A Journey with Autism: Pain and Love

By Eric Hinton

This book is intended to assist and inform people interested in autism. After reading this text, the author hopes your perspective views on autism and interactions with autistic individuals improve and your comprehension of the constant battle with autism increases.

• Language: English
• Publisher: EV Publishing
• Release date: Apr 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9780578288901

Book preview

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Chapter 1

My Early Years

Hi, my name is Eric, and I hope this book touches anyone who is a relative or a friend of an autistic individual. This book is intended to assist and inform people interested in autism. After reading this text, I hope your perspective views of autism and interactions with autistic individuals improve and your comprehension of the constant battle with autism increases.

This text may or may not be a feel-good book that will be up to you, the reader.

I grew up in a lower-middle-class family with very kind and loving parents. They were always there to encourage and give love and support. My father was an enlisted military man, and I spent my early life growing up on multiple military bases. At this particular period in my life, I developed my routine regimented personality. As a young boy, my parents taught me numerous life principles. One saying my father used to always say that has resonated with me throughout the years was everything has a place and needs to be in it. Sayings like the recently mentioned one have vastly improved my life, and I thank God every day for being fortunate enough to have parents that consistently displayed this type of knowledge and wisdom to their children. As I grew each year, I realized how much I looked up to my father and his work discipline, kindness, and ability to do whatever it took to provide for my mom, myself, and older brother.

Overall my family was pretty typical and average. My brother and I were blessed with considerable parental guidance and family love. Everyone in my household knew their expected roles and executed them to perfection. Even though we wanted to take extravagant vacations, we did not, mainly because money always seemed to be a little tight, but looking back, it sure felt as if we all had more than enough. My early childhood was primarily spent in Florida on the gulf. The gulf was captivating, and the blue skies were exceptional. My days were typical, as you could imagine as a young child. All I wanted to do was play imaginary army/ football and collect GI Joe figures imagining the figures I had in my hand were getting ready for battle. To this day, I still have those action figures. If there were ever nerd alert, this would have to be one. I developed a fascination for collecting various objects such as shells, football cards, and coins. These habits have sustained me even throughout my adult life. My brother was the complete opposite. He was one of those kids that always obtained scrapes and bruises. He also loved blowing up stuff with firecrackers; he thought the sight of objects blowing up was incredible. There was one time when my brother wanted to blow up one of my GI Joes, and even though I was initially hesitant, he convinced me that I would look cool if it had a disfigured leg or parts of its chest blown open to simulate wounds a solider would obtain in battle. I timidly agreed since he was so much bigger than me. After it was over, I thought how stupid the idea was. It was a total disaster, and to this day, we joke about how stupid that act was. I still reminisce about those carefree memories; we were so innocent and unconcerned. I always find it fascinating what may trigger those memories to enter my mind. Those days and memories, I hope, are abundant for everyone. Of course, I realize many were not as fortunate as I, especially not having two loving parents around to complete the family. I wish we all could do something to help prevent these situations.

Looking back, my mother always seemed to be more protective of me than my brother. The recently mentioned statement may not be accurate, but that is how I perceived those childhood situations. I did not participate in little league baseball or football somehow; it always seemed inconvenient. Ironically, as I grew into my teens, I developed a deep interest in some sports, but mainly I stuck to books and collections of some type.

My father would take my brother and me hunting and fishing sometimes, not often, just enough to get a good taste of it. I enjoyed the fishing much more as it always seemed more interesting to me what I may pull out of the water than what I knew I was aiming at. Those experiences were fun, but I soon realized I was drawn to the more nerdy things like coin collecting. Looking back, I realized I must have been one of the first coin roll hunters as a kid. This is where a person buys rolls of coins from a bank and searches to pick anything of value, or should I say anything more than face value. My dad was always willing to help, and he would bring me maybe twenty to twenty-five dollars each week to search, and I would change the dollar bills into coins, which consisted of pennies, dimes, nickels, quarters, and my favorite halves. Eventually, my dad stopped, bringing me twenty to twenty-five dollars every week because it turned out I was saving most of the change. Because of my family's financial situation, we could not afford it. This was the mid-1960's, and I found plenty of silver to keep. I kept telling Dad; this is a great idea; let us buy more and save them! He said, I appreciate you trying to make money, and it is a great idea, but the problem is, for some crazy reason, your mom and brother like to eat three times a day. I was saving much more than the family could afford. I realized his point. Even though I disagreed, I laughed at my father's sarcastic humor. Those were great, fun, easygoing times.

I guess I was a good student, quiet, never wanting to be out front, and never pulling up to the rear. My teachers all seem to like me, but I remember many report cards with teacher notes and suggestions explaining how I was a good student, well-behaved, needed to