Don't take my Autism away from me.

For the most part telling people I have Aspergers has been a really positive experience. My friends have accepted this and understood it and they GET me now much better than they did before. I can be myself, and mostly it’s all good. However,  I’m also raising an autistic son, and I basically live in the world of special needs and of course this means that I’m exposing myself to a whole world of different opinions, and some of them offend me.

The bottom line is that I’m on that magical thing we call the Autistic Spectrum. I always have been and I always will be. What’s more, so is my father, who I love very much, and so is my son, who is one of my two favourite people in the whole wide world. When I think hard about who I am, what I want in life, what it means to be me, and what it is I like most about myself, I can’t separate any of it from my Autism ‘symptoms.’ I am who I am because I am on the spectrum

So when I hear people talk about curing Autism, or talking about it as though it is a separate entity from those who ‘have’ it, I can’t help but find it offensive.  If a person hates Autism…does that me they hate me? I wouldn’t be who I am without it. And neither would my son….or my father. And some of the things I love most about all three of us, are traits we have because we’re autistic.

As a child I had an Autistic father who scared me with his meltdowns and always told me the harsh truth because he doesn’t believe in anything  else. I seriously struggled through the process of growing up because I always felt different and didn’t understand why I wasn’t fitting in. As a parent I am often frustrated and defeated as I try to negotiate the minefields of raising an Autistic child of my own.  I fully understand the issues and the difficulties of Autism. But would I change a thing about the three of us? Not a chance. Because then we wouldn’t be us. I have an intelligent supportive father and an extremely loving son with an amazing sense of humour. For myself, although I drive people around me nuts and often feel lost an out of control, I wouldn’t trade my veracious appetite for knowledge and studying for anything.

I wish people would stop viewing autism as something that should…or even could!....be taken away from an individual. It’s not a problem, it’s not an illness, it’s just a different way of being that is not compatible with mainstream culture. I do not want a cure, I do not want a solution, all I want is acceptance and understanding. For those that offer me that I have an enormous amount of gratitude. For those that think that Autism is something to be fought, or cured, please think about what you’re saying around those for whom it is simply a way of being.