Autism Vox

9 opinions for “It was like kidnapping”

• Chuck
  Dec 28, 2007 at 1:59 pm

  Yes, but do you statistically check more or less then the parent of a non DD child or even a DD child?

• Emily
  Dec 28, 2007 at 2:19 pm

  Some extreme language in that story.

• anon_two
  Dec 28, 2007 at 5:03 pm

  Agreed. Very extreme. Very hateful.

  Why don’t Bob and Suzanne just cut to the chase and re-name their org AutismSilenced, because their obvious goal is to do away with all the auties on the planet.

• Marla
  Dec 28, 2007 at 5:14 pm

  Suzanne Wright said.
  “He lost all his vocabulary … right in front of my eyes,” she said. “It was like kidnapping.”

  When our daughter was removed from our home due to an adoption disruption at the age of three months old and we were told by the agency that it was over. Told we would never see her again. Now, that felt like kidnapping. I must say it felt way way worse than most people can even comprehend. It did not feel anything like having my child be diagnosed with autism, chromosome disorder and a seizure disorder. Having her removed from our home never to be seen again was way worse. Getting her back after months of hell was wonderful and we were truly fortunate. I do not like the term “kidnapped’ either. I am even more sure that people who have lost their children to actual kidnappings are even more disturbed by the comparison.

• Regan
  Dec 28, 2007 at 8:53 pm

  I may have a minority point of view.

  I agree that kidnap is hyperbole, and thoughtless to boot-to parents of kidnapped children as Marla noted, and in the long view, to her grandson among other children diagnosed with autism because of the implication that the person in the here-and-now is someone else.
  That said, I am not going to pretend that the 3 months that we could not figure out why Eleanor seemed to be inexorably withdrawing and losing skills and speech was not one of the most painful and crazy-making times of my life, especially because we were unable to get a definitive medical diagnosis until several months later.
  However as time has passed, I realized that “Eleanor” was not gone-SHE was right there and always had been. The predisposition for what was going to occur had always been there.

  I don’t always agree with all of AutismSpeaks means of fundraising nor the Wright’s choice of words, but I do note that the organization has seemed to moved from a phase of what seemed to be exclusively self-congratulatory publicity and fundraising to the phase of issuing research grants and is currently assisting families in legislative campaigns to get health insurance coverage–to wit, PA, AZ, FL, CA and MI.
  Perhaps as Mrs. Wright , the organization, and our society matures in its regard of autism there will be less need to believe that the sensationalistic language of terrorism is required in order to approach serious issues and needs.

• Kristina Chew, PhD
  Dec 28, 2007 at 9:04 pm

  Agreed. It’s been interesting charting the “growing pains” of Autism Speaks, an organization that likes to give the appearance that it appeared fully-formed on the autism scene (just as the goddess Athena was born as an adult, clad in armor, from the forehead of her father Zeus; he had swallowed her mother, Metis). They seem to be funding more treatment initiatives that can directly affect the lives of autistic persons and of families. There’s an interesting gap between the Wrights’ desire to be the “biggest” and, too, perhaps, most significant autism organization in the US, and the founders’ own rhetoric. On the one hand it is just rhetoric and words; on the other hand, those words do shapes public perceptions of autism.

• Emily
  Dec 28, 2007 at 9:13 pm

  Regan, your thoughts echo mine to some extent. Our son is who he is and who he always has been. We all go through changes and phases, some of them quite significant, and there are stages and passages and turning points after which we emerge different in some way; autism is no exception, and the changes do not equate to a kidnapping. As you say, there were always auguries of what was coming next for our oldest son, things we only recognized clearly in hindsight. I now see these same things in our third son, age 16 months, and strangely, I’m not that worried, nowhere nearly as concerned as I would have been had I recognized these signs at this age in our first son. Our littlest boy is who he is, and we will do what is necessary to try to ensure that he is happy and healthy as he is, just as we try to do for all three of our sons.

• anon_two
  Dec 28, 2007 at 9:32 pm

  It’s one thing for a mother to have the kinds of feelings as described by Regan and Emily. Suzanne, though, is the grand-mother and yet in her public persona she seems to assume (to.me.) the role of the mother. There’s just something about it that’s always bothered me. It’s as if it’s all about her experience, period.

• Kristina Chew, PhD
  Dec 28, 2007 at 9:32 pm

  Marla, thanks for telling us about that—-I have to say, when I first told Jim that Charlie might have autism, his first response (after silence; this was over the phone and he was in a different city) was “are they going to take him away?”.

  And the image (irrational; these were the early days) that came into my mind was of Charlie (who was around 19 months old) in a little hospital gown, just sitting somewhere, and not our house. That would have indeed felt like kidnapping.

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