Leo Andrade sent me this about growing up in Madeira, and moving to London, where she had family, but a huge battle started with her Autistic child.
Here, on the link below you can also read the story In Metro.co.uk of how her son was Sectioned for 6 years.
I was born in canhas ponta do sol late 60s.
I grew up in a not-so-happy home.
A very dysfunctional home, a home that was full of violence, domestic violence.
Two reasons why I left Madeira and came to live in London, in fact, it was more a case of running way from home.
I never felt I belonged in Madeira, when I was a child watching an old film on black white tv with English actors I dreamed one day coming and living in London, all of my childhood till my late teens I had no friends and I had been bullied all of my life.
See boys liked me girls hated me.
They hated me for the way I looked and amongst horrible names, I was given barbie was one of them.
I was very pale long blond hair and bright blue eyes, so they hated me for being whiter blonder, and had blues and they were olive colour.
So I couldn’t wait to leave and go where I could feel I belonged.
So came to UK, I was 19. Went to work as an au-pair, unfortunately, my dream came crashing down when I landed at the people I was going to be an au-pair for, I was enrolled at Westminster school to learn English and to work 4 hours a day.
Well I was made a Morden day slave they help my passport, would lock me in my room did not pay me, and barely fed me.
Two years later I escaped through a window down a pipe.
Had nowhere to go.
Luckily someone saw me crying and asked me what was the matter I told her and she became my guardian angel.
See I could have gone home, unlike so many Portuguese who come to uk to make a better life in Madeira send money and build homes there, I did never wanted to go back or had any interest in being rich or build a home in Madeira.
Uk was going to be my home no matter what I was thrown at.
See I had grown up without love and without friends, I was a nomad the blond daughter of the abuser so and so the drunk.
I had lived worse so I was going to be strong and stick with it.
My guardian angel found me a home and work. So I went to work as a waitress at a very prestigious hotel in park lane there I met amazing people, including someone famous who became my employer for over 20 years.
Someone who paid me well and treated me with respect. I went from a cleaner all the way to being head housekeeper within a year, looking after his home that was worth 400 hundred million pounds including some art. I was also in charge of 7 staff and in charge of his household which included knowing how much money was in a panic room.
In between all of this hard work yes I worked 18-hour days 6 days a week.
I had been married and had two children, and straightway I knew my middle child had issues.
But no amount of doctors including a private specialist could tell us what was wrong with my child, he went undiagnosed until neatly 7 and my life was chaotic to say the least, I was always exhausted.
I barely slept and I had a very demanding job, boss ad good as he was he did not care I had family problems, especially if he had VIPs staying there was always one famous person from the world of film music or politics at the house, and a housekeeper had to attend to all their whims.
Mind you some of those famous people were people I admired very much and they were lovely some not so much.
Anyway Stephen my son finally was diagnosed with severe autism ADHD self-harming and learning disability at 7 years old.
And life as we know it took it to bad place as there was no school that wanted to take my son on.
He finally got a special school placement when he was 9 half.
And life kept going worse.
When Stephen was 12 years old Joshy was born, yes one would wonder why would you have another child in such chaos, but here I was worried for long hours looking after Stephen at night and taking care of the moody older teenager, yes so my daughter is 4 years older than Stephen.
I have 3 children. TJ is 30. Stephen is 27. Joshy is 15 he to is on the autistic spectrum disorder.
It was hard. I had no help whatsoever begging local authorities to help they wouldn’t listen, by then my marriage was ending, in fact, my marriage had ended right after I got pregnant with josh.
When Stephen was neatly 15 a big crisis happened at school, his favorite teacher left and Stephen became very anxious and challenging, challenging behavior becoming very very difficult for the school to help him so they locked him in a sensory room from 9 am till 3:30 every single day all alone and letting he’s Behavioral issues become worse especially with he’s self-harming, he would smash things with his head.
Then he would come home and his changing behavior was so out of control that he destroyed everything in the house, he would hit me and hit his dad.
