Autism, TBI and Benoit

Image from: http://www.wrestling-caricatures.com/

If anyone knows me, they know that autism is a huge part of my life. My life essentially revolves around autism. My son has autism. Traumatic Brain Injury has also entered into my life, not myself or my son personally, but a few friends are effected by it. So, I've learned quite a bit about TBI.

So what's that got to do with the recently deceased WWE wreslter, Chris Benoit? As things unfold and new information is discovered, myself and everyone else that's following the story have found that the 7-year-old son of Chris and his wife Nancy had Fragile X syndrome which, especially in boys, is accompanied by autism. Some are speculating that little Daniel's disability is the reason his father killed him. That still doesn't explain why Chris also killed his wife, Nancy, and 2 days after initially killing Nancy, hung himself by a cable on his exercise equipment. It doesn't explain why he killed Nancy first. It doesn't even explain why he lived in their residence after initially killing his wife the first day, killing his son the next, and on the final day killing himself.

Today I got a little curious with the press about his Wikipedia site being altered to reflect the death of his wife some 14 hours before the police even discovered the bodies. So, like a rubbernecker passing a car wreck, I had to look at the Wikipedia site for Chris Benoit.

In addition to speculation that steroids and/or difficulties arising from the stress of dealing with their son's disability, an alternative motive has been proposed by another former wrestler, Christopher Nowinski. Mr. Nowinski has suggested that it is possible that Benoit was driven to commit the murders because of a TBI!!

I can believe the steroid induced motive, but saying that he did it because he son was disabled or because he had brain trauma, is just a cop-out if you ask me. Yes, raising an autistic and/or mentally retarded child is stressful, demanding, rough, etc etc...but I'd never kill my son! And I believe if anyone tries to pass this off as a mercy killing, they need their head checked because there are SO many ways to get help and to help a child grow and live with their disability. Now, for the TBI motive...I can't say what could have been going through his head, but of the people that I know with TBI's, I don't think any of them could or would do what Benoit did.

In closing, I just cannot wrap my brain around why, or what the hell was going through his mind, he took almost 3 days to kill himself and his small family. What the hell was going through that man's mind when he killed his wife, then left her body where it was later found, and spent another day and a half living in the home. And one of those days with his son still alive. Was he at any point during that time lucid enough to realize what he had done, what he was doing was just plain wrong?! Who knows, but like the rest of the people following this story, I will stay tuned and see what unfolds.

What was the point of this blog? There was none.