Letters to the Editor
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Great Article
I was impressed with the quality of the writing and the insight shown by Ann Bauer. I was a kid who once prayed to God to find my gun and holster set. I looked up after my prayer and they were in the branches of the tree above my head. At least this is what my mother told me. This made me believe in the power of prayer so I prayed for other things and they were answered. Many were not. I've come to believe over the years that God doesn't take much part in our lives unless we ask. I believe Andrew did hear God because God never speaks to the wise and the powerful but to the humble and powerless. I have a friend whose parents never sent him to school. He can read some, but can't write at all. He used to use drugs and drink heavily. He almost killed himself in an auto accident. I met him at church and often marvel at the wisdom he has. He's never claimed that God has spoken to him, but he shows evidence that God has taken him under his wing and brought people like me into his life. I have a Master's Degree and he, not even an elementary school education. God does work in strange ways doesn't he.
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A Nice Change
To see an article in salon that talked about God respectfully and less like those that pit the science of man against Him. Historically, those who claim to have any communion with God, outside of a strictly controlled church environment are persecuted. I belong to a church that encourages personal relationships with God. My church is often persecuted. I hope you are able to seek God without such negative experiences. I have a son with aspergers syndrome. He benefits from the peace that comes with rituals designed to bring one closer to God. Those rituals include reading the scriptures, going to church (very helpful for socialization), and praying. The principles my church teaches about taking good care of your body helps my son stay away from drugs (unless medically nessassary of course) and getting plenty of exercize. He is a varsity distance runner. He also enjoys the music. He plays the saxaphone in the band at school and sings in chior at church. I feel that church and God has played an important part in his habilitation.
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@esharenov
If his condition is, in fact, "hell and gone from autism now", do you really think it's a coincidence that you can trace that break directly to the point when she took him to medical professionals who immediately stuffed him full of drugs so he could become "normal"?
Maybe if Ms. Bauer had been able to find someone who wanted to help (because what he needed was help) him instead of treat him (which assumes that different and ill are the same thing) his teenage years would have been better. Instead, he's had to spend years recovering from what the shrinks did to him.
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"The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom."
"You believe in God? You do well. The devil also believes and trembles."
Forgot the biblical addresses, but these thoughts came to mind.
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@esharenov
As a parent who had to self diagnose her sons Asperger Syndrome when he was 18 months old, because the early intervention "Dr." said there was no way he was autistic (he didn't bang his head against the wall), I will be quick to tell you and all Salon readers that quite a few doctors are stumped by this syndrome and aren't enlightened enough to do anything but damage for a patient and their families. I finally recieved the diagnosis in a world class medical center with doctors who specialize in PDD. I was fortunate that my sons case was a mild one, but that never made it easy. I've had to force my son to do many things like: wear shorts in the summer, and sweat pants in the winter, not jump in the pool in November, not bite his brothers, not run into the street or walk into the ocean over his head. Those were pitched battles sometimes. I never had to force religeon on my son. He is free to pray or not, read scriptures or not, go to church or not. I would not fight physically to enforce those behaviors like I did to put his clothes on him when he was 2.
No one was forcing God on this child, as the article plainly attests. If anything, belief in God was discouraged. This leaves me wondering how an educated professional such as you profess to be could read this article and come to such a conclusion. If you pay as much attention to your patients as you did to this article, God help them!
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Voices in the head?
I had a friend from graduate school who was convinced that the CIA had special plans for him and was communicating to him through his TV and that lesbian vampires were stalking him for blood. Who's to say he wasn't right? The "medicos" put him on special "drugs" and he got fat and lazy and messy but the voices stopped. Then one day he says to me, "Those voices and experiences were as real as my talking to you right now." I realized then that my whole life might be a figment of some "crazy" person's imagination. Could g-d be a CIA operative or a lesbian vampire? Anything is possible if you believe!
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@shari
shari wrote:I had a lot of conflicting thoughts after reading this piece. One was immense compassion and sympathy for the writer and her son. Another was some annoyance at the need of parents with children who have disabilities to elevate their children above others by comparing them to geniuses (which is a form of denial about their child's problem).
Shari does not understand Autism. She doesn't understand what a savant is, or that many autistic individuals have scattered abilities that range from below average to well above average or even genius. This is one of the tradgedies of autism: It is rarely, if ever understood except by those who have intimate experience with it. If you are responsible for the care of someone with autism, you can not trust the opinion of anyone who does not have extensive experience with the disorder. For a peek at this strange disparity between abilities in the autisic person, watch the movie Rain Man. Duston Hoffman did a wonderful job with this subject. Keep in mind that while autism is diagnosed by identifying common behaviors and abilities, no autistic person has all of the same behaviors and abilities. Autistic behaviors and abilities fall into broad catagories but are individually unique. You have to really know and understand the disorder to recognize them. Then you see that there are a lot of people out there who probably have it, that are high functioning and considered a little eccentric. When my son was overly stressed out in middle school, I took him to an excellent child phsycologist who informed me that MIT is full of people like this. Some children with disabilities are geniuses.