Love Is Not Enough: A Mother's Memoir of Autism, Madness, and Hope

by Jenny Lexhed, Jennifer Hawkins (Translator)

Overview

“Honest, gripping, and eye-opening . . . A must-read for any parent of a child who is ‘different.’”—Randye Kaye, author of Ben Behind His Voices

When Jenny Lexhed and her husband have their first child, Lucas, they are living the dream. They’re happily married, they’ve just bought a house, and the company they built together is starting to blossom. But with the arrival of their son, a feeling of anxiety slips into their life. What starts as a feeling becomes a conviction. Lucas is not like other children. Everything seems to indicate, and psychiatric evaluation concludes, that their son is severely autistic. Will he ever be able to communicate?

Jenny vows to do whatever she can to help Lucas connect with his parents and others and live an independent life. Tossed between hope and despair, she begins a frantic effort to research the best among many competing therapies and find exactly the right treatment for her son. Her obsession takes her to the brink of exhaustion—and over, when she suffers a psychotic breakdown and is committed to a psychiatric clinic. There begins another journey, to find her balance and recover her strong, healthy life, before she can begin again to fight for her son.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781628726060
Publisher:	Arcade
Publication date:	08/02/2016
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	292
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Jenny Lexhed and her husband have three children. In 1995, they founded the speakers bureau Talarforum in Scandinavia, which has grown to seventy employees and more than eight thousand speakers in its network. Now eighteen, Lucas has learned to communicate, read, write, and do math; he is an independent and happy young adult. Jenny has become a sought-after speaker in Scandinavia and a contributor to various publications. She lives in Florida.

Table of Contents

Foreword Per Naroskin vii

Preface to the English-language Edition ix

Help Me! 1

Happiness 2

Birth 4

The First Signs 6

Never Good Enough 9

Different 13

Disappearances 19

Speech Therapist 22

No Time to Lose 30

Plan of Action 38

Another Way to Learn 45

Denial 48

Which Method Should We Use? 52

The Evaluation 58

Seven Days in February 61

Have We Chosen the Right Method? 75

My Own Method 88

My Thoughts Begin to Spin Faster and Faster 93

The Boundary Between Dream and Reality Disappears 105

Ward 22 112

The Spirit of Healing 133

Starting to Recover 142

Released 159

Back to Reality 162

Lucas Starts Preschool 172

Letter to Lucas 180

Medical Examination 186

One More Child 191

Birthday Party 199

The Hairdresser and the Dentist 204

Behavioral Therapy-ABA Again 208

Sorrow 214

Pregnant Again 216

Getting Started 218

Three Words 221

Training 224

Pregnancy 227

Activities 236

A New Paraprofessional 240

Daring to Believe 243

Skis 249

Riding a Bike 257

Eyeglasses 262

Food 264

School 269

Afterword 274

Acknowledgments 276

Editorial Reviews

"Jenny Lexhed has written a searing and unflinchingly honest memoir in which she courageously shares her struggle for both her own mental health and her autistic son's future. Many mothers of autistic children silently endure debilitating depression as they encounter seemingly endless obstacles in their fight for their child. Lexhed does the community of autism families a great service by sharing the story of her nervous breakdown and her battle back to mental health."—Katie Wright, board member of SafeMinds, daughter of the founders of Autism Speaks

“Love Is Not Enough is a beautiful and searing read. Jenny Lexhed is both fierce and fragile as she struggles to understand her son and the world of autism. The journey of loving Lucas and finding the best treatments for autism takes her family on a path that is filled with confusion, disappointment, frustration, and further traumas—and one can feel the layers of those emotions with Lexhed’s beautiful prose. Sometimes heart-wrenching, other times humorously touching, Love Is Not Enough reminds us that one of the most important things we can do as parents of special needs children is to be their champion, their advocate.” —Deborah Serani, Psy.D., author of Depression and Your Child: A Guide for Parents and Caregivers

"An honest, gripping, and eye-opening trip through the world of parenting a child with autism, from the deep love that inspires the exploration of all options to the surprising toll it took on one mother. A must-read for any parent of a child who is 'different,' indeed, for anyone interested in the power of love to rise above hopelessness."
—Randye Kaye, author of Ben Behind His Voices: One Family's Journey from the Chaos of Schizophrenia to Hope

“At times so candid, revealing, and painfully real that you have to set it down and catch your breath.” —Dagens Industri Weekend (Scandinavia’s Wall Street Journal)

“Not just the story of an overworked mom and a family in crisis, it’s also about fortitude and, above all, the way back to a good life, told with both gallows humor and a self-effacing irony.” —Dagens Nyheter (Sweden’s best-selling daily newspaper)

"Jenny Lexhed has written a searing and unflinchingly honest memoir in which she courageously shares her struggle for both her own mental health and her autistic son's future. Many mothers of autistic children silently endure debilitating depression as they encounter seemingly endless obstacles in their fight for their child. Lexhed does the community of autism families a great service by sharing the story of her nervous breakdown and her battle back to mental health."—Katie Wright, board member of SafeMinds, daughter of the founders of Autism Speaks

“Love Is Not Enough is a beautiful and searing read. Jenny Lexhed is both fierce and fragile as she struggles to understand her son and the world of autism. The journey of loving Lucas and finding the best treatments for autism takes her family on a path that is filled with confusion, disappointment, frustration, and further traumas—and one can feel the layers of those emotions with Lexhed’s beautiful prose. Sometimes heart-wrenching, other times humorously touching, Love Is Not Enough reminds us that one of the most important things we can do as parents of special needs children is to be their champion, their advocate.” —Deborah Serani, Psy.D., author of Depression and Your Child: A Guide for Parents and Caregivers

"An honest, gripping, and eye-opening trip through the world of parenting a child with autism, from the deep love that inspires the exploration of all options to the surprising toll it took on one mother. A must-read for any parent of a child who is 'different,' indeed, for anyone interested in the power of love to rise above hopelessness."
—Randye Kaye, author of Ben Behind His Voices: One Family's Journey from the Chaos of Schizophrenia to Hope

“At times so candid, revealing, and painfully real that you have to set it down and catch your breath.” —Dagens Industri Weekend (Scandinavia’s Wall Street Journal)

“Not just the story of an overworked mom and a family in crisis, it’s also about fortitude and, above all, the way back to a good life, told with both gallows humor and a self-effacing irony.” —Dagens Nyheter (Sweden’s best-selling daily newspaper)

From the Publisher