And I started getting worried about Joshy’s safety, so I got a human rights lawyer for children’s services to get my local authority to help me.
And that’s when we made a decision to put Stephen in a residential school, the school was in Norfolk.
First 3 months he did amazing, in fact, I had not seen him do so well and found out how good he was with math and music.
And then disaster happens school is sold to a bigger company, and again they change things around and Stephen’s staff is taken away and given agency staff.
They would tie my son to a bed at night with a rope making my son wet himself and soil himself because he couldn’t go to use the loo as he was tied up. He had been tied to that bed for weeks.
A whistleblower came forwards, after that incident,one day I get a call to tell me Ste had hit his head and it was quite swollen but ok. Well, I got there at the weekend, and my son was far from being ok.
I took him to hospital and immediately a neurosurgeon was called from London to go operate on my son, he had a bleed on his brain
He lost 6 pints of blood 3 times.
As they opened his head to operate on him they had to do it 5 times, at the 5th time neurosurgeon came to me and told me if your religious I ask you to pray your son may die at the table or wake brain damaged.
By the grace of God he survived.
Then school and the social worker did the unthinkable, got a psychiatrist in and they sectioned my son under the mental health capacity act.
And put my son at a mental hospital at St. Andrews in Northampton where he stayed for two years.
Then he was moved to another in Clacton on the sea for nearly 5 years.
Both hospitals abused my son’s rights.
He was violated in so many ways that one day I had a breakdown, subsequently with that breakdown I have depression PTSD severe anxiety. And also became clear why I had been such a
Recluse all of my life at age 53 I was also diagnosed with autism.
It explained a lot.
Anyway, I started campaigning to get my son out of those institutions, I had never heard that you could be put in a mental institution, essentially a modern-day asylum, for being autistic and learning disabled.
When I launched my campaigning 6 months after Stephen had been sectioned on the same day I got over 2000 emails from British families to tell me the same was happening to them, I also got messages from Portuguese and Brazilian families whose sons had been taken in similar circumstances and put in residential homes and institutions.
Two days after my campaign became big at this point I had almost 40thousand followers on Twitter and 30 thousand signatures including one from Rio Ferdinand who not only signed it but told on he’s twitter to he’s fans to follow me and sign my petition, and he said this is a national scandal I have never ever heard that this was happening in our country.
Anyway today my son is free, or free as it’s humanly possible as he wants to live with me. Local authorities still won’t allow it.
Ste lives in his home with carers 3/1 24/7.
At a huge expense to the taxpayer. Although not as expensive as the mental hospital.
St Andrews was charging my local CCG/NHS £13,900 a week.
That money was for food loggings and care. Well there was no food and there was no care.
I had to pay for his food. Every Saturday I would go visit with his weekly groceries.
Personal care? Nonexistent. He had been there 6 months and had not had a wash in all that time.
Because my son’s autism is severe he needs help with personal care.
I was told because the ward he was in was an adult ward and not an autistic unit they couldn’t touch my son ie wash him.
I had to wash my son under a free with a watering can on a freezing October day.
He’s underwear we’re stuck to him he smelled so bad.
I had to use makeup scissors and a lady’s shaver to get his clothes off and to get him clean.
They give him 8 antipsychotic drugs 7000MG a day plus an injection called depo that paralysis your body, plus PRN. Plus a straight jacket on him up to 14 hours a day he was left on it on a floor.
The second hospital allowed staff to verbally mentally and physically abuse my son.
They broke many bones on his body they left hand prints on his body. Shoe prints on his private parts.
They broke his clavicle in 3 places by picking my son up, from two big guys, and throwing my son across a big room onto a wall.
And there was much more graphic abuse I can’t tell publicly.
Anyway Tobi this is a fraction of what my life has been.
I could write a book if only I knew how.
Many thanks for being so kind and wanting to share my son’s story. I feel it’s very important for the world to know.
While I was campaigning and appearing on tv and radio and in newspapers.
I also tried to get RTP Madeira to give me time for an interview. But unfortunately, they never responded.