What's Autism Got to Do with It?

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/28/AR2006072801206.\

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What's Autism Got to Do With It?

Sunday, July 30, 2006; B08

How do we make sense of the murder of Lash IV, an autistic

12-year-old from McLean, killed by his supposedly loving,

well-respected father? After living with my son Nat's severe autism

for 16 years, I am no stranger to hardship and struggle.

The lowest point in my life was when Nat attacked me at the subway

station. Though 11, he was almost as big as me, and I had my infant

son in my arms, with the stroller hanging heavily from my wrist. None

of my parent training would have prepared me for that moment of sweaty

panic as I struggled to slip the stroller off my arm, hold on tightly

to the baby, and fend off Nat's clawing hands.

I remember the agonizing thoughts running through my brain. This was

the most severe of many such episodes in the preceding few months. I

felt myself going to a dark place in my mind, down that " what if . . .

? " path. Life would be so much easier had he not been born or if he

were. . . .

That evening, I cried as we began to make arrangements to put Nat in a

residential placement. My sadness collided with my guilty relief, as I

dared, at last, to imagine our life without Nat: travel, going to

parties easily, visiting other families.

In the end, I just couldn't send him away. As hard as things were, it

just did not feel right. And so we hung on; we got through it, with

calls to supportive family, new medications and the healing passage of

time.

The thing I know now, that I did not know then, is that many parents

with or without disabled children have similar devastating moments,

filled with terrible wishes. Autism does not make my family unique or

its circumstances more tragic than those of any other family. That is

what makes the stories about Lash, and DeGroot and

McCarron, all the more horrifying. These children were killed by

their parents, and the way the stories read, presumably because of

their autism.

Like those parents, I have seen some pretty dark days because of

autism. But I have also known some of my brightest moments because of

my autistic son. Understanding Nat and autism have certainly been

difficult, excruciating at times, but by now, so have certain other

challenges life has thrown my way.

No question, dealing with autism without understanding it is

difficult. But murdering because of it? Unfathomable and inexcusable.

We all have our own sack of troubles, as my great grandmother, a

pogrom survivor, used to say. And to paraphrase another survivor, Tina

: What's autism got to do with it?

-- Senator

Brookline, Mass.