Despite all the love she has to her son, Darlin Déslus is a woman out. Diagnostic autistic At the age of 2, Dayvon, now 10 years old, had a heavy handicap.
Locked up in his bubble, the young boy who does not speak requires every moment. Mother of four, Darlin, 38, single, had to stop working. She is desperately looking for a place in institist medico-educational. For the time being, in vain.
Doubts from the age of six months
Installed at the table in the living room of its small apartment located south of Noyonhis son Dayvon on his knees – the child busy watching videos on a mobile phone – Darlin remembers the time of the first doubts. And his eyes are filled with tears. “From six months, I started to ask myself questions, he never looked in the eyes, he was elsewhere, as in another world. To my doctor, I explained that there was something, that Dayvon was not like the others, that he was different, “she says. But for the doctor, nothing worrying at this stage.
In mom rich in the experience of three older children, Darlin insists. “I then see a doctor at the Noyon hospital who also has doubts and send me a child psychiatrist. And from the first meeting, he said to me “yes, there is something” “. This “something” will be refined as the child grows. If as of eleven months, the little one learns to walk, on the other hand, at the age when the word must develop: “nothing”. In 2017, Dayvon was 2 years old, the diagnosis is made: “Your son is autistic,” said the doctor. The child’s dad leaves the home. He only saw her again once.
On his mother’s knees permanently
Today, Dayvon, is ten years old. It only takes a few moments to understand that the child is “different”. When we arrived at Darlin, when he sees us shake his mother’s hand, Dayvon approaches and reaches our head to hug, that we willingly give him. He takes us hand to accompany us at the living room. Then, we hit the head slowly. His mom asks him to stop: “There are gentle gestures, but he can be more difficult. He strikes, he bites, adults and children, ”she says.
But it is on his mother’s knees that he spends the most time, soliciting her permanently. “He wants to be on me all the time,” she says. If Dayvon has attended school for a time, he’s no longer going. “According to the recommendations of the MDPH (departmental house for people with disabilities), he should have gone there at the start three to four hours a week, but it was only one hour because it was too complicated, either because that he disrupted the class too much, that was because there were not enough hours of AESH (accompanying a student with disabilities) ”. Today, he’s no longer going: Dayvon can’t learn anyway.
“We can no longer go to the park, there have been too many incidents”
It is therefore at home that he spends all his time. Difficult even to go out with Dayvon. “Before, we went to the park, but there were too many incidents with other children, parents. I have already been asked to “hold it on a leash” “. Difficult words for a child whose handicap is apparent, and which does not understand the social codes of the outside world.
Darlin cannot take the car either to take him anywhere: “By car, he takes off his belt, he comes to the passenger seat and he takes the wheel”. In mid-January, Darlin even lost his son for half an hour. “It was at the end of my daughter’s school, it took only a second of inattention to save himself. We looked for him everywhere: in the end, he got on the bus and sat down. ”
A child for whom everything is dangerous
However, the house is such a dangerous environment for the child and their loved ones. Although she lives on the ground floor, Darlin is wary of what her son can do: “We live the closed shutters so that he cannot escape”. Dayvon has indeed already rode the balcony of the small apartment, and took the escaper powder. In another apartment “he had tried to jump from the 4ᵉ floor”, she says …
Darlin’s apartment has become over the years a place where no one has come. “Even with my family, it’s difficult: I have nephews and Dayvon’s attitudes are complicated for everyone”. Darlin’s largest boy, currently in high school, has chosen the boarding school: “It’s impossible to work in peace here”. The child being sometimes bryuing, at sometimes nighttime hours, Darlin does not hide that “relations with the neighbors are complicated”.
The mother is therefore struggling with a child, who observes too rare and too brief calm times. The walls covered with pen attest to the dense and uncontrolled activity of the little one which “breaks everything in the house”. Without being aware of it. “Dayvon is a little deaf and also has problems of sight, he is watching TV very very close, and watching TV, he swings or can make involuntary gestures”. Result: “He has already broken six TVs, not because he is angry, on the contrary because he is happy and manifests him in gesticulating”.
Mom is looking for a place in an institute desperately
Today, this courageous mother comes to the end of what she can do. The child is always followed at the CMP, a medico-psychological center. She is visiting an help one hour a week that keeps Dayvon time for her to go shopping in Auchan. A psychomotrician also comes to work with him to help him refine his gestures, in particular allowing him to be more independent for meals or small daily gestures. “And he makes progress,” notes Darlin.
But what this mother would like is to find a place in IME. “It would take a boarding school. That he can be taken care of during the week and returns the weekend, ”she says. However, the waiting lists on which the child is registered do not seem to be full. “I am asked to be patient, but until when?”
If Dayvon was taken care of a year in a day hospital in Fitz-James, it ended in December 2024: “They cannot keep it, it is not its place”, summarizes the mother.
The situation becomes urgent, because Darlin is afraid of seeing his son grow up. “Today I still have the strength to take care of it and to resist it if it is difficult, but I was told that when it is teenager I could no longer,” she says. She is already at the end of strength: “His sleep is very irregular, he can fall asleep at 1 am in the morning or later and get up early: I sleep 4/5 hours a night only”. Dayvon has a treatment to sleep “but that does not have many effects”.
Darlin is also concerned about the financial situation of his home. Today she lives on an allowance (700 euros) for her son and family services. “But on the one hand, when the other children will grow, I will lose part of these income, and on the other hand, I can no longer bear to depend financially like that: I want to earn my own salary”.
“I feel trapped in my life”
She who was a medico-psychological help before stopping working to take care of her full-time son, would rather be households. “I want to put myself on my own as I have already done so, but today, I cannot leave Dayvon alone and I obviously cannot take it with me”. She tried to work part -time in the past and had to give up. “I feel trapped in my life,” she breathes.
It is therefore a real cry of the heart that this Noyonnaise mother launches. “I need help. I have duties, but also rights. France is a big country, why can’t I enforce my son’s right to be taken care of? ”
