Kindred
Jadyne and Luke are in their twenties. Both live with severe autism and catatonia, a condition that can turn fatal without the regular ECT treatment that keeps them well. Their mothers, Jackie and Christine, found each other online years ago, two women a thousand miles apart trading everything they learned about keeping their children alive.
In July 2026, as part of the NCSA Authentic Awareness Autism Assembly, both families brought their children to Washington to push for CMS reform and to ask Congress to recognize the caregivers of severely affected adults as a population of their own. Jadyne and Luke, meeting for the first time, seemed to know each other, and when one grew distressed, the other reached over. Photojournalist Lynn Johnson stayed close through all of it.
