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As a teenager, Bianca Marshack often flew into rages over seemingly minor problems — as when her mother, Kathy, didn’t bring her favorite chicken dinner home from the grocery store. Her anger would quickly spiral out of control, and she would threaten to kill herself.
“I would try to just hold her, to calm her down and say, ‘I’m here, I’m here for you,’” recalls Kathy Marshack, a Portland, Oregon-area psychologist.
Bianca had been diagnosed at age 13 with a high-functioning form of autism called Asperger syndrome, and as she got older her moods could be explosive. “Sometimes she would say, ‘If you would just kill me, then we would both not have to suffer anymore,’” Kathy remembers.
Bianca’s behavior reflects the striking paradox of emotional turmoil in autism, an aspect of the disorder that has received attention only in the past few years. Often, people with the disorder can seem emotionless, with a flat affect and little interest in talking about feelings — their own or anyone else’s. But they may also have outbursts in which they make dramatic, shocking threats to end their lives.