The Burden of That Love
If you have a lot of money and a child with “low-functioning Autism then you can buy care for them in your own home (most people cannot)
You can hire someone like me with graduate degrees to sing nursery rhymes, watch TV on repeat, play with their ipad, practice reading, counting, months, days, and dates, and feed by hand like a baby, and wipe off every little drip.
Your child’s personal teacher can wash them, scrub their butt, scrub their hair, towel them dry, dress them (nicely) and then take a walk with them, or use the exercise equipment in the basement together, tour the house together, complete rituals, and the teacher won’t mind the stimming, knowing that it helps to manage stress, among other things we don’t understand
If you cannot afford this, and cannot care for this person who is like a baby in a big man or woman body, then they’ll probably have to go live at an orphanage. If you don’t get some full time care one way or the other, the kid will probably end up in the hospital anyway, or you will, or the younger sibling, or the pet, because for at least 2 decades they will be like a tornado until they “figure out” the medications, which are so many bandaids, with so many side effects, but it’s that, or — let them destroy yourself and knock you over the head with a frying pan one day for no reason when you’re distracted by something. If you see it coming, and watch the kid’s face, how much he enjoys the sound of metal meeting skull, then you might hire help faster, or drive to the orphanage faster. They’re never going to sleep. They’re never going to chill out. No amount of exercise burns it off. They’re in the wrong world, or wrong timeline, and they know it.