Growing Old with Autism

Here's an excerpt from Time Magazine's article Growing Old with Autism

"...Parents, of course, love their children. When I used to accompany my parents to visit Noah at Fairview, we would sometimes see other parents visiting their middle-aged "boys" — some of them strapped into helmets because of their self-injurious behavior — who walked with the same stiff-legged gait, bobbed their heads from side to side, twiddled rubber bands or twigs in their hands and sometimes smacked their foreheads with their fists. They were unlovely men, I thought, lost, impossible to like. But once the parents were gone, who was supposed to keep making these visits and these phone calls checking up on their sons and attending these meetings with the administrators and bureaucrats and caregivers to advocate on behalf of the lost men? That will end up being me, or people like me, the siblings. We will be the ones left caring..."

I love the phrase "unlovely men" as much as I would fight against it being applied to my son; even though I worry that he too, will become unlovely as he loses his baby appeal. His stims will become annoyances rather than sources of amusement to his therapists.

Already his angelic appeal has started to fade as he ages. Here's a picture of Will about four years old. He's huge now.