Finding Ben
A Mother's Journey Through the Maze of Asperger's
by Barbara Lasalle, 2003 Benjamin Levinson spoke early, walked late. He spoke about his books (he read early too) and about streets and trains. His mother's friends wished their babies were more like him. They wished their babies sat still and learned to read from watching Sesame Street. But as their children grew older, they saw Ben as worse and not better. He couldn't draw an approximate line, not even with a straight edge. He couldn't draw. He made no friends. Sports were way too hard to interest him. Neither of his parents wanted him. Sent to boarding school for a year, he lost 40 pounds in a month. After misdiagnoses galore, group homes, mental institutions, and extreme obesity, Ben and his mother finally were told that Ben is autistic. It was, said Ben, the happiest day of his life. It paved the road for his mother's eventual acceptance of her son.
This book was painful for me. Towards the book's end, Ben's story contains quite a bit of luck, but first it contains some of the most awful things that could happen to an autist. Reading this book makes me feel very lucky that Ben's story is not my story. It is a testimony to the power of knowing that people are different, and of the good that comes of accepting it.
This story makes some attempt to be Ben's as well as his mother's, but it remains mostly his mother's anyhow. According to the book, Ben had a website in which he wrote about himself, but I cannot find it.
Serious reading.
: 10:42 PM
