Jon E. Mica is a writer and the father of a son who has been diagnosed with autism. He lives in Auburn, New York.

The Autistic Holocaust

The Reason Why Our Children Keep Getting Sick

Trine Day LLC

Contents

My Odyssey Begins

The United States is currently in the midst of an autistic holocaust. One 1 in 68 American children are autistic. If someone had told me two years ago that I would write a book – let alone a book on autism – I would have responded with amusement. Unfortunately, writing this book has largely been devoid of mirth, because my son is autistic.

I should warn the reader that this is not a heartwarming story of a family who discovers that their child has a neurological disorder with the benefit of an early diagnosis. This is also not a story of a close-knit family who overcomes misfortune by sticking together in love. Although this book doesn't have a storyline that would fit comfortably into a Lifetime movie, it has a Hollywood ending of sorts, because over the course of my journey to understand autism I have been reunited with both my father and my son.

My son, Jonny, came into the world on Saturday, August 23rd, 1986. It was sunny summer August morning, and earlier in the day there were no obvious signs that my wife, Carrie, would be entering labor. But the call came in around 9:30 a.m. from Crouse Irving Memorial Hospital in Syracuse, New York. At the time, I was a salesman at a car dealership, and I sped from the dealership to the hospital in about ten minutes. My mind was racing a thousand miles an hour as I drove to the hospital.

Hospital personnel instructed me to change into blue scrubs, and they ushered me into an operating room, where Carrie was being prepped for a Caesarean. Shoulder length brown hair framed her beautiful face that was slightly contorted by fear, and concern emanated from her usually glistening green eyes. She was lying on an operating table directly in front of me – just out of arms reach. A large bluish sheet covered her body from the neck down, and the doctors and nurses encircling Carrie were in the same blue scrubs that I wore, which were color coordinated with the sheet draping my wife. I thought it was a nice touch.

Although the operating room was a staccato whirlwind of activity, every movement unfolded in slow motion to me. My head was light, and my palms were sweating. I could feel adrenaline surging through my limbs. The butterflies in my stomach were beginning to migrate north to the back of my throat, making it hard to swallow. I nervously looked down at my wingtip shoes, admiring the shine from the previous day's polish. A sagacious older man once told me that you can learn a lot about a man by the appearance of his shoes. I don't necessarily know if that's the case, but since then, the appearance of my footwear has been a major concern for me.

By 10:41 a.m., the events of the morning – from my breakfast to the choice of my white and black, diamond speckled Van Heusen tie – were a series of lightening quick montages that flashed though my mind. The constant pressure of work's production quotas were also taking a backseat to the present moment, and I felt an indescribable elation.

At 10:42 a.m., forty pounds of fluid gushed out of Carrie and cascaded onto the operating room's tiled floor, and in the midst of the deluge was my six-pound son. I mustered the strength to walk over to my son. Drawing near him, I was nearly blinded by a glowing radiance that emulated from Carrie as she gently cradled him in her arms.

The look she cast at me that moment is forever etched in my memory. Truthfully, it was the single most sincere look of transparent love I'd ever seen from Carrie. It was so pure, so genuine, and earnestly gracious. Our miracle had arrived, and my attention quickly turned to my son. He appeared to be perfectly normal and healthy. He was a real heartbreaker, with a tuft of brown hair on the top of his precious little crown. My index finger filled his near translucent baby hand. The best moment of my life had come and gone. I was now a father!

Shortly after the miracle of Jonny's birth, the life that Carrie and I had forged for ourselves reverted back to its status quo as Carrie returned to her job. My mother enthusiastically served as a babysitter, and our close friends were more than happy to fill in the necessary vacancies. Our first Christmas as a family was wonderful. Throughout the drive to Carrie's parents, Jonny never cried. In fact, he never cried during his first year of his life, but I never thought it was odd, because I was new to fatherhood.

Our little family had all the hallmarks of a Norman Rockwell painting. Carrie and I ostensibly had a happy marriage, and we treasured our tender newborn. We both logged long hours to support the never-ending need for diapers, food, clothing, etc. As I logged long hours at work, I had the self-deluded perception that the car dealership needed my presence every single minute of every day. My wife and I also started to have frequent rows. At the time, I had no idea that I was falling into the abyss of an undiagnosed bipolar disorder, and my world was on the verge of imploding.

The long hours at work cycled into manic episodes. I would be awake for two or three days, and then sleep for hours due to sheer exhaustion. I distinctly recall coming home early one evening to cover for Carrie, as she was called into work unexpectedly. I was dead tired. After preparing dinner for Jonny and I, we snuggled into bed. It felt great to have his little body next to mine, and we peacefully drifted off to sleep.

My sound reverie was suddenly shattered. I was shaken violently from a deep sleep by Carrie, who returned home early and found Jonny asleep in the living room. As I was sleeping, he had found the energy to navigate his way down the hall and onto the soft comforts of the living room carpet. But not before he had successfully managed to turn on every single burner on the gas stove in the kitchen.

