Asking questions about severe autism

that start with the moon

It’s a bad morning to start writing the second post for The Autism Tribune. Our son (21) has been awake since 4am making the most incredible noise. It seems to come from his gut, a low roaring that builds to a crescendo as he starts to bounce up and down as it comes to a peak. Even outside the closed door you can hear the bed shake and feel the power of what has taken over his body. It is as though alien forces have taken over and he really does look possessed. For one so small – and he has a very slight build and looks about 14 or 15 years old on first glance - the noise he makes is truly extraordinary.

Although it sounds crazy, this happens regularly when the full moon appears. We tell ourselves it will pass once the high tides have shrunk back, and the calm tends to come after the new moon has appeared. There must be something in the biophysics of the earth and the universe that make this happen to him. There is something that we don’t understand but it triggers a change in the biology and behaviour of a young man in his bedroom in Cornwall. The old wives and ways were much more in tune with this than we are today. Stories of shapeshifting werewolves who howl at the moon crop up in human cultures across the world and must be earlier reports of what is happening now.

My husband and I ask ourselves if there is there something living in the gut microbiome that is stimulated by the lunar cycle, triggering an immune response and acute inflammation?

Is there something in the lunar-influenced gravitational forces that determine the tides and similarly impact on the fluids that flow through the body, with very unusual effects?

Is there something in the lunar cycle that impacts on the electricity that determines the biochemistry of cellular activity, altering the flow of molecules in and out of the cell, energy levels and function?

Given that nature responds to the cycles of the moon, as evident in fertility (and hormones), procreation and birth (just think about all the little turtles hatching on the beach at the point of the full moon as regularly shown on TV), our son is similarly impacted by the natural cycles of life but in a way that is out-of-balance, extreme and destructive. It’s a sign that something is wrong.

The Autism Tribune aims to share these experiences – warts and all – to raise awareness and ask some of the questions that need to be answered. In this case: Why do autistic symptoms rise and fall with the lunar cycle? What does it tell us about the underlying biochemistry of the condition? And can this help us to understand what has gone wrong and what can be done to alleviate the pain and distress that is caused?

Millions of years of evolution have allowed human beings to develop in keeping with their environment, but something has gone badly wrong when growing numbers of our young people are to be found howling at the full moon when it appears every month. The horror of our experience deserves much greater attention.

In future posts I will look at the work done by the pioneering psychiatrists and psychologists who started looking at the symptoms we now associate with autism when it was a very rare and unusual condition. All of them asked themselves and other specialists WHY the condition was happening and what could explain it. That curiosity remains critical to understanding and preventing the painful features of the condition today. Indeed, it is remarkable how many professionals who deal with the condition – in doctors’ surgeries, specialist clinics, schools, universities, workplaces and government – appear to lack any curiosity about the causes and consequences of the rising number of cases. Why are they not asking WHY? Even when it is bankrupting the state, destroying families and wiping out a new generation of workers, questions are not being asked and I ask you, why are we not asking why?

In the meantime, I send warm wishes to any readers similarly impacted by the large light in our sky and hope we can all get some sleep.