Beyond the Ieop and Me: The Life, Death and Aftermath of an Autistic or Mentally Challenged Individual

By Terri Moore

This is an exquisite perspective on living with and life with a mentally challenged individual. She posts details of the mind of John Clarence Moore, who was born with mental challenges. His mind-set is light and slanted yet correct in his own way. Clarence brings humility, love, character balance to a family. The writer explains in various perspectives many viewpoints while telling one story. There are graphics of his death and coroners report. Clarences life hereafter is compelling and exciting with traumatic conclusions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Apr 6, 2015
• ISBN: 9781496971715

Terri Moore

Terri Moore received her bachelor of education degree from Cleveland State University and next obtained choreographic experience from the Ohio State University, attending the Master of Fine Arts Program and moving on to completion of her MBA at Baldwin Wallace College in Berea, Ohio. Moore experienced teaching in middle school and high school, being promoted as she completed her superintendency with Ashland University. Her home life and professional life were surrounded with helping develop individuals using their “personal best”. Still Moore continues to add young people life experiences to perpetuate enhancement in their lives as she and her husband work fostering and building character as they build future responsible individuals.

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2015 Terri Moore. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 03/13/2015

ISBN: 978-1-4969-7170-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-7171-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015903053

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Preface

Autism

Eating

Clarence Goes To College

The Doctor’s Viewpoint

Disconnected

INTRODUCTION (directly from interview with Clarence)

How I was born

Growing up (from Clarence’s Perspective)

Clarence’s Family Interactions

Least restricted environment

Clarence Habits

Clarence’s Kitchen Boundaries

Clarence’s Distorted Views

Clarence Loved Shoes

Clarence’s Fascination with Feet

Clarence’s Daily Routines

Clarence’s Habits

Clarence helping with camping

Dad had to find something for Clarence to do

How Clarence went to Cleveland

Mental medicine

Clarence’s Rapport with Children

Discussions with Clarence

The Autopsy of Clarence

Further Internal Examination in the Autopsy

Other Autopsy Evidence

Clarence’s (CLARENCE) Journals

Obituary

Acknowledgements:

Clarence’s Sister’s Demise

Missed

Appendixes

References

PREFACE

Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Matthew 7:16

This scripture is an awesome meditation. If you think about the fleshy side of it, you wonder how human’s which are of the mammal nature can produce fruit, which is of a plant nature. Essentially this philosophical question is referring to deeds and actions. What actions or deeds or end results are reaped from someone’s actions? This is astounding when it comes to someone who has a mental disorder. Superficially, someone who suffers from mental disease as does my brother, Clarence, the subject of this book. While someone who didn’t know him, you could see trends of people falling in love and actually adoring him for his innocence, patience, kindness and child-like behavior.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was God. He was with God in the beginning (John 1:1). And we know that God loved us first. Before we knew right from wrong, when we were conceived in our mother’s womb. God sacrificed for us. And as time went on through his loving kindness, God made all types of creatures big and small with no mistakes. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." (John 1:14) So we know that God does not make mistakes. And when God creates a mind that does not think like everybody else’s, He knows what He is doing. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered (Matthew 10:30).

The point is this, how can we question when God sends us someone who thinks and acts so differently? This is a joy to behold, an experience to embrace and extend to others for their satisfaction and enjoyment. This is what this story is all about.

I Know, He’s my Brother

Autism is one category of a mental handicap that has been more and more recognized in recent years. And although the symptoms and diagnoses have changed, God in His loving kindness appropriated scholars to delve into these alternate mind waves. Some have identified autism as being a response from having immunizations. Others have mistaken autism for other mental disorders including FAS (Fetal Alcohol Syndrome) and Mental Retardation. This story is centered on a boy who never grew old. Like Peter Pan he never grew up only reports initially said that he was mentally challenged, but the most recent tally said he was Autistic. Before getting into the situation around having a mental disability we have broken the major handicap into three similar photo-type categories - Mental Retardation, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS), or Autism. These three have been chosen to delve into because the individuals that suffer from these may from one time to the next be considered to have the other.

Mental Retardation

Although originally meaning the mental ability of an individual mental retardation has evolved to become a derogatory slang word when used publicly. There have been medias that discourage the use of retardation. Stop the r word campaigns have been launched to further dissuade the use of the word retardation. The Special Olympics has been one advocate that promotes ending the use of retardation. Yet, the pen of the physician continues the enchanted quest of the daunting mental condition.

