John: But there has also been, problems we haven’t really mentioned with Gavin, which started really about the age of 15,16, adolescence I guess.

Lynne: Sooner than that, it was much sooner than that.

John: Was it, well okay, but it was a tendency, and I was much more conscious at that sort of time, a kind of self, self harming tendency. And he … I suppose the worst and probably the most obvious model was smashing his head against the wall in sort of his room that he, his bedroom, there were dents all over the wall in the plaster work where he had hit it so hard.

Lynne: And the glass as well. He smashed the glass.

John: Yes. And it seemed, I don’t know, it seemed to be associated with some kind of frustration.

Lynne: Or anxiety.

John: Anxiety, frustration.

Lynne: I don’t know.

John: It was brought under control by medication. He is still on medication on what we are told is a very low dose and just enough to enough to put him on the borderline, more would make him more zombyish, less and then he would be more likely to explode. He still occasionally, can, very occasionally, can move towards sort of banging his head. Very, very occasionally, but you know, more, more frequently, you know, he will get agitated [makes rapping noise]. Rapping on something, you know, banging, banging, on any kind of surface, banging on any kind of surface and so it’s a sort of minor form. Okay so he has balanced on this kind of knife edge, you know, by the low, the exact low dose, carefully controlled low dose of medication that he is on. The… but there was, especially kind of the adolescence time, there was a time when he had some of his aggression was directed towards others, and I experienced some of it at that kind of stage.

John: It wasn’t a period that seemed to last that long but, you know, it was particularly worrying why it happened and, and he would, you know, he would sort of hammer his fists on my chest. I mean he had no skill about the way he was hitting me and so it was, in those days I was, you know, a fair bit heavier then him, so it was no physical problem, but you recognize the potential that, you know, if this sort of thing was going to continue in the future as he grew bigger and older, this could be a real danger problem. Fortunately it seemed to subside, you know, after adolescence.

Lynne: I still feel, you know, he is pretty unpredictable and he has had such a good day today it is very easy to sort of lull yourself into a false sense of, you know, security because tomorrow morning he could get up and be banging and, you know, could be very, very anxious and I might have a totally, totally different day tomorrow.