TURNING POINTE AUTISM FOUNDATION: COMING OUT

I recently unearthed a DVD video (yes, I said DVD which now seems so ancient) of “Jack’s Journey.” It is a video montage set to the song “Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls. The video and the song stirred up many old memories and feelings of our son Jack’s most difficult time in life and his “coming out” on the other side. It is extremely hard to watch and relive what he went through, so I don’t view it often. When I do watch it, I am reminded of how far he’s come and how fortunate we are, and of course of the hope and love we always carried with us.

The video shows his time struggling with self-injurious behavior, aggression, and eventually catatonia due to being over-medicated. At the time not much was known about treating autism, and some doctors just wanted to add medication after medication to combat behavior. As it turns out, the medication was only making things worse. Now we know that behavior is communication, which seems so basic, but when you’re in the eye of the storm you can’t see what’s right in front of you and he surely couldn’t verbalize what he was going through or who he was as an individual.