never going to go away, I still have to stay here. I even have to get a permission letter from my ex to take my son to visit my family, which I'm not looking forward to him being a prick about, unless I get full custody that is. I don't want to raise my son in the US either now that we have Trump, but part of me lately daydreams about moving with my son to Spain or Greece and opening a yoga retreat center there, and being surrounded by lots of nature that would be good for both of us. Plus, it would create enough distance between him and his father's side of the family where they could still see each other easier than they could if we moved all the way back to the US, but far enough where it's more difficult for them to be a toxic influence in his life.

I do plan on saying my meltdowns were PTSD, which is partially the case anyway and very believable. But I do need a miracle to turn the tables, and get them to see clearly that my ex is the one who needs supervision, not me.

ok, i'm dutch but don't live there anymore
jeugdzorg will go with the gaslighters even if the facts are against it, i know a mother who had her two (specialneed) sons for years without father participating anything at all, but with a new stepma in the bushes they managed to make a case at jeugdzorg that she (the mother) was mistreating them somehow, and MIL was in the center of all the blackpainting ofcourse

its not what you do, its who you know ---sort of thing

That's awful, did this mother ever get her sons back? Thats definitely been my experience with Jeugdzorg, that they automatically side with the gaslighters. In fact, they themselves gaslight mothers like me, a lot, as there's a lot of money to be made from keeping us in the system as long as possible, and my ex and his family are very favoured by them, they fit the typische Nederlander stereotype to a T.

yes and on top of that a possibility you might take the child out of the country!

I'm so sure this is at play here. My ex has just the one brother, who is married to a Chinese woman, they live in Paris. Their relationship hasn't been good since before my ex and I met, they married in a hurry because of her pregnancy, which was unplanned. My ex's mother said she didn't sleep at all after my ex told her about me, because she's scared of all of her grandchildren living abroad. She kept saying often how she was afraid of her other grandson's mother taking their child back to China if they broke up.

That said, if my ex could prove to me that he isn't toxic, then staying here could be alright, I have a startup business here and my social network isn't bad for someone on the spectrum who has only lived here 6 years. So leaving here would be a lot of hassle. But if he is going to be toxic, well, I have to protect my son.