Back then I though my life had finally all came together and I deserved it after a somewhat tumultuous childhood.  I was 29 years old and had my dream job as an on-air television news reporter.  I had just met the love of my life and truly thought how could life get any better.  Never could I imagine how far one could fall so quickly.  

It all started with a trip from NYC with my husband who was my boyfriend then to my brother's rental beach house in Long Beach Island.  I was doing some laundry when suddenly a vent above the dryer unhinged from the wall and hit me in the corner of my eye.  I grabbed my face and ran to the bathroom mirror all the while praying with each footstep that I would still be able to see out of that very eye.  I looked in the mirror and gasped at how I suddenly resembled a heavy weight boxer after one really bad punch.  My eye was swollen to almost 5x's it's normal size.  We immediately ran to one of the only clinics on the island.  They thought I would be fine and that the tiny gash right next to my eye did not need stiches.  I admit to being very vain at the time and insisted on going to a NYC hospital to get a couple stiches since I was an on air news reporter.  My boyfriend diligantly drove me to NYC's Lenox Hill Hospital ER where they called the plastic surgeon to come in and give me a couple stiches that I barely needed.  He also gave me one more thing I did not need and unfortunately it would derail my entire life as I once knew it.  A tetanus shot.  I remember only worrying that my arm might hurt for most of the next day, since I remember that happening when I was much younger.  That would turn out to be the least of my worries.  Never could I imagine the roller coaster ride into the abyss that I would experience for the following two years.  I guess in retrospect it all seems like boot camp for my son's vaccine induced autism that I am still living today.

I started to experience many odd symptoms such as feeling itchy each time I was in the sun and sinus headaches when I stood next to anyone reading a newspaper.  The smell of the ink in the NY Post was the worst for me.  These symptoms were pale in comparison to what I would experience once I combined this vaccine injury with mercury poisoning from a mercury filling that was removed unprotected a few months later.  It was an emergency root canal that ultimately led me to feel like I was having a nervous breakdown with even more odd symptoms like seeing tracers and feeling like drool was rolling down one side of my face all the time.  Then weeks later came the horrible neurological and emotional symptoms.  

I thought how could this be happening when I just moved in with my boyfriend and life was looking so good.  Instead I traded everything I knew for many doctor visits with mainstream md's who all acted like I was crazy and the symptoms weren't real.  I ended up in a $400 an hour psychiatrists office twice a week who dangerously convinced me that my job was too stressful with daily deadlines and maybe I had been neglecting my emotions until it all built up finally spilling over.  All I thought was I have been in therapy for the last 17 years ever since my mother killed herself.  I have been dissecting every minute emotion that I have had since then, so what couldv'e built up?

Despite the fact that I didn't agree with his diagnosis, I could not ignore that I got worse with each passing day.  I cried all the time.  I understand exactly why children with Autism hit themselves.  I know the feeling all too well.  After ruminating for weeks, I finally had to quit that dream job.  I had become not functional.  I remember my lowest moment which again now feels like boot camp for what would become an even worse experience with my son Dylan.  I even remember what I wore that day standing in my now husbands apartment in the dark.  I had just come back from another heavy intense psychiatry session and he had finally talked me into taking an anti-depressant.  This was after I was adamant about not taking one since my mom's adverse reaction to an SSRI.  The one she took killed her.  I watched in horror as my mom tried to kill herself for 23 days straight.  So you can only imagine why I was so nervous to try one.  But I was desperate beyond anything.  I wanted my life back.

I stood in that dark kitchen a few hours after taking that pill and I felt even worse.  I will never know if it was the baggage and anxiety that surrounded the pill or if I am that sensitive to pharmacology.  I believe the latter occurred.  But I thought I am never going to be normal again.  And I looked at the door leading to the 8th floor terrace and I thought I should just do it. And I really thought it!  Then my mind wandered to the friendly doorman (thank god for him) and I thought no, I could not do that to him.  So instead I picked up the phone and told the psychiatrist that no ifs ands or buts I was throwing the medication away.  I decided I was going to take charge and will myself to get better if nobody could help me.  I trudged through life for another six months and focused on my loving relationship with my husband.  This is the same one that has gotten me through my second descent into the abyss of Autism with my son's vaccine injury.  

Like the filmmaker, Eric Gladen, I threw myself into filmmaking and spent the next 3 years producing a documentary film on my experience with my mother's suicide.  I married the love of my life and was on top of the world again.  This was until the next bigger bomb dropped….my baby boy's vaccine injury that left him like a stroke victim until I was slowly able to get his speech back a couple years ago.  I am grateful for everyday that he continues to make progress.  I am grateful for how he saved me, since I did every treatment on myself that I did to him.  And one day I will tell his baby sister how he took a bullet for all of us, but especially her.  But I am most grateful to know the most courageous and genuine person I have ever met.

The last eight years of my life have been so focused on recovering Dylan and what he is missing out on.  I forget about what happened to me and how I too got my life derailed.  And last night after the NYC Premiere of Trace Amounts I allowed myself to be selfish for just a couple hours and mourn how much got taken away from me.   And how much of what happened to me probably affected Dylan and our family forever.  I still feel trace amounts of resentment for me and my life that got derailed.

Dara Berger is currently a screenplay writer that just finished writing her first feature length film about her experience raising a child on the autism spectrum. She is a also a documentary filmmaker that started her own production company in 2003 to produce documentary projects on important topics such as mental health issues.   Dara has also volunteered her time extensively over the last six years to the National Autism Association NY Metro Chapter helping to plan events that support and educate families in the community.