Tag Archives: Willowbrook
Willowbrook: Mom and Mike on Visiting Day…
Willowbrook – Visiting… It could be embarrassing…
Willowbrook, Mike liked to get off the see saw sometimes… at the bottom
Willowbrook: I never went far inside…
Mike and Dad on Visiting Day, Willowbrook (from ‘My Brother Michael’)
Willowbrook, Another Chapter… Childhood’s End (from ‘My Brother Michael’)
Mom’s search for a place for Mike was long and arduous. In the 1950s, medical professionals were not accustomed to take care of individuals with my brother’s condition. Mike is autistic (a relatively unknown condition at that time), low functioning (using the parlance of the time: ‘retarded’), and nonverbal. He was placed at Willowbrook, an […]
Dad Playing the Violin for Mike
My brother Mike is autistic, low functioning and nonverbal. He was diagnosed shortly after autism was classified in 1952 DSM. Mike was at home until I was 10 years old. My parents then made the decision to send him to Willowbrook where they thought they would take care of him. We visited just about every […]
Imaginary Brother – New Ideas
I began my blog 4 years ago with the idea of sharing my experiences as the sibling of an older autistic, low functioning, nonverbal individual (my brother Mike). Most of 2013 was a recap of my struggle to get to know Mike. I relied on old family photographs; my journal entries; thoughts about the dynamics […]
The Other Mike
On December 22, 2015, I published the post, Returning to Mike, that explained a series of occurrences that enabled me to construct a portrait of Mike, my older brother, in a way he had never been portrayed before. Mike is severely autistic, low functioning and has never spoken. I photographed him on his 40th birthday at […]
