Profiles in Peril: Sebastian

Trump's sadism will directly hurt a wonderful little boy.

This is the first in a series of Profiles in Peril—snapshots of forgotten Americans facing the direct effects of Trump’s and Musk’s cruelty. Please feel free to share far and wide, and reuse images, video, and text.

Sebastian Thenstead, a bright 5-year-old with perfect posture, moves confidently around his grandmother’s apartment in New York. He’s five, an exceptionally handsome little boy.

His mother Shannan, 30, lights up as she watches him. “He loves his mommy and his mommy loves him,” she says.

But it’s been a journey to get here.

“I saw signs of autism with him at an early age,” Shannan says. As a baby, Sebastian would squeeze his eyes shut and wave his arms like wings. “There was the stimming. The flapping of the hands. I have family members that are also autistic.”

When Sebastian was 11 months, Shannan reached out to Medicaid to get him evaluated. Shannan’s maternal sensitivity—and her understanding of the complex condition—impressed the psychiatrist. An early autism diagnosis allows for early intervention. The doctor confirmed Shannan’s assessment. Sebastian had autism.

Shannan stayed home to work with Sebastian every day. But as he grew up, things got harder. “There were the tantrums, the throwing things, the biting, the kicking, and the walking on tippy toes. He was also hitting himself. When he got mad, he'd hit himself or bang his head on the wall. He’d bite himself—bite others—when he got frustrated. It was really extreme.” When she took him to the park, he never wanted to play with other kids.

Through Medicaid, Shannan got Sebastian into occupational and behavioral therapy with weekly home visits. Therapists taught Sebastian to regulate some of those behaviors with activities like identifying color and numbers.

Rich people with autistic children generally hire private therapists and professional staff. Middle-class people have no such options. Shannan’s mother’s small apartment also didn’t afford much space for home visits. She began to look for a daylong program in a classroom.

“I found that there was an autism therapy center located in the Bronx that took Medicaid.” Sebastian was quickly enrolled.

The results were miraculous.

“At first, he didn't make any eye contact with me,” Shannan remembers. “After a few days the center, he was making eye contact. The program was all about regulating aggressive behavior. I noticed that if he completed a task, they’d play ‘Pete the Cat’ for him.” The violence radically diminished. No more biting, hitting, or banging his head. Though Sebastian is non-verbal, he found he liked to dance.

There was more. He stopped fidgeting. He could sit still. And the therapists at the center toilet-trained him for the first time.

One day Shannan went to pick him up and her eyes filled with tears: He was playing with other kids.

It’s the least we can ask of civil society in America that it take care of its neediest—the young and the old, the disabled, the working class and the hungry and the sick.

And yet: Here’s what we all know. The Trump administration and oligarchs like Elon Musk are absolutely indifferent to mothers and sons, to Shannan and Sebastian. With Trump’s cuts, the ABC Autism Center will quit taking Medicaid. Shannan won’t be able to afford it. And Sebastian will be denied the therapy he needs.

“At the center, he went on his daily walks. He had sensory play. They had a sensory room for him. And then he would get one-to-one therapy. That's what I loved about them. Each student had their own therapist.”

With the cuts, only children of the rich, who have private insurance, will get medical support. As Shannan points out, therapists will lose their job, too, because programs funded through Medicaid will have to close.

As for Sebastian? He will lose even more. He is highly likely to regress—lose his toilet training, fine motor skills, social abilities, self-regulation. The aggression and violence could return.

Speech and occupational therapy in public school allows him only 20 minutes of therapy only twice a week. Even with the loving persistence of Shannan, she is only one person. “If these cuts go through, we basically won't be able to find anything for these kids that are autistic and on Medicaid.”

That’s right. Nothing. The day Shannan spoke about this, Trump was illegally promoting Teslas on television. He was aiming to make the richest man in the world even richer

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As Sebastian concentrated on a toy, Shannan watched him with eyes filled with love—and worry.

For more about Shannan and Sebastian, see CBS News, “Proposed Medicaid Cuts Would Hurt Children with Autism.”