Not sure if you feel like clicking over? Here's an excerpt:
I find it a little disturbing that there's all this pressure to welcome autism with open arms. Of course you love your child. Of course you wouldn't trade him in for anything. But I think it needs to be okay to admit that you wish your child didn't have to struggle. I think it needs to be okay for people with autism spectrum disorders to say, "I'm totally cool with who I am, but sometimes it sucks monkey balls to have to work this hard all. the. time. to deal with the neurotypical world."
So yeah. Click over to Mommy Wants Vodka. Because I have a feeling that today might be crazy.
I totally agree. While I love my daughter with all her quirkiness, I would be lying if I didn't want the Asperger's to go away.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Cheryl. I'm hoping the post is taken in that spirit.
ReplyDeleteThis has been my biggest concern with the autism community. There seems to be a lot coming from the neurodiversity side and a lot from the side that wants to see a cure but the rest of us in the middle seem to get kind of lost. I love my daughter and would love people to be more accepting but I would also love to be able to take away the things that make her so unhappy and uncomfortable. I try to take the good from both sides of the argument and use what works for use.
ReplyDeleteWell said! I wouldn't think twice about curing my daughter if I could, but I can't. So I love her with all my heart for the beautiful little girl that she is, and I appreciate all that she's teaching me. But yes, it's really hard sometimes.
ReplyDelete@throckles -- It's funny, because that's what I had always done with my neurotypical kids, too. You read what's out there, and then you choose what works for you and your family. It's kind of like how there's the whole breastfeeding thing, but people don't really talk about how you can breastfeed AND use formula sometimes. It's not an all-or-nothing thing.
ReplyDeleteGreat post!
ReplyDeleteIt is exactly how I view it.
Coincidentally your children are the reverse of mine. My eldest(9) is my one and only boy (he has autism) the second is a girl (7) and then I have twin girls (16mths).
(yeah I notice silly things LOL)Have a great weekend.
Going to try this again...
ReplyDeleteI so wanted to comment on 'The NAKED GIRLS' but got a big NO!
But I had the best laugh I have had in the longest while so I had to say thanks. LOL
By the way none of my kids have an iota of modesty in them! NONE. walking outside in the buff to see who is at the door is a regular occurrence! Sigh.
Oh and thanks for the duct tape tip will be using that one :)
@Wahzat Gayle -- Sorry! I started getting some freaks looking for porn, leaving me weird comments on that post, so I shut the comments down.
ReplyDeleteI loved both of the posts you made today! You are such a awesome funny lady and I <3 you for reals :op
ReplyDeleteI hope you don't mind if I crosspost here what I posted on Mommy Wants Vodka:
ReplyDeleteThere are some serious deficits in being NT, it’s just that our society is already set up to minimize them. “Curing” ASDs would be taking the person away and replacing them with an entirely different person, with a different experience of the world, different perspectives, different interests, etc. Now treating things like sensory overload or improving motor skills, that I could get on board with. We provide therapy and treatments to NTs when they have problems and yet we don’t call it “curing NTDs”, now do we? (I say this from the perspective of a young adult with AS, who knows that it gives me some problems but also sees that I don’t have some problems my NT peers have.)
@Jessica -- I see what you're saying, and that's exactly what we're doing with our son -- working on his speech, his motor skills, his sensory issues. I love that you point out that you don't have some of the problems your NT peers have.
ReplyDeleteI guess I just don't like the rhetoric that often gets used, though I haven't seen it here. I don't want to be "combated" or treated like a lock with a missing key. Cure implies getting rid of everything that is different, that everything about it is negative, like how a cure for cancer means the tumor is gone. I wish that people who don't really mean that, who really mean helping people cope with the parts of the world that weren't designed with their differences in mind, wouldn't use it, and I don't even know where to begin with the people who really do mean it.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing is that people don't distinguish between actual aspects of ASDs and comorbids. MR is a comorbid, for example. (Have they ever officially changed the term to intellectual disability? I'll just use the acronym MR rather than use the controversial word.) There are NTs with MR, but we don't yell at HF-NTs and tell them that they are just trying to pretend that NT isn't a serious, devastating, soul-stealing disorder and won't someone please think of the LF-NTs?!? We help people who are NT who also have MR without saying we should try to prevent NT patterns of thought or brain wirings. I don't think that neurodiversity is incompatible with treating comorbids, or with minimizing the features that are an issue. I don't quite get why people assume that. I wouldn't be in the process of getting a diagnosis (it's pretty much a given at this point and I suspected as much, but we have to dot i's and cross t's) if I didn't want some help, if I didn't think that there were some things I have trouble with that society doesn't expect to be an issue. The negative attitude towards being an autist as opposed to the issues it can cause can't be helping parents be willing to get the right diagnosis for their kids, and it adds to their stress at an already stressful time.