AARRGGHH!! DD went missing for over 2 hours!!

[CardyMow]

DD always gets back from school by 3.50pm at the VERY latest. It got to 4.15pm and she still wasn't home so I tried ringing her mobile but it was switched off. I rang the school to see if she had an after school detention that I didn't know about or was using the pc's at school, and she wasn't. I tried ringing her friends but none of them were answering their phones. By 4.20pm I was walking both of her routes home from school looking for her, and by 4.40pm I had rung the police. She came home in a taxi (!) at 5.45pm. Turns out that she had told her new polish friend who has only been at her school for 2 weeks that she lives near the water tower (but there's two in our town!) and her friend said that her house was near the water tower so they went to hers to drop her friends' bag off then they were going to come here to mine...but her friends' house is near the other water tower!! There is a taxi driver next door to her friend and he brought DD back. But due to the ASD, DD just DOESN'T realise how much upset and worry she's caused. The community police officers came round to check that she was OK and she started playing attitude with them because they were telling her off, then she started crying and going into meltdown mode because the CPO was insisting she gave him eye contact (!). AARRGGHHHHHH!! I've never been soooooo worried/petrified/scared (delete as appropriate lol) in my whole life. I thought she'd been run over or something. And because I'm pregnant,I can't even have a brandy or something to steady my nerves. I mean she's being doing this journey home from schol for almost a year, and has NEVER done anything like this before, she ALWAYS comes home and tells me where she's going FIRST, and she's only allowed to go out if she has her mobile with her, switched on so I can ring her and that I know the address she is going to, have spoken to the other childs' parents first and I know what time she's going to be back.

I know it sounds like a normal teen thing, but when she's totally deaf in one ear, and half deaf in the other, on top of all her other SN (epilepsy, heart probs, GDD, mild learning difficulties, muscle probs, asd), I worry about her crossing roads etc, her normal route home has no roads to cross. And how many NT 12yo's get LOST coming home from a friends' when they've been coming home from school for a year? Her phone was off, but it turns out she hadn't even took it with her, it was off cos the battery was dead. She still can't even tell me the road that this friend lives on(!). Most 12yo's would realise when they got home how much worry they'd caused as well. All she keeps saying is well I'm OK and what's worried mean? (shakes head at DD's lack of understanding of emotions).

My DD1 (13) ended up running round our local countryside recently after a misunderstanding with someone at the local riding stables where she helps out. She had no concept of people needing to know where she was "well I knew where I was!" or how far it was to run home.

I was really upset and terrified but luckily a friend found her and brought her home.

I realised that my biggest mistake had been never to tell her not to leave the stables without one of the staff, me or her dad. Now I have said this I know she won't do it again because it's a rule.

I feel for you, Loudlass, because it was terrifying, upsetting, very distressing for her and it brought home to me how much more vulnerable she is than other children her age.

Loudlass (hugs) okay good side of this is she is home and she's safe.. Which doesn't stop everything going through your head.

If it were me .. I'd let it all calm down this evening.. And make some rules up along the lines.
Get in from school put phone on charge
I must have my phone turned on for walk home from school.
Keeping me safe rules sort of thing.
Etc and write them up and put them up on her wall and I would put them on a business size card for her to have with her.

Your going to have to go through this again with her when your both calm.. And keep it short and clear.

Maybe ask her how would she feel if you just disapeared? See if she 'gets' it though logic rather than intuition.

I'm so sorry she scared you today

You must have been TERRIFIED. I would have been!
Hugs, lots of hugs, and virtual-brandy-for-after-baby-comes.

The thing is, we DO have 'rules' about hometime from school, we have had since before she started secondary as I knew I wouldn't be able to walk her there and back as her school is in the opposite direction from the DS's primary school. She just 'forgot' the rules, because in her words "we were only going to drop off 'friends' bag then come home" "It's not my fault 'friend' got lost on the way to hers" And when I tried to get her to think about how she would be if I dissapeared, she just said that at least I wouldn't nag her anymore. And I've ALSO had the "I knew I was OK" thing tonight! It's more the fact that she 'forgot' the rules today, when she's been ok for a year, but her planner says that she has had 2 absence seizures in school today, so maybe that's partly why she 'forgot' the rules? Even when the CPO was talking to her, it was just like she couldn't understand what the problem was. She just doesn't get the fact that other people have feelings and get upset and/or worried about things.

Brandy may be out, but I hope baby lets you eat chocolate without a fuss, because you seriously need some

So glad that she is home safe and well. I just can't imagine how terrifying it must have been.

I have occasionally lost DD for moments in shops, and that awful heart thumping fear just envelopes me.