Our marriage had become rife with friction, and that night proved to be the critical mass in the demise of our relationship. I don't blame Carrie in the least for leaving, even though both of us shared culpability in the end of our marriage. Within a year, we were separated by two counties, but enjoying the comforts of a new life and better relationships.

Two years after our divorce was finalized, I remarried to a remarkable woman thirteen years my senior. Linda was equally lovely on the inside and the outside, and she also embraced Jonny into her heart. Carrie remarried too, and she became Jonny's primary care giver. His visitations with Linda and I were on a weekly basis. Although the time we spent with him was blissful, I watched my son incrementally developing in weekend frames over the ensuing years.

At Jonny's birth and throughout his first year, he was administered all his recommended scheduled vaccinations. Unfortunately, at the time, I didn't have an inclination that the vaccinations were possibly a factor in his unusually slow development, social handicaps, and reserved verbal expressions. I resigned myself to the fact that my son was different than other children his age.

Jonny was medium height but very thin. He had sandy blond hair and sparkling blue eyes. He was slower in comprehension and application of skills when compared to his cousins, and his ability to converse was awkward at times and short in duration. He also seemed to be emotionally flat-lined. Despite Jonny's salient social disadvantages, I encouraged him to be more outgoing, more vocal, and more involved in life. We shared in the all the normal past times that are shared by fathers and sons, but we squeezed them into one weekend at a time.

Linda's brother, Jeff, had three children, who Jonny played with whenever he visited. Jeffery, Jr., was approximately Jonny's age, and he was followed chronologically by Scotty and Gabriel. Jeffery was a remarkably astute five-year-old and tall for his age. He had dark brown hair and enthusiastic brown eyes that were magnified by his thick glasses. He had several visible developmental advantages over my own son. Plus, he had no self-reservations, and all of his problem solving and social interaction skills seemed to come natural.

Whenever Jonny and Jeffery were together, it was Jeffery who assumed the role of an older loving and caring brother. And, yes, older brothers often like to play tricks on their younger brothers. Years later Jonny would disclose to me that Jeffery handed him a piece of a "Bazooka Joe-like" substance, passing it off as gum, which, much to Jonny's dismay, turned out to be Silly Putty!

I would probably venture to guess that there were other practical jokes Jeffrey would devise at Jonny's expense, but they had a loving bond. In fact, it was Jonny's only bond with someone his age. Jeffery was both Jonny's teacher and friend. Even at a young age, I believe he was insightful enough to draw the same conclusions about my son's condition, and he was careful not to offend him.

I have no doubts that Jonny enjoyed playing with Jeffery, but, given the choice, the quality time he spent with me took precedent. We enjoyed the hour-long car rides from my place to Carrie's new house in Oswego County. I sang and Jonny would nervously smile and listen, occasionally throwing in the well timed "Ohh-aah, Ohh-aah" to my rendition of Sam Cooke's "Chain Gang." I would sing primarily to dispel the silence, because Jonny was rather taciturn. And we always enjoyed ice cream cones after a round of miniature golf.

The duplex I shared with Linda bordered several acres of undeveloped woodlands and marsh, which doubled as a wildlife sanctuary. Deer, owls, raccoons, and every known species of fowl indigenous to our region of upstate New York were frequent fixtures in our backyard. Jonny enjoyed our home and location as much as we did – especially the towering maple tree in our back yard, which anchored a sturdy, old fashion homemade tire swing. Growing grass never stood a chance in the path of the swing. The time tested dirt path of the swing remains until this day, twenty years after Jonny's last push. In the late fall, the tree provided a mountainous pile of leaves that swallowed Jon and Jeffery as they took turns diving into it. Those two never got cold, so we monitored them through the comforts of the kitchen window.

Although Jonny was extremely reserved, the question of what he wanted for his eighth birthday elicited a wellspring of emotion. His eyes popped wide open and his eyebrows raised, and a deaf person would've easily deciphered his enthusiastic response: "I want Super Mario Brothers!" In 1994, the Super Mario Brothers video game was about $300, which presented a slight financial challenge for me. But not fulfilling his birthday wish wasn't an option. I became a superstar in Jonny's gleaming eyes as he opened his birthday present. I'm severely electronically challenged, so it took an interminable afternoon to hook up Super Mario Brothers. Hours elapsed as Jon watched in hopeful anticipation, clutching his control panel, and I whispered silent expletives. Then, suddenly, I shouted: "Game-on!"

I was quite relieved after the video game was operational, but an unexpected phenomenon quickly unfolded right before my eyes. As Jonny slipped deeper and deeper into the video game, our social interaction was immediately suspended. The game became an obsession instead of a form of entertainment. Linda's brother also had a Super Mario Brothers, and our visits to his house afforded Jonny the opportunity to further hone his skills. Jeffery had no problems mastering the successively more difficult levels of play in short order, but Jonny was stuck on the same level. It was painful to watch. My suspicions of his developmental delay were being confirmed weekend after weekend.

