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Paul Grayburn
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Book
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Publisher | Olympia Publishers | ||
ISBN | 9781905513284 | ||
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Reviewer
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Jayne
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Synopsis
'Walking on Broken Glass is a book designed to strike a chord within you. This detailed, incident-laden and emotionally-charged book gives a true account of a young man with Asperger Syndrome. The author provides a detailed description of what it is like to live with Asperger Syndrome, with anxiety levels and worries that took over his life. Temper tantrums became the norm, as did lack of help from appropriate services to get him medically assessed. Paul was first diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome at the age of sixteen and this was not confirmed until he was 19, some fifteen years after first presenting with severe behavioural problems.
Paul draws on sheer personal experience and feeling to describe the horrors of his behaviour, how he admittedly did not help himself as a teenager, and how his devoted family fought a loosing battle to get him appropriate treatment. Having faced trouble with the police, Paul was arrested on a serious charge due to his behaviour and spent ten months in a penal institution where he suffered abuse and was totally misplaced. He then languished in a psychiatric hospital for seven years in total. Only in 2000 he was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome finally and sent to a placement to receive appropriate and wholly effective treatment.
Paul details the frustrations and attitudes of others he faced in the system as well as detailing and fully regretting his own mistakes. Paul realised that if he didn't change he would have no future and would be kept locked up for ever. Paul details how this was a long and hard process but tells of how he overcame the odds and the book concludes when only the first part of his rehabilitation was complete. Paul now leads a normal, challenging and far more enjoyable life and his book will be an inspiration to others as well a providing hope and help for others in similar circumstances.
Review
This book is a real eye opener into what can happen when the right diagnosis, ignorance and miss-understanding come about because no-one is prepared to listen and help a child with Aspergers Syndrome and many other types of disorder in his life.
Paul Grayburn started putting down his thoughts on paper when he was stuck in the secure unit about what was happening to him, when he was first put in a children's home because his parents could not cope with him. The trauma that Paul faces being put not only in many types of secure placements do not suit him and make him more disruptive.
Paul would develop relationships with staff members and then become very possesive about them. They would then ask to be taken off his wing or even leave and work somewhere different. But this did not help, because every time he trusted someone they let him down.
This is a real heart rending book and the title is very appropriate for it because what ever Paul did he would always be in the wrong and yet as a person with Aspergers Syndrome, he did not understand what he was always doing was wrong.
I found the book intense and this made me feel angry that it took nearly ten years to get him the help he required. But to get to this point, he ended up being on a Home Office Restriction Order called a 37/41 which meant that Paul could go nowhere with out the permission of the Home Office. This was repeated over and over every time he went to get signed off this order, it was just put back in place again.
Paul in the last section, called Striving Forwards, "admits that he did not co-operate in the start, and he could have helped himself. He also has accepted his responsibility for his own actions, he is angry with society for not doing its bit, but admits there was a seriousness of what he did , deserved punishment. "
This book is very well written and I know it will help many others especially families who have to deal with the problems of getting the right help. I am proud of how Paul's parents stuck behind him all the way through all the court cases to get the help that he really needed.
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