In our story, the individual with Aspergers has been mismanaged from an early age by parents who rather than institutionalize him, or lock him up in the attic, kept him in the home, in the family. The results often devastating, his tantrums were unintentionally reinforced. When physical violence erupted, instead of taking strong measures to extinguish the behavior, they gave into his unreasonable, often impossible demands. Aspergers individuals will feel their own psychic pain and often self-medicate with various behaviors, drugs, and or alcohol. For our story's principal character, gambling became another addiction. On the plus side of the condition, Aspergers persons often have at least one remarkable ability, such as being able to perform at a high level on an instrument with little or no training. In our story the character has a genius level of ability with any-thing to do with numbers. As a successful car salesman he had all the relevant numbers connected to a sale, such as the original list price, the financing charges, margins, all at the tip of a remarkable mind and therefore able to recite them to customers without having to reference any printed or computerized information. In this story, our character is based on a real person with Aspergers. Over many years of man-aging his life, providing them with unconditional love, modeling the attitudes and behaviors they hoped to someday see in them, slowly but surely a radical transformation began taking place. Eventually displays of understanding and empathy began to emerge. In time joy began to replace the chronic negativity and depression, giving way to efforts to give back to those who had stood by them with acts of kindness and gifts. As you take on such a task, never underestimate the...Power of Love.
For Ana, it felt like a switch had been turned on inside her. She could sense freedom, imagine possibilities she hadn't thought possible. She wants to leave her caregivers, and when she does, she wants to take Evan with her. In fact, she must take Evan, because he is the only one who can show her the way to The Place - the only place she can recall ever feeling completely happy.
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In a world that bleeds with environmental disasters, genetic mutations become more common - some genes get lost and other, silent genes get turned on. Nature offers infinite possibilities to ensure life continues through genetic codes that struggle to survive, unheard and often unnoticed. It is a battle where dominant, aggressive genes best suited to the environment will succeed.
Both Ana and Evan have been labelled with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) - a genetic disorder, affected by the environment. It is a world wide condition, knowing no boundaries and increasing rapidly. Since disabilities such as ASD are triggered by our changing environment, and since these disabilities are rapidly changing and increasing in frequency, it is entirely possible that the ideal "disability" could give some humans an evolutionary advantage over other humans.
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Imagine having a disability so severe you need 24 hour care. Imagine wanting to leave your home and caregivers to live in the one place you feel at peace. Imagine discovering you have abilities far beyond the norm. Imagine finding other people with similar abilities and disabilities, willing to risk everything to follow you.
Imagine freedom. Ana did.