Linda's brother purchased a farm on the outskirts of Syracuse, and it was stocked with horses, goats, chickens, rams, pigs, and sheep. I brought Jonny out to the farm, and Jonny tagged behind Jeffery and I followed in their wake. When we walked by the ad hoc petting zoo, Jonny started repeating the same statement over and over. "Hey, what's that green stuff?"

I always wanted to shield my son from any embarrassment, and I would explain away his deficiencies whenever possible, but I had difficulties covering for him as Jeffery's father started to chide Jonny. Although I was fuming, I didn't want to cause a scene, so I quelled my fury. Jonny's repetitious chant started falling off gradually, and the volume turned down too. After our tour of the ad hoc petting zoo, Jeffery and his dad started to shoot cans off an old wooden fence with a .22 rifle. Jonny requested to shoot the rifle, and I closely supervised him as he shot at a bale of hay. After I drove Jonny back to Carrie's, he told her that he had shot a rifle, and she was livid. In fact, I think if she had had a gun, she would've shot me on the spot.

Carrie's amicability sharply declined after our visit to the farm, and we then had several squabbles over child support, because my undiagnosed bipolar disorder was making me increasingly dysfunctional, and I found it extremely difficult to hold onto jobs and maintain my child support payments, which ignited arguments between Carrie and me.

Carrie took me to court on a few occasions due to my child support arrears. One morning, I showed up to court in response to a court summons. I thought the summons was about child support arrears, but after arriving in court, I discovered Carrie and her attorney were springing adoption proceedings on me. Carrie had primed Jonny to testify that I was less than an optimal father. I looked at the acute discomfort and anguish on Jonny's face, and I made a spur of the moment decision: I didn't want to subject Jonny to testifying, so I acquiesced to the adoption proceedings. The judge said, "This is the most selfless thing I've ever seen anyone do." I truly thought I was acting in my son's best interest, but aside from my mother's death, it was the most emotionally devastating day of my life.

Jonny's adoption proceedings in 1995 officially welcomed him into his new family, and it also marked a turning point in the severity of both of our disorders. My bipolar disorder became progressively pronounced and painful. I was first diagnosed in with bipolar disorder in 1997, during a brief period of institutionalization, and I was institutionalized again in 1999.

Although Linda hung in there with me throughout this difficult period, my reality descended into a lightless abyss of depression as the vestiges of stability vanished from my life. My calls and letters to Jonny received no responses. In 2000, however, when Jonny was fourteen years old, I achieved a modicum of stability and I reconnected with him via emails. I discovered that Jonny had been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, which was one of the five disorders that comprise the "autism spectrum disorder" or ASD. He had been removed from school in the tenth grade, because of his severe emotional and social handicaps. He even attempted suicide and had been institutionalized for a short period of time.

I love my son, and I wouldn't want to change him for all the money in the world – or change anyone for that matter. We all have flaws and imperfections, and we all desperately want to be loved for who we are. We are all blessed in different ways, including our shortcomings. But as I struggled with bipolar disorder, I felt helpless, confused, and partially responsible for my son's condition. Grief and guilt compelled me to roll up my sleeves and educate myself on every aspect of autism. I quickly learned that children whose parents have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder or schizophrenia are at a much greater risk of acquiring autism, which only served to exacerbate my guilt.

My Dad Revisited

I graduated from high school in 1977, and my formal education ceased at that point. My dad, the scientist, on the other hand, is sharp as a tack, and he often boasts that a couple of his patented innovations saved General Electric millions of dollars. Though my dad excels at probability, statistics, and science, he is assuredly lacking in humility. But I certainly admire his accomplishments, both past and present, and without his influence this book wouldn't have been written.

At times, common sense isn't so common to my dad, even though he could probably explain quantum physics to a child. My dad's shirts were invariably equipped with a plastic pocket protector that contained no less than three pens and a slide rule, and activism comes naturally to him. When I was growing up in the township of Clay, New York, we lived near Onondaga Lake, which may have been one of the most polluted lakes in America. Over the years, Allied Chemical had dumped millions of gallons of toxic waste into the lake. The mercury content of the lake was extremely high, and the fish that survived the lake probably retained more mercury than a thermometer. One day, while at the lake, my dad sprung into action. He posted a sign that was filled with expletives, which I won't repeat. It's my first memory of my dad taking a stand.

Dad took great pleasure in assisting me during high school social studies assignments. He would dictate, and I would write. Thanks to dad I always scored a 100 percent, even though, I have to confess, I couldn't understand what the hell he told me to wrote most of the time. Over all, he meant well, and he was a pretty good father, but he also had a dark side. He was the consummate disciplinarian, and the entire family often walked on eggshells in his majestic presence. My sisters and I have a number of very painful memories growing up. A leather belt to the fanny generally wasn't his modus operandi, even though he administered it occasionally. My dad was more inclined to discipline his children with pushups, squat thrusts, and sit-ups.