Autistic Son, Desperate Dad: How one family went from low- to high-functioning

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Rafał and Ola knew there was something different about their child.

While the other children at the kindergarten sat in a ring singing songs, Bartek would simply run around, oblivious to them. While they drew pictures and learned to count, he would obsessively sift sand and play with droplets from a tap. And while they were connected to their parents as though via an invisible piece of elastic, Bartek would happily charge off into the distance without a second thought.

Then, one day, came the explanation. Or rather, the diagnosis:

Bartek had autism.

Determined to do the best they could for him, his parents sold their London house, quit their jobs – at the BBC and a city bank – and returned to a completely different part of Europe, sacrificing everything in the hope of creating a bright future for their son.

Based on the successful blog by science journalist Rafał Motriuk , it’s a story that leaves out nothing in its depiction of everyday life in a family affected by autism.

A journalist, observing the world with a camera eye, or filtering it through his own feelings, Rafał portrays his experience with autism sometimes as painfully tragic and sometimes as absurdly funny, but always as very real.

In sharing his experiences, Rafał draws on his journalistic precision, his wry sense of humor and his emotional insightfulness. The result is a story which is at times painful, and at others hilarious, but never anything less than sublimely human.