Investigating the handicap known as mental retardation has found that it is an overall condition that appears before adult development of a human. Several shortcomings are noted in the individual usually surrounding their adaptive behaviors and their cognitive behaviors. Adaptive behaviors refer to how easily the individual becomes accustomed to, or adjusted to an activity. For example, it might take one person one or two tries at brushing their teeth while others may take one or two years. Given the same amount of attempts and whether the end result is accomplished determines the level of retardation. With an individual that exhibits a mental handicap, this process may never be learned. As my husband mostly says about Clarence, he can never do the same thing twice. Primarily referring to small tasks around the house such as taking a stack of hangers to the huge slick black leather chair, or removing trash from the kitchen, the same task can be done a multitude of ways. Although Clarence was taught to do things in a certain manner (living with his brother Maurice for 20 years or so) the same manner was not achieved. This would be the definition of whether or not Clarence achieved adaptive behaviors.

The second category that helps in diagnosing mental retardation is cognition. Cognition and how one responds to a stimulus is basically the way the term is referred. Another way to look at cognition is the discovery of how to do something independently and without being taught. If you think about acquiring new knowledge about how to drive to a person’s house or what ingredients to put into a chocolate cake to make it more moist, for example, you would have to be persistence as far as trying different techniques. In making a cake moister, you might lessen the cook time, or use more oil, or even use less baking powder. You could perhaps use a combination of the three. You might write down in your notebook and then refer to it later measuring the success of how moist it was. You might use canola oil one day and olive oil the next all the while taking mental or written notes. This is precisely the factor that lacking cognition indicates. The idea of being able to alter or change your performance based on the discovery that one ingredient improves the outcome. This is what we are referring to when we say that someone with mental retardation may not be able to do.

In terms of directions as it relates to cognition, one day I was in Chicago, I had on my GPS and each time I tried to make a turn in conjunction with GPS instructions, my GPS said, recalculating. When the GPS says recalculating, it usually indicates that the turn was not achieved. And, as a point of interest although the voice on my GPS has no emotion, the more frustrated you get it seems like the voice on the GPS is getting angrier and angrier. Somehow on this specific day, I managed to get on the same street each time winding back up on the same starting place over and over again. Realizing after about the third or fourth time, I decided that I had to do something different. My cognition told me from my experience of winding up in the same lane on the same street three or four times that I had to do something different. So what I did was, decided to punch the accelerator when turning right to end up in the farthest left lane of the next street and therefore surpass the street that I kept ending up on. Although this idea worked a little differently than I thought that it would, I did have a successful (as far as directions are concerned) outcome. The very next time I ended up making a right turn in the very same place I decided (cognition) to do something different. So when the light turned green, as it had several times before I gunned the engine. There was a minor complication however; the car in front of me paused. This relay of events caused me to rear end her damaging my husband’s toy BMW Z4. Not to mention my being shaken up so much that I couldn’t even get the insurance information across properly. But it all turned out well because I guess when people saw me coming with the newly corroded hole in the front of my husband’s, extra expensive, lifelong worked for luxury vehicle, instead of cutting me off, they got out of the way. When people saw me coming with the wide opened corroded and battered looking vehicle they did what I would have done, moved to the side. Well, the whole point is that my change in cognition helped me to change the path that I was on. The end result of this cognitive adjustment gave me a different result than I had been getting. I finally was able to get far enough over in the lane to follow the GPS voice.

Well, Clarence didn’t have his cognition learning mechanism, he could not figure out what to do to improve the outcome of a certain act. Therefore, he could not surpass getting over the hump and would continually make the same mistakes over and over and over no matter if it was three times or three thousand times. The mere thought of the frustration and dissonance that he must have experienced on a daily basis is unbearable. You cannot possibly imagine (if you in fact are reading this book) how many times he must have attempted to perform various and sundry tasks. And later, you will see in his journaling where he mentioned that he did something 900 times. I have no way of knowing whether or not he did make this many attempts, but I can tell you that his thinking was possibly so cloudy that the number actually performed will always remain a secret. Doctors told us at one time that he was at an age of five years old, he still surpassed this level as far as reading and writing was concerned. One time, he designed a T shaped object to walk our dog Zeke. Zeke was difficult to walk; strong and robust he yanked, pulled and savagely forged his way. I believe he was an alpha dog, pulling everything along as if he was a strong mule. I saw a T shaped object attached with duct tape and wire to the end of a chain linked leash. It looked fairly elaborate. After 10 or 20 times passing by the strange and unique object, while assuming that Maurice, Clarence’s caretaker had make if , I finally cornered the T-shaped leash and Maurice simultaneously. It was in the very same corner of the garage that I asked Maurice, Did you make that device for Clarence and Zeke (the dog)? He looked astonished as he replied, Absolutely not! I was wondering about that leach myself, he said. And Clarence designed a T shaped object. I’m guessing it was for which Zeke who would pull Clarence up and down the street or wherever he walked the dog. A friend once told me that the dog probably thought, Time to walk the human.

