TangleBones

RE: Autism Speaks Doesn’t Speak For Me…
I’ve seen the “Autism Everyday” video and read your com­ments. As another parent of an Autis­tic child, I have to say that I can iden­tify with both points of view pre­sented in the film and from you. The film­mak­ers and the par­ents involved in the film were brave enough to air the deep­est, dark­est thoughts that many care­givers (not just par­ents) of the dis­abled carry in their minds. I say “brave enough” because no parent would ever want to admit to feel­ing this help­less. What we can’t forget is that we, as par­ents, are human. There is no train­ing to pre­pare you to be a parent of a child with Autism. And as strong as we want to be, we just can’t be more than what we are…and that is simple human beings. We are all enti­tled to our feel­ings. We need val­i­da­tion and under­stand­ing.

Par­ent­ing an Autis­tic child is frus­trat­ing. Some­times you think “Why me? Who thought I could do this?” There are times where you just worry. You wonder when you will see progress. Will your child be able to lead a some­what inde­pen­dent life? What does the future hold? You beat your­self up. You always believe that there is more that you could do. If there were more resources. If there were more money. Can’t some­one just come into our lives and give us the answers? HELP! HELP! HELP!

I believe that all of the par­ents involved in the film would tell you that their chil­dren are bless­ings to them. Although I expe­ri­ence frus­tra­tions (on a daily basis), it just takes one smile, one giggle, one hug, or one kiss from my daugh­ter to remind me how pre­cious she is to me. This is where I agree with you. I also some­times ponder what my life would be like if my daugh­ter were typ­i­cally devel­op­ing. Per­haps I’d be self-​absorbed. More enveloped in my career and spend­ing less time at home. The per­sonal growth I’ve expe­ri­enced because she is in my life is astro­nom­i­cal. I am more patient. I am a more empa­thetic and char­i­ta­ble person. I am extremely aware of real­ity and the human con­di­tion.

So please do not dis­count these par­ents for express­ing the frus­tra­tions that we all have felt (to some degree, whether we admit to it or not). For me, seeing them in sit­u­a­tions famil­iar to me and express­ing frus­tra­tions also famil­iar to me, helped me to feel like I was not alone. At the same time, the rest of the world should know that Autism is not a prison sen­tence. We are par­ents who love our chil­dren and want what is best for them just like every parent does. And our chil­dren are people who just want to live their lives, just like any other child.

I HAVE WRIT­TEN TO SEV­ERAL “AUTISM” SITES WITH NO RESPONSE TO A SUG­GES­TION I BELIEVE MIGHT HELP REDUCE THE NUMBER OF CHIL­DREN
BEING BORN WITH AUTISM .. IT’S AT LEAST WORTH CHECK­ING OUT.

I HAVE AN 11 YEAR OLD AUTIS­TIC GRAND­SON .. AND THIS WILL NOT HELP HIM .. BUT HOPE­FULLY OTHERS…………

AUTISM HAS GROWN IN DIRECT NUM­BERS WITH THE AMOUNT OF
TECH​NOL​OGY..IE: CELL PHONES, COM­PUT­ERS, MICROWAVE OVENS, ETC.

I BELIEVE THAT IF WOMEN WHO BECOME PREG­NANT COULD WEAR SOME
TYPE OF, PER­HAPS NASA INSPIRED MATE­R­IAL UNDER GARMENT,WHICH COULD PRO­TECT THE FETUS DURING THE 9 MONTHS OF PREG­NANCY,
PER­HAPS, JUST PER­HAPS ..??? IT’S CER­TAINLY WORTH A TRY, NO FANCY
TEST PERI­ODS .. JUST HAVE WOMEN WHO WISH TO TRY IT, TRY IT ..
AND IF FEWER AUTIS­TIC CHIL­DREN ARE BORN .. IT’S A MIR­A­CLE .. IF THE
SAME NUMBER ARE BORN .. NOTH­ING VEN­TURED, NOTH­ING GAINED.

I WANTED TO SEND THIS TO “AUTISM SPEAKS” .. BUT I’M NOT COM­PUTER
SAVVY .. SO IF SOME­ONE ELSE WANTS TO SEND THIS IDEA TO THEM, BE MY GUEST .. I’M NOT LOOK­ING FOR CREDIT .. JUST A CURE.

Okay, as a person diag­nosed with Asperg­ers Syn­drome (a form of autism), let me address all you parents/grandparents of chil­dren with autism who think about killing you child/grandchild just because they have autism:

GET OVER YOUR­SELVES.

Autism is not a dis­ease, it cannot be cured. We don’t need to get rid of autism, we need to HELP people WITH autism. You people show no inner strength what­so­ever, and you all dis­gust me. And I’m pretty sure you dis­gust other people in my posi­tion too. I’m seri­ous. I lit­er­ally want to throw up when­ever one of you comes on TV, or when­ever I hear about one of you doing some­thing dras­tic like killing your child JUST because their brain is wired dif­fer­ently than yours.

Let me tell you some­thing: your child/grandchild has autism. Accept it. There’s noth­ing you can do about that, and you shouldn’t WANT to do any­thing about it. It makes them dif­fer­ent. Good. Dif­fer­ence is what keeps you from being a lousy human being.

House, MD expressed it best:

“Spoken like a true circle queen. See, skinny, socially priv­i­leged white people get to draw this neat little circle around them­selves. Every­one inside the circle is normal. Every­one out­side the circle needs to be beaten, broken, and reset, so they can be brought back into the circle. Fail­ing that, they should be insti­tu­tion­al­ized. Or worse— pitied.”