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Just so incredibly sad. I used to live beside a woman who had two sons with severe autism. They were both non-verbal but made lots of loud moaning and grunting sounds that alarmed some people because they were normal sized men. They were unable to dress themselves without help or even go outside without someone leading them around. These two sons were in their late 30s, at the time.
My neighbour had 3 other kids, all older. One lived in New Zealand, and the other two lived far enough away that she needed help with them. Everyday they went to a rehabilitation place that basically just let them do their thing, painting, making stuff, etc. They came home everyday after 'school' and had to be led up the stairs to the walk that led to their home.
Once, when the mom and I were talking in the garden she told me that the youngest who was about 37 at that time, had fallen out of the second floor window on the stair landing when he was about 12. He'd lain there for a couple of hours with a compound fracture of his arm but didn't make a sound. She still wept about that even all those years later.
So as it turned out, she ended up being diagnosed with dementia and her other kids swooped in to have her put in a care facility. I really believe they thought they were doing their mom a favour giving her respite from looking after her severely disabled children all those years but I think it must have destroyed her. Like many with dementia she was lucid at times and her two boys were always on her mind. Her kids ended up sending both boys to an assisted living facility in a completely different town and she never got to see them again, as far as I know. It was heartbreaking. She died about one year later at the age of 86.
I have no idea how those young men fared after such a tumultuous change in the lives. They'd be in their mid to late 40s now.
