Ron Suskind’s son, Owen, was diagnosed with “regressive autism” after he stopped speaking at age 3. Years later, Ron used Iago, the parrot from Aladdin, to start a conversation:
I freeze here for a minute, trying to figure out my opening line; four or five sentences dance about, auditioning. Then, a thought: Be Iago. What would Iago say? I push the puppet up from the covers. “So, Owen, how ya doin’?” I say, doing my best Gilbert Gottfried. “I mean, how does it feel to be you?!” I can see him turn toward Iago. It’s as if he is bumping into an old friend. “I’m not happy. I don’t have friends. I can’t understand what people say.”
I have not heard this voice, natural and easy, with the traditional rhythm of common speech, since he was 2. I’m talking to my son for the first time in five years. Or Iago is. Stay in character. “So, Owen, when did yoooou and I become such good friends?”
Owen’s story continues in the must-see video above. And the rest of his dad’s moving essay is here. Meanwhile, Atlantic readers – spurred by Hanna Rosin’s story about her son Jacob – share their own stories about family members with autism spectrum disorder. Here’s Josh from London:
I feel like writing this article is a betrayal.
I feel like I will never truly be able to accurately represent [my brother’s] illness. Even calling it an “illness” is wrenching. He’s a regular person that cannot handle certain situations. The stigma attached to a permanent mental illness that affects sociability is a subtle sort of oppression to the person given it. I see my brother wrestle with his identity a lot. Some days he thinks he’s been over or misdiagnosed; other days he seems to know more than anyone else how much his illness affects him. I can’t even begin to imagine the pain that some interactions must cause him, though I can see it on his face.
“Small kids have small problems; big kids have big problems.” No phrase is truer when talking about a child on the autism scale. The anxieties and inflexibilities of a child are much simpler to deal with than the deep pits of despair and intractable problems of an adult. We are on the borderlands: My brother is just sick enough to be diagnosed, but not sick enough to differentiate himself from anyone else in society. He is always absolutely fine until the moment he’s not. We dragged him through school and university, but will we be able to drag him through the rest of his life?
Much more Dish on autism here.
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