Books |
Saving Ben: A Father’s Story of Autism
Dan E. Burns
By
Published: Aug 19, 2009
Category:
Memoir
At 5, Ben was still wearing diapers and masturbating like mad.
At 21, he functions.
Oh, yeah, he got saved.
This was not a scenario anyone would have predicted when Ben was first diagnosed as autistic. “Take him home, love him, and save your money for his institutionalization when he turns twenty-one,” a doctor told Dan and Susan Burns.
Who saved Ben? Mostly his father. Who, as it happens, is gay. Whose wife, re-connecting with childhood sexual abuse by her father, had two breakdown along the way, and — how’s this for nuts? — had Burns arrested for molesting their son. (The boy had seen his father nude. In Texas, this passes for a crime.)
There are memoirs that parcel out bits and bobs of the truth, and then there is Saving Ben, which spares you nothing. At 15, Dan realized he was gay. Dad’s advice: “You just need to meet the right girl.” So Dan gave a party, hoping girls would come. Susan showed up. She kissed him. A few years later, although Dan was still sleeping with men, she married him.
Two kids followed. Then Ben. He was such a screamer that, two days after he was born, Dan said, “Do you think the hospital would take him back?”
Crying. Diaper rash. Kicking. Vomiting. Ben’s hospital record? In 3 years, 173 visits.
Dan smashed plates. Kicked a hole in a wall. “I cannot raise this child and build a business,” he concluded. He loaded Ben in the car and drove to a cliff overlooking a lake. And thought, “I could just drive in.”
Backward rolled Ben’s development. Now he couldn’t feed himself. Attention span dwindling. Language skills eroding. Only temper tantrums were on the upswing.
What would you do? I’d crack and play triage — I fear I’d sacrifice the kid to save myself. Not Dan Burns. He is infuriated that no experts talk about a cure for autism. And he sets out to find one.
Exposure to artificial sunlight yields modest progress. Nutrients make more of a difference — in a week, Ben is potty-trained. But after 24 years of marriage, Susan and Dan unravel. And because they cannot agree on a protocol for Ben, he does too — at 5, he needs to go to a psychiatric hospital to be “stabilized”.
When it rains, it pours. Now come divorce. Bankruptcy. Eviction. But Dan presses on — and a new protocol has Ben potty-trained in just 12 hours. Elated, Dan invents a full-court-press family intervention: the Benjamin Project. Given Sue’s breakdown and other factors, how far do you think it gets?
Then Dan — but I don’t want to spoil the book for readers who have the guts to live these years alongside Ben, Dan and Sue. And I don’t want to share what they learned. (There are many parents who believe that what “caused” Ben’s autism also damned their kids to autism. I’m dubious.)
But the happy outcome is not the only reason to read this book. Dan E. Burns is a rare writer, as talented as he is honest. No one seems to be spared in these taut, 154 pages — this is life in the raw.
Heroes? Burns doesn’t grab the credit. But really, if you’d have to honor a guy who climbed Everest or a father who carried his son up his personal mountain, it would be Burns every time.
Feeing tired or uninspired? Here’s your book.
To buy “Saving Ben” from Amazon.com, click here.
