Car Stories and an Arrest
August 30, 2008 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
Charlie once took the car key and put it in the lock of the front door lock. We park our car outside and, fortunately, we soon noticed the key in the lock and quickly retrieved it, realizing that our car could have been driven away by the next passerby. Charlie’s never (yet) tried to get behind the wheel and given his visual processing difficulties, that wouldn’t be a good thing to occur.
An autistic 16-year-old in Apex, North Carolina, drives his family’s SUV, damaging mailboxes and cars and accidentally striking his father, today’s WNCN-TV reports. And in tomorrow’s New York Times, writer Ann Bauer describes how her 20-year-old autistic son Andrew drove her car 70 miles away to St. Cloud, Minnesota, where it was found “scratched, filthy and out of gas but otherwise undamaged”—and why she decided to have him arrested. At 17, he was misdiagnosed as psychotic, put on medications that made him “crazy,” “slipped into full blown catatonia, and was treated with ECT. After living briefly at home and then at a crisis mental-health center, Andrew went to live in a group home where
He was routinely threatened or roughed up by shop owners from whom he had stolen, but even this didn’t faze him. When the police arrived, he would explain that he was disabled and living in a group home and ask them politely to take him back.
They did, every time. On the way, they would call me, and my husband or I would get out of bed and drive across town to pay the bill.
We had meetings, interventions. Each time we lectured him, Andrew would nod gravely, apologize, then go out and steal again.
One night at the group home, Andrew turned to me and said, “I’m not sure I’m autistic anymore.”
“What are you?” I asked.
“I think” — he paused for a long time — “I’m just a thief.”
Five hours later, he stole my car.
Arresting one’s child seems a pretty extreme measure but its ending is not without a little hope, that bit of light that keeps one going. Bauer meets Andrew—in orange scrubs—-in a courtroom where a judge addresses him as “Mr. Bauer” and asks him to explain what occurred. Writes his mother:
“Mr. Bauer,” I thought, strangely pleased. In his deliberate, troubled way, my son had done it: he had found his way to adulthood. And although I didn’t know it then, he would find his way through this, too. But he needed to go through it, not back, and not around. Maybe that’s what he knew better than any of us.
“You Need to Take My Son to Jail” appears in a column entitled “Modern Love” or rather, tough love in rough times.
When my son was five, my wife and I had just given him a bath and dried him off. When finished, we hung the towell on the rack and were preparing to take him to his room where we would get him dressed.
We heard him say, “Mom, I want bean.”
It was incongruous. My wife and I looked at each other trying to puzzle out what he meant. Frustrated, David repeated, “I want bean!”
Finally, I noticed that the towel was an LL Bean towel. In the dry air, David was feeling cold and wanted something to wrap himself with. Sometimes David would say things in ways that were baffling to us.
I wonder if this is something similar.
Now THAT is tough love…wowsies
I have read this over and over and still don’t know what I think, because this was not my first-hand experience.
The narrative is Ms. Bauer’s as Andrew’s parent.
I wonder what is Andrew’s?
It’s that statement, “I guess I’m just a thief” that seems so loaded.
Is there a follow-up on this story? A second part? Depending on the judgement, sentence and what happens afterwards–in my experience, going to jail or having a conviction record may be a hopeful light…or not.
To get the quotation exactly correct,
“I think” — he paused for a long time — “I’m just a thief.”
@Ed, wow—sounds like your son has his eyes open in upexpected ways.
@FXSmom and Regan,
Bauer has written a number of articles about her son recently, all indicating her anxiety and worries about how to help him as he’s grown older and had (it sounds like?) perhaps more difficulties than he did while younger. (Here is one on Andrew’s struggles to find work.) Somehow I wasn’t entirely surprised to read this latest story given her harrowing accounts of the other things that Andrew and she herself has been through—-and I’d really like to know about how he managed in jail, if she might be writing about that?
My 28 yr old son who has Asperger’s survived 14 months of prison but it wasn’t easy for him. We are now waiting to see if he goes back because in the judge’s infinite wisdom sentenced him to 3.120 hours of community service, which he had problems with. Is anyone surprised… “they misinterpret social interactions”, have marked deficiencies in social and communication skills”. With the proper support I truly believe Michael can be an asset but he needs help learning how to deal in this confusing world ( he wasn’t diagnosed until he was 17 which means he has a lot of catching up to do.) kbe50@yahoo.com