Seven Years of Autism and the Death of Felix Gaeta

End of January - beginning of February is an unhappy anniversary for our family, as it is the date(s) that both our sons were diagnosed with autism. One of my sons was diagnosed sometime in the last week of January 2002, and the other was diagnosed the first week in February 2002. Once the first one was diagnosed we knew the second one would get the same diagnosis since they are identical twins. They were two years, 3 months old at the time. I remember the first words out of my mouth when we were informed of the first diagnosis were "Will they outgrow it?" Duh.

I don't know why this year is different, but it feels particularly devastating. I am not someone who is prone to crying but I have been on the verge of tears all month. Some of it is the cumulative stress of fighting with various government bureaucracies for rights my kids are entitled to, but were not forthcoming (including a 4-year legal battle with one school district that has left us with a huge debt burden that we probably will never pay off). And some of it is the panic of knowing what was required for them to make progress, and not being able to get it for them. (I am referring to Applied Behavior Analysis - ABA. For more information on ABA go to The Association for Science in Autism Treatment or Autism New Jersey

For the last two years my sons have had everything we feel they need to make progress towards some form of independence. You would think I would be happy, but I seem to be in a glass half-full mood these days. No matter how I look at it, we have a difficult and exhausting life. Our sons are very tall for their age, and very active. They have almost no spoken language, although it's obvious they understand more than they can say (passive language). We have worked diligently to improve their safety skills, so some of our fears are somewhat abated (they haven't disappeared from us in quite some time, nor have they run into the middle of traffic). They are capable of great destruction (not from maliciousness) so someone must be with them at all times, and they have few play skills (we are the only people I know who have to teach their kids how to watch tv).  They head bang (although it is coming under control) and can have wicked tantrums.

My sons' teachers are dedicated, resourceful, and relentless optimists.  They work very hard and everything my sons have learned I attribute to them. When one of my sons said "Hi Mommy," for the first time, several of them burst into tears. I am not the burst into tears type, but I was deeply touched. In the back of my mind, though, I thought, "It's about fucking time."

Having done this for seven years you would think that we would be used to this or at least a little less inclined to fall apart. Our sons have made more progress in the last two years than they did in the prior 5 years. Nevertheless, over time, we have lowered our expectations, and it is painful to accept that they will never live independently and we will have to work very hard to make sure that they have enough skills to live in a group home and have some kind of occupation during the day. When someone asked me what they are studying in school, I said, "getting dressed."

Please don't get me wrong, I love my children. While this post probably sounds like "ME ME ME!" they are the ones who are shortchanged. Their experience of life is confined by autism, and their future is extremely limited. They will never be capable of meaningful conversation, they will never read and write, and they will never live independently. They are the ones who are missing out from a full appreciation of life and its possibilities.

There is a lot of acceptance involved in all this, and sometimes it is easier to deal with than other times. I can do everything I can to help my children succeed, but I don't get to choose when that happens or how fast it happens. All I know is that I want it all and I want it right now, and knowing that's not going to happen is a bitter pill to swallow.

So what does this have to do with Felix Gaeta? Well, I just saw episode 4 in season 4.5 this evening and I went into it 100% certain that Felix would get offed, and of course he did, and the events leading up to it were almost painful to watch. The whole sequence of events fills me with profound sadness. And in fact I was in tears watching the scene with Baltar and the execution at the end. It was just so well-written and well-played, it felt completely faithful to the characters.

In fact, I have been anxious and even depressed since the beginning of this season because I knew BAD THINGS were going to happen to Felix. As anyone who has read my post on Felix, I feel very attached to this character. When he lost his leg after being shot by Anders, I was especially disturbed, to a large degree because he was now disabled, and disability (whether physical or developmental) just sucks in every way possible. 

And I KNOW it is just a television show and Felix is NOT a real person.

It's obvious to me that I am projecting onto Felix my own anxieties about my children. In psychoanalytic terms, this is called transference. Basically it is just easier to worry about a fictional character than it is to worry about your own children. One is imaginary and his pain is not real (although it is portrayed with great verisimilitude). Our pain is very real, and it just ebbs and flows over time. 

The scene between Baltar and Felix was utterly heartbreaking. I was hoping that by 4.5 Felix would find some happiness, and again, I was treating that as a metaphor (illogical and unreliable) for our life. Instead Felix is in constant pain from his leg, and in psychological pain because of his distrust of the cylons. In the webisodes, he is taunted by the Eight for clinging to "Hope," and left with a great burden of guilt, even though his actions were well-intended and he was lied to about the outcome. By the time he gets off the raptor his hope is gone.

