Monday, December 30, 2013

Autism Parents Are Not Unbreakable

  
The allegedly UNBREAKABLE blade of my window ice scraper snapped off under the strain of several days of heavy ice scraping in this December's cold and snowy Canadian winter weather. In fairness to the manufacturers and distributors of the "Unbreakable" ice scraper blade I have used it well past the 3 year limited warranty and it has seen lots of use in previous Canuck winters. People, including parents of severely autistic children, can also break particularly if they face other socio-economic and/or family and health challenges.

Not all parents break in the face of the challenges and fears that haunt many parents of severely autistic children but some do.  All of us know that it is highly unlikely that anyone will provide our autistic children with the love and care, the security and the enjoyment of life, that we have provided our children.  Some of us, not all, but some of us, break under the pressures of those facts.  Some parents rather than leave their children to a world that they know will not care for them kill their own children and take, or attempt to take, their own lives.

The world of "autism" awareness is  cursed by a group of fellow parents that attacks these parents for any effort to treat their own children, who do nothing to help those parents and their children in any meaningful way. They most assuredly will not provide any meaningful assistance to the children whose parents they condemn for trying to end their existence to prevent their adult autistic children from suffering lives on streets, hospital wards, jails and mental health institutions. They do not realize that those parents are broken, just broken, by the realities they and their children face and the children will face after their parents are gone. Yes, they are broken by the realities their children will face after they are gone; NOT by people talking about those realities as some erroneously claim.

These alleged thinking persons who purport to offer guides to autism and who attack all parents who do not drink from their "autism is a gift kool-aid" do nothing because they too are broken, their common sense is broken, their ability to see autism realistically is broken, shattered under the weight of their irrational belief system.

We are all people. Ultimately our bodies outlast our limited time warranties. None of us can  dare  claim we are unbreakable.  The alleged thinking persons would do well to remember that reality as 2013 slips away and their own children age and move closer to their own very uncertain futures.    


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Harold, well said.

I don’t see all of the kool aid drinking parents as enemies to autism.
The broken parent often fears public places and situations.
The kool aid drinking parent will say that autistic children and adults have every right to be anywhere at anytime they wish.
It’s up to everyone else to adapt and accept the noises and shrieks the autistic person makes because they are gifts.
What’s wrong with that?

farmwifetwo said...

They don't want us to admit the list AS wrote is actually true.

I am luckier than most living on both ends of the spectrum... but I am still tired and frustrated and trying for 2 more years (high school) to ignore the "what will happen when" question... Pretty sad when you make the decision not to do extra at home because you are afraid your kid's lack of ID dx will pull any disability supports yet his adaptive functioning is that of a 4/5yr old and speech age 2.

They have no idea... then in the news they are pissy when they discover their kids don't qualify for adult services...

Did you see in the NP that Adam L?? (the shooting in the Sandyhill shooter) was dx'd with OCD and ASD?? Waiting for the "no he wasn't" to start.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous...who says "broken parents" fear public places and the "kool aid drinking parents" are the only ones to take their kids anywhere and everywhere? Give me a break. Many parents I know and help are tired, burnt out, overwhelmed, constantly worried, etc. yet they carry on and get up every day and take their kids on the spectrum to restaurants, malls, grocery stores, therapy, ice skating, swimming and so on. To think that only the fat mouthed Shannon De Roches Rosas and Emily Willinghams of the autism world are out there doing things with their kids is complete BS!

The selfproclaimed "neurodiverse parents" are just so unbelievably insecure that they have to let the world know on a daily basis that they are "good parents."
And if you think shrieking, excessive stimming and noises are "gifts" then you are clearly out of your mind.