Thread: I’m going to put a trigger warning on this for attempted suicide, but is good news. A couple days ago, I announced to Twitter what had been told to me: that someone I cared about profoundly had died from suicide. He was an autistic 22-year-old.
That was what the family was told. He had tried to save someone from an abusive situation, but it resulted in him being shunned and scolded and written off as a troublemaker. But what he did was brave and heroic, which I’d been saying daily. I was afraid this would happen.
But, and my details are incomplete right now, he is ALIVE. What happened (I think. Will confirm) was he was on a ventilator for his family to say goodbye, but he continued to breathe when they took him off the vent. He was triaged for 18 hours, & finally his vitals stabilized.
But he was in a coma, and it was inconclusive if he would be able to survive or if he would have pervasive brain damage. This morning, he came out of the coma and was just able to send a text to my childcare worker. He is glad he is alive.
The events that preceded his attempt are going to be extremely familiar to autistic people. We break the status quo and make waves when it’s the right thing to do, and breaking the status quo is dangerous. It almost always means that we will experience scorn and shunning.
But he wasn’t wrong. Everyone else was. You can’t fathom the despair someone feels when everyone around you treats you like you’re insane, ridiculous, or a nuisance when you try to do the right thing. I’m so glad he survived. I have permission to send a care package.
Like many (probably most) adult autistics, he has an intense special interest and is not active in the community. That’s totally okay, but it would be so wonderful if he and everyone else knew we were out here, & they’re not alone. Does anyone have suggestions for a care package?
I’ll try to alert the people who interacted with the other thread of the good news.
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