Well, I know something about guilt, too, parents can never do enough for their kids (at least it feels that way) and that is doubly so for parents of children with autism. I love my children but I do feel a lot of resentment at how their disability has changed our life for the worst.

At his execution Felix looks almost serene, and when he says "It stopped" I assumed he was referring to the pain in his leg and probably psychological pain as well. So it gave me some hope that he would find peace in death. 

The metaphor of death as the end of psychological pain resonates very strongly in our house. My husband and I take turns getting REALLY depressed, and it is usually accompanied by one of us saying, "I wish I was dead." That doesn't mean that we want to commit suicide, or that we want to BE dead. It means we just wish we didn't feel that way, that we could shut off our feelings. Unfortunately, WE are not machines and there is no off/on switch.

R.E.M. has a great song, "Everybody Hurts." These are my favorite lines:

When the day is long and the night, the night is yours alone,

When you're sure you've had enough of this life, well hang on.

Don't let yourself go, everybody cries and everybody hurts sometimes.

Felix Gaeta

Right now (the end of Season 4) my third favorite character is Felix Gaeta. I think he is just someone I would like to have on my side. He doesn't have a big mouth (unlike some Viper pilots I could name), he's smart, he doesn't let his ego get in the way of his decisions, he has good judgment, and he is courageous.

Gaeta starts out as a minor character in the miniseries and Season 1 (according to Ron Moore's podcast Gaeta doesn't even have a first name until D'Anna appears interviewing everyone for the Fleet News Service in "Final Cut"). But he plays an increasingly important role as the series progresses, and I think this is because Gaeta's personality is so different from the Viper pilots, and he and Dualla both give some variety to the cast of characters. (I don't think it hurts that Alessandro Juliani, who plays Gaeta, is a very good actor.)

Gaeta grows up in the course of the series. Although he is an adult, when the series starts he has some childlike qualities that are very sweet. (He looks totally goofy when he is dancing during the celebration of Baltar's election as vice president during "Colonial Day.") He is hardworking and very smart, loyal, and trusting (which gets him into trouble later on). When he makes a mistake he is much harder on himself than any of his superiors would be ("Scattered" and miniseries). He has a lot of responsibility in the CIC (and included in a lot of the decision-making) even though he looks about fifteen. (IMHO he wouldn't get served in a bar without first showing ID.) 

Based on Seasons 1 and 2, several things are clear about Gaeta: He worked very hard to get where he is. His life experience is pretty limited and maybe even kind of sheltered. Like everyone else, his aspirations for the future are destroyed by the Cylons. He is doing on Galactica what most of us did in college (or, if you were precocious, high school) - smoking, drinking, and getting a tattoo ("Final Cut"). BTW, I have a tattoo in approximately the same place as Gaeta and he lies, it DOES hurt.

I would guess that Gaeta is either the only child of older parents or the son of alcoholics, but I'm not sure I know how I arrived at that conclusion. Many characters have backgrounds outlined for us, but Gaeta is not in this group.

Gaeta and Baltar

OK, so who waltzes into the life of this trusting soul? Gaius Baltar, the genius who is also the embodiment of duplicity, narcissism, and about a hundred other bad qualities. Gaeta makes his first (and maybe only) big mistake when he equates Baltar's extraordinary intellect with moral stature. Another way of looking at this is that Gaeta hero-worships Baltar for his achievements and then projects onto Baltar his own ethical values. In "Six Degrees of Separation," after he clears Baltar of the accusation that he colluded in the Cylon attack, Gaeta hugs Baltar and says "I knew you weren't that kind of man." The problem, of course, is that Baltar IS that kind of man.

There has been some discussion on the internet about whether the Gaeta-Baltar relationship has a homoerotic element. Well, duh. However, I think that most of the discussion is putting the chicken before the egg. James Callis is a nice-looking guy, but not incredibly handsome, and Baltar has terrible haircuts. So looks are not the basis of this attraction. I think that Gaeta is gay, so it makes sense that his admiration for Baltar has a sexual undercurrent.

IMHO, as soon as Gaeta starts to see Baltar for what he is (in the last epdisode of season 2.5, "Lay Down Your Burdens, Part 2"), the sexual attraction disappears along with his illusions. At the end of this episode Gaeta looks disgusted with Baltar, his sleazy lifestyle, and his indifference to the responsibilities of political office. As soon as the Cylons arrive Gaeta immediately starts working against both the occupiers and Baltar (and apparently even colludes in an unsuccessful assassination attempt in "Occupation).