Some signs and symptoms of retardation include but are not limited to being delayed in oral language skills, having deficits in memory, having difficulty with social rules and basic problem care for him or herself. Someone who is mentally challenged could also lack social inhibitors and exceed boundaries leaving you thinking, He sure is crazy, and little did you know he, by nature, could not help himself. Other problems with mental retardation are the ability to care for him or her. Someone who consistently is unable to bath, wash up and care for themselves, their personal space or their personal environment. You might think that they are purposefully being unkempt in appearance, but with someone who is mentally challenged, this is a part of the condition. Evidence shows us that Clarence had a yes, on all parts of this investigation. But he did have a side to him that only autism shows. He had an advanced aptitude with numbers and birth dates.

The internet (Far flex medical dictionary) states that mental retardation is a subtype of intellectual disability, although that term is now preferred by most advocates in most English-Speaking countries as a euphemism for MR. However, intellectual disabilities is a broader concept, and includes intellectual deficits that are too mild to properly qualify as mental retardation. Some of these mental disabilities can be acquired in life through injuries or neurodegenerative diseases like dementia. Intellectual disabilities can occur at any age. Be that as it may, whether or not Clarence was mentally challenged, suffered from FAS or autistic the end result is the same.

Asperger’s Syndrome

Asperger’s Syndrome or AS is a mild form of autism, recognized as a mental health concern that sometimes requires treatment. This autistic form is diagnosed during childhood and the symptoms include social sequestration, separation, and somewhat a peculiar behavior in the child. Different than autism, Asperger’s Syndrome has fewer symptoms. While persons with the disorder are aware of the presence of others, they still isolate themselves while staying tuned into what others are doing. We can see this with Clarence because he often left the room but would turn off the lights and television or radio to hear and be aware of what others were doing. As a person with Asperger’s syndrome, they often make reference to wanting to have friends but their approach is not conventional and they then find themselves alone. They also have odd facial expressions and body language that they use at inappropriate times. Some have been seen to have twitching, or repetitious movement of their hands in order to detract from their feelings. I can hear Maurice’s saying now that Clarence was making gang signs while he was talking. Of course he meant this in gest. But in looking at this closer, truly this could have been a sign that Clarence too had Asperger’s Syndrome.

Notes that I received from Margarita Tartakowdly, M.S. specify that the primary problem with Asperger’s Communication with others included:

1. They lack the rigid inflection and intonation that others have with communicating. Their language is usually in a monotone voice. Sometimes they talk too loud or too formally. The nuances of language and sarcastic remarks.

2. Often they go into tangents that are not related to the topic and it seems like they are not coherent. They lack the ability to provide background information on their topic even though they may have just completed the task.

3. They usually disregard if the topic is interesting to the person that is listening or not. They usually run on about their favorite topic. I remember asking Clarence when he was born one time and he would rattle on and on about when everybody that he knew was born. Although he used the topic of being born as being arrived he seemed to know everybody’s birthdate. It was probably from his uncanny ability to go into the next room and listen with the lights and TV off.

People with Asperger’s syndrome have rigid routines and do not like change. You will see as we investigate Clarence’s journals that anytime something did not occur as it did routinely that he became angry with the change, blaming the person who did not follow through as usual.

Individuals with Asperger’s Syndrome show a delay in motor skills. Clarence was given ballet lessons as a boy. The teacher sent him home with a note stating that they were wasting their money paying for lessons for him. When he took Clarinet lessons, he came home from school one day and the clarinet had been taken by some vandals who stole it from him, beat him up and knocked a couple teeth out of his mouth. This not the end to Clarence’s delay in physical activities but I used to make Clarence work out routinely. Some of the things he did was walking the treadmill or park line, lifting weights, raking leaves and much more that I put into Clarence’s physical activities each week. The one thing that stands out in my mind is when I tried to get him to do sit ups. A simple lying down on the floor on your back was fine. But when I tried to get him to just plain sit up, it was impossible. He would do all kinds of rolling onto his side and then scooting up in some odd way. One day instead of the treadmill or walking outside I tried to get him to ride the stationary bike. He got on the bike and behaved as if he didn’t know what to do. He put one foot on the pedals and the other foot on the wheel, it was ever so awkward. I had eliminat3ed the bike from his workout plan for a number of years until one