Hello Ausomeness!
We’ve come to the end of Autism Acceptance Month, and now we’re embarking upon Autism Acceptance Year, Decade, Century, and Epoch!
Heck, let’s just call it Autism Acceptance Eon!
I’m being silly, but I’m also being very serious. Now that we’ve become somewhat clearer about what autism is and how many different ways it manifests, we’ve realized that there are a lot of autistic people around us — in our families, in our neighborhoods, and in our communities.
To be clear, these people have always been here (see the wonderful book We’ve Been Here All Along: Autistics Over 35 Speak Out in Poetry and Prose), and now we have the opportunity, finally, to recognize, welcome, and support our autistic friends and family members properly. Let the Autism Acceptance Eon begin!
Acceptance is an Action
At the beginning of this month, I posted about International Autism Awareness Day, and then I went to my Facebook page to create a silly series of pictures for my autistic friends and for my friends who are parents of autistic children. I did this because the autism awareness circus can be pretty grueling for my autistic friends and their families. So many autism organizations present autism as a melodramatic tragedy and an epidemic, and they manufacture a lot of panic and pity that helps them gather donations, but actually makes the lives of many autistic people — especially adults — very uncomfortable.
So I created a group of silly pictures and started tagging my friends in the autistic community — and wow. I didn’t realize it until that day, but this community has welcomed me — a complete stranger — into their lives. My feed is filled with autistic people and their families! Filled! My tags got ridiculously long, so much so that I had to figure out how to organize them. This is a vibrant online community, and so deeply connected that I just sat there and marveled at how open, funny, warm, welcoming, and loving the autistic community is.
So let me tell you what I see in my autistic friends — because these real-life views don’t often find their way into those dreadful fundraising pleas.
My autistic friends are …
Delightful
Sweet
Sarcastic
Highly, wildly empathic
Loving
Artistic
Contentious
Tender
Athletic
Deeply emotional
Sensitive
Activist
Caring
Brilliant
Goofy
Human.
My autistic friends and their families are fully human, with all the majesty and all the flaws that humans are prone to. I thank my many neurodiverse and autistic friends, and the parents of autistic children, for inviting me into your intensely empathic community and helping me understand empathy at a much deeper level than I ever did before. Thank you for your ausomeness!
Leah Kelley
Spectacular! Positively Ausome!
EmmasHopeBook
Karla McLaren celebrates 1000 Ausome Things #AutismPositivity2013 – http://t.co/RI51Nq4SbP
EmmasHopeBook
Karla McLaren celebrates 1000 Ausome Things #AutismPositivity2013 http://t.co/OapQbHLWgo
Mom2Rebels
RT @EmmasHopeBook: Karla McLaren celebrates 1000 Ausome Things #AutismPositivity2013 – http://t.co/RI51Nq4SbP
Mom2Rebels
RT @EmmasHopeBook: Karla McLaren celebrates 1000 Ausome Things #AutismPositivity2013 http://t.co/OapQbHLWgo
Victoria D Matlock
Awesome, we need more of this. I have known a man for 22 years and he is so awesome. His name is Mark, he has Autism and always is so kind to me and all around.
Perry Shaw
i think about this issue everyday. someone needs to get involved with the schools and change some things concerning our children with autism. they really treat them like they are normal and should be able to do things that a normal child can do, it’s not working. i see it with my son as soon as he gets close to a peer in special ed, he gets seperated from that peer. i always wonder if the school don’t let these kids bond, how are they going to make a close friend in life that will help one another. the normal kids get to build relationships that last for along time. my son is always with me, i play with him, i do everything that he wants to make him happy but he is not getting the idea of a friendship. he has no clue on how to call a friend and chat. he never talks about his so call friends. but the school paints a pretty picture about how my son gets along with other peers. this isn’t right. they should add to their kids agenda for the day another kind of help or support or therapy, not pushing the kids about meeting their goals and fill out paperwork.
Karla
Hi Perry,
I read so many parents who are dealing with these issues, and it might help for you to connect with them.
There are some good places to go for support, and two of them are on Facebook. The first is Karla’s ASD Page (It’s Karla Fisher, not me!), here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Karlas-ASD-Page/155369821204141
The second is Bill Nason’s Autism Discussion Page, and it’s here: https://www.facebook.com/autismdiscussionpage