Out of the dark: Autistic Cicero man holding his own

Michael Crenshaw is working his first part-time job and saving up money in hopes of moving to Florida. There, he wants to find a good job in horticulture, and if he's really lucky, he might even find a girlfriend.

Michael is 31 years old and autistic. And for the first time, the Cicero resident is within striking distance of his dream of true independence.

He’s been steadily tending the garden at Seguin Gardens and Gifts for about a year now, and after spending two years on a waiting list for housing at the Center for Assisted Living in Fort Myers, Michael said he’s hoping to move “any month now.”

Of course, none of that’s easy for his mother, Jeanne, 67, who’s spent the last three decades coaxing Michael out of fits of self-abuse and tending to his idiosyncratic needs. But with equal parts trepidation and pride, she's stepping back and watching her son learn to manage his own money and build a life.

Year after year, Michael has made a slow progression from a non-verbal fugue at age 7 to a grown man who, at least on the right day, can hold an engaging and enthusiastic conversation about his future.

'Michael will always need help'

Jeanne Crenshaw knew Michael was different when he started reading words like “flour” and “sugar” off canisters in the kitchen at age 1. Known as hyperlexia, it's a common sign of autism.

From there, his behavior continued to be slightly off. Michael had trouble making eye contact with anyone but his mother, who was raising him alone at the time.

Michael learned words, but couldn't hold a conversation. At 4 years old, he was diagnosed with autism.

Autism includes a wide spectrum of disabilities that range from difficult but manageable social awkwardness to profound retardation that leaves its victims unable to care for themselves. With no defined neuropathology or set of symptoms, treating autism is difficult and varies from person to person.

Michael is somewhere in the middle of that spectrum, said Joe Mengoni, vice president of adult residential and clinical services at Seguin Services in Cicero, where Michael received treatment years ago. He has a high level of cognitive function in his mind — he was the first autistic person to graduate from Morton West High School in 1999, and even went on to take college courses.

The problem, at least for Michael, is that he has trouble communicating the wealth of knowledge in his head to the outside world.

Like many autistic people, Michael developed some skills, such as reading, impossibly early. But his social and emotional skill sets will continue developing throughout his life, even though they’ll never become fully functioning, Mengoni said.

“Sooner or later, he will be able to live in an environment where he is able to obtain assistance just to live in the community,” his mother said. “But Michael will always need help.”

Tinkering with words, tools

At age 7, Michael started speaking in full sentences.

“It was the reading that saved him,” Jeanne said. “Once he was visualizing the words on paper every day at school, it unlocked something.”

Finally able to communicate with her son, Jeanne began discovering the special person Michael would become.

Still a voracious reader, Michael took an interest in plants and electricity. Even though he had difficulty communicating with others, Michael had a curiosity that could not be sated.

“Michael has been a tinkerer all his life,” Jeanne said.

Soon, he developed a penchant for restoring antique electrical fans. He once even tried to build a flying contraption onto his bicycle. (His mother swears the front wheel lifted off the ground when he pedaled.)
When Michael was 8 years old, his mother met Jerry Ramirez, Michael's co-guardian and loving stepfather.

Using Ramirez's tools, Michael became an expert at taking things apart and putting them back together, just so he could figure out how they worked.

Ramirez said the family still uses fans Michael has rebuilt to cool the house in the summer, and they don't need a GPS on road trips when Michael is with them because he’s so good at reading maps.

“They tease each other and they go back and forth, but that helps,” Jeanne said of Michael's relationship with his stepfather. “Their relationship has helped a lot because it's more like a guy-guy type of thing.”

As Michael's inner circle expanded, he started to do a little bit better socially. He began applying some of the energy he used to pour into reading into his schoolwork.

And the tenacity that would become his trademark helped him get through high school and attend community colleges. When Morton College in his hometown didn’t offer the horticulture course he wanted, he rode three buses for a total of 2.5 hours to get to the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn.

Suddenly, Michael started impressing his teachers and autism specialists, such as Bruce Bluder, the behavior technician supervisor at Seguin Services who worked with Michael as he attended community college.

Today, when Bluder pops into Seguin Gardens and Gifts, he sees his former client finally becoming a part of the society that vexed him for so long.

“He's a tremendous success in his independence. It's very gratifying,” Bluder said. “His persistence and his desire to attain these things, that's the biggest reason that he has achieved what he has achieved.”
'It takes a lot of courage'

Gradually, and with the help of social support services through Seguin and other agencies, Michael began engaging in the world around him.

At age 20, he started volunteering with the Oak Park Conservatory, and eventually was put in charge of its carnivorous plants section. By the time Michael applied to work at Seguin, he had 11 years of volunteer experience and collegiate course work on his resume.

His paychecks are modest. He works for six hours every Monday, and because he's on Social Security disability benefits, his earning is capped.

Michael's parents allow him to do whatever he pleases with his money. Some of it goes toward savings, and some gets spent at antique fairs and flea markets, especially on electric fans.

“It means freedom,” Michael said of his job.

But true freedom for Michael would mean self-reliance — something the abundance of greenhouse jobs in Florida could help him achieve.

Michael depends on his bike to get around, and detests bothering his mother to give him rides to and from work during the winter.

“I'm tired of the brutal cold winters and having absolutely nothing at all happy to look forward to in January, February and March,” he said.

Florida also is a much better environment for the plants Michael loves caring for. He can name at least six species of palm trees that grow in Florida and knows how tall each will grow.

For Jeanne, wrestling with her own advancing age also means recognizing that at some point, Michael will either need to become independent or enter a state-run nursing home.

“It's very difficult to let go,” she said. “Getting to this point, it takes a lot of courage.”