Week 14 of Serialization of Where Does My Autistic Son Belong?

In 2019, I published Where Does My Autistic Son Belong?. It chronicles my struggle with raising my adolescent autistic son, Sebastien, and my subsequent decision of setting a home for him in Bali. As part and parcel of A Mother’s Wish initiative (amotherswish.com.sg) to raise awareness about the need to treat autistic individuals with genuine respect and empathy, I am serializing the book on Medium (please see the links below for all the serialized chapters to date, including Chapter 14).

CHAPTER 14 THE AUTISM UNIVERSE IN THE SPOTLIGHT

(May— June 2016)

One day, a rare opportunity came for Sebastien and A Mother’s Wish, which thrust my pursuit of the overseas solution to the back of my mind. A Mother’s Wish had been invited to showcase Sebastien’s paintings and our work, in tandem with a production about a family struggling with autism by Pangdemonium, a Singaporean theatre company. Written by Deanna Jent, the mother of an autistic child, Falling is a gripping and realistic portrayal of the stress borne by a family living with a largely non-verbal autistic teenager. As he was constantly teetering on the brink of a meltdown due to his sensory sensitivities, the family members, particularly the self-sacrificing mother who bore the brunt of his care and attacks, were perpetually on edge in their endeavour to avert the meltdowns.

To say that this play hit a little too close to home for me was an understatement...