Agency helps adults with disability live on their own - Troy resident Aaron Freed panicked when he discovered a notice in his apartment on a recent Friday.
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Agency helps adults with disability live on their own - Troy resident
Aaron Freed panicked when he discovered a notice in his apartment on a recent
Friday.
Agency helps adults with
disability live on their own
By DAVE
GROVES , Of The Oakland Press
07/13/2003
July 13, 2003
Troy resident Aaron Freed panicked when he discovered a notice in
his apartment on a recent Friday.
The note did not suggest that he was being evicted or that there was
a problem with the utilities, but that new carpet would be installed
the following Monday.
Immediately, Freed worried about not being able to make out a check
to pay for the installation. The people who help him with his
finances would not be available over the weekend.
What's more, he worried about having to move a great many collected
possessions out of his bedroom and then return them to their
rightful places once the new carpet was in.
The anxiety Freed experienced is a frequent experience in his life -
a symptom of a condition called Asperger's syndrome. Anxiety
precipitated by what a typical person might see as an insignificant
change in one's routine is a common trait among people with the
condition, which is a high-functioning form of the pervasive
developmental disability autism.
After 33 years of life and with support from family and the
nonprofit service agency On My Own of Michigan, Freed has learned
the skills he needs to manage stress. He used those skills to manage
what many with his condition would perceive as a major change to
their living space.
"I figure, in the end, it was worth it, because now I have new
carpet," Freed said.
A full-time worker at a Troy area warehouse, Freed went most of his
life without being diagnosed. In fact, he learned he had Asperger's
syndrome just five years ago.
"The condition has affected me all of my life, so the diagnosis
didn't make much of a difference," he said.
Many of the challenges he's faced have been related to difficulty
developing social skills - another trait common to people with
Asperger's and other forms of autism.
Freed had virtually given up trying to make friends as a youth.
Complicating the challenges of his condition, he was regularly
ostracized by children who saw him as different.
"Children tend to be a lot more judgmental of that than adults," he
said.
Getting involved with On My Own provided Freed with an opportunity
to not only learn social and life skills, but to be introduced to a
community of people who share experiences shaped by life with a
disability.
The apartment he shares with a roommate is managed by the Troy-based
service organization.
"I think living in the On My Own apartments makes it easier to
introduce myself to people," Freed said. "At first, I didn't want to
come to the program because I thought I would be judged for being
different. Since I have been in the program, I have felt just the
opposite."
Lee Wainwright, program manager of On My Own, said the installation
of a new carpet would have been a major incident in Freed's life
before he started with the program.
"Aaron has really made a lot of progress since he's been here," she
said. "We generally have a pretty high rate of success with our
members, because (the program) is like built-in friends, supports
and services."
Unfortunately, many area adults with Asperger's and other forms of
autism do not benefit from On My Own services or those of programs
similar to it.
"I get four or five calls a day, and we have a waiting list here,"
Wainwright said.
"With some of these phone calls I take, I wish I could say, 'Yes,
come in right away.' It's heartbreaking to have to say the person
doesn't quite fit the profile of who we're able to serve or that the
best we can do is add them to the waiting list."
Freed appreciates the support he has received, saying it has made
him happier than he's ever been in his life.
He lives independently from his parents but visits with them and his
brother frequently. He drives to and from work each day, has learned
to enjoy cooking and attends both social functions and vacations
with a community of friends.
On occasion, Freed also gives awareness presentations to community
and civic groups. He said he hopes the public at large learns to see
people with disabilities in the same way they see people without
disabilities - as unique individuals.
"People often see people with disabilities as different, and we do
have differences, but, really, we're a lot like everybody else," he
said.
As far as setting goals and making plans for the future, Freed said
he'd rather manage challenges and enjoy the good times in life as
they come.
"I can get stressed out looking at the next three or four days, much
less looking far into the future," he said.
"I like to take things one day at a time."
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"A foolish faith in authority is the worst enemy of truth."
-- Albert Einstein, letter to a friend, 1901
"I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves, and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education."
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