best for HEROES
SARAH ALDERMAN’S husband and daughter have embarked on a challenging feat – but all for good reason…
Making our way to the car, my husband, Ian, locked the front door to our house. Then he checked it – and checked it again. We were heading to a local trail near our Stirlingshire home and I was used to this happening.
‘All ready?’ I asked Ian and our daughter Eve, when he got in the car.
To most, it may not seem unusual to check the locks a lot, but for Ian, it was part of his Autism Spectrum Disorder and I loved him all the more for it…
We’d first met back in 2007 through a mountaineering group. Ian was passionate, dependable and loyal to a fault – but his trust had to be earned.
Eventually, our friendship turned into something more. Ian didn’t like socialising and often had difficulty expressing himself. He liked things to be organised – nothing could be decided last minute – and had a list for his lists! ‘Have you written it down?’ I’d gently tease when we’d run out of something at home.
We went on to marry in 2012 and were thrilled when Eve arrived two years later. We loved being a family and as our daughter grew, we were always outdoors. But I’d suspected that Ian might be autistic. Having taught at a school that specialised in kids with Autism Spectrum Disorder, I was familiar with the signs.
We talked about it often and he explained that he’d had a tough time at school, struggled with socialising, always stuck to the rules and found being outdoors soothing as there was no judgement. It wasn’t until around
2017 that Ian was diagnosed. ‘It’s a relief to know,’ he admitted. I was really proud of him.
Perhaps we should have been on the lookout with Eve, or perhaps we were too close, but when she was a toddler we started to wonder whether Eve might be autistic, too.
She hadn’t started speaking until she was two and a half, constantly walked on her tip toes, was fussy about which materials were close to her body and preferred playing alone to interacting with other kids.
Our brave girl had already overcome a tumour when she was a year old, while I was having my own medical struggles. Then when Eve was four, she was diagnosed as autistic, too, and I was pleased she’d have her dad as a role model and who, when she grew up, could ask questions that others might not understand. Scottish Autism charity was a brilliant support and helped us feel we weren’t alone.
We’d already decided to home school Eve and we did everything as a three, didn’t hav