During the occupation on New Caprica, Gaeta makes a hard decision to stay in Baltar's administration so that he can pass information to the resistance. He manages to keep his role as the source of the material a secret to protect everyone involved, and has also managed to set it up so that he doesn't know who exactly is receiving the material (the logistics of how he managed this, actually, are a complete mystery to me). He is absolutely vilified for his seeming collaboration with the Cylons, and his frustration is evident after the conversation with Tyrol about Callie's detention, but he sticks to his plan and his actions are critical to the escape from New Caprica. This is a lonely role (the resistance fighters at least have the comfort of camaraderie), and a dangerous one, and Gaeta looks frightened when he leaves a message that Baltar won't be at the NCP graduation (one of the few times he leaves a message in daylight).

I think Gaeta feels complicit in Baltar's puppet administration under the Cylons. In "Exodus, Part 2" he threatens to shoot Baltar, and he reveals his disgust with himself for being blind to Baltar's true personality. I think it is also evidenced by his almost apologetic remark after he is wrongly accused of collaborating and comes close to being thrown out an airlock ("I did everything I could. I don't know what more I could have done."). I also think this is his motivation for waking in the middle of the night and trying to see Baltar ("Taking a Break From All Your Worries."). Roslin is right, Gaeta wants to kill Baltar and finish what he started during the exodus from New Caprica.

After the "Collaborators" episode, Gaeta starts to exhibit cynicism and anger. In addition to feeling betrayed by Baltar, I think he feels let down by his crewmates. Nobody believes him when he tells them his true role. His statements are dismissed out of hand, as if no one gave any consideration to what they know about him from all the years that he served with them. When Tigh returns to the CIC, Gaeta turns his back while everyone else is clapping. He is freer about expressing his own opinions ("The Road Less Travelled"). He becomes sarcastic (when he says "Right" his intonation is dripping with irony). The occupation serves as a painful rite of passage to adulthood.

I know that there has been a lot of discussion about Gaeta's sexual orientation. (In one of the Season 3 videoblogs Alessandro Juliani is pretty funny when he talks about Gaeta's virginity. His remarks are filled with double entendres that make pretty clear his opinion on the subject.) But I want to point out that by the end of Season 4, Gaeta is disabled and thereby joins an even smaller minority. After my experience getting services for my kids I can tell you that parents of disabled children are treated like shit, and the only group treated worse are disabled people themselves. To quote Anne Lamott ("Traveling Mercies," beginning of the chapter "Barn Raising") Gaeta is now a citizen of the Land of the Fucked. 

Whither Gaeta?

I really hope he gets laid in Season 4.5, since he could obviously use some sex, romance, and dare I say, love. Plus his disability makes it harder for him to do everything (I bet that battlestars are not compliant with the Americans With Disabilities act, or its Canadian equivalent), so it would be about time for the poor guy to have something good happen to him.

I am placing bets on Hoshi, based on the bear hug he and Gaeta exchange after the fleet finds Earth, but I am willing to be surprised. It would be just ghastly if it was Baltar. I think it would be kind of fun if Gaeta had a one-night stand with Dualla and she gets knocked up while Gaeta figures out which side of the street he walks on, and settles on men. That would meet the overwhelming necessity to increase the population while still respecting Gaeta's underlying sexual orientation. But it sounds too much like a very bad Madonna film that name of which has gone down in infamy. On the other hand Ang Lee did a very good movie ("The Wedding Banquet") on this same subject.

I also think that it would be hilarious if Gaeta walks into the Mess after his night of joy and everyone gets up and applauds and slaps his back and ruffles his hair like he is the Bar Mitzvah boy (everybody knows that there are no secrets on a battlestar).

But I digress.

I originally though that having a gay character would open the door to analogies with the US military and "don't ask don't tell," but I suspect that angle will not be pursued given that Admiral Caine was same-sex oriented.

When Gaeta lost his leg, my husband asked, "what the hell is this all about?" He then made the intelligent observation (which has been known to happen) that this is going to be a vehicle for Baltar's redemption. Somehow Baltar is going to help Gaeta (maybe save his life?), which will also provide some kind of closure for Gaeta.

In any event, I wish happiness for Gaeta, he certainly deserves it.