From The Mom Cave to "I Wish I Didn't Have Asperger's": #AutismPositivity 2012 Flash Blog

A couple weeks ago, an anonymous person found his way to a blog using the search words, "I wish I didn't have Asperger's." Today, the autism community, individually and collectively, is offering a response to this unnamed person.

Dear "I Wish I Didn't Have Asperger's":

I don't know if you are a male or female, minor or adult. I don't know if you sat down to the computer and typed your query in a moment of strength or of weakness. We are, after all, strangers.

I am the mother of two children with autism.

I told our younger son, king of the search engines, about your recent search and asked him what he thought about it. He said simply, "I'd tell him that I wish I had a laser so that I could zap it out of him."

Really?

"Well, what about your older brother?" I asked. Our older son is low verbal and more severely affected with autism. "Would you want autism to be zapped out of him also?"

"Yep," he answered simply. I was sad. I understood, and I was too afraid to ask him if he wanted his own autism zapped away.

Here is my honest answer: if I had that magic laser, I'd zap it out of all of you. I would. In fact, I practically have tried to zap it out of my kids with just about any treatment I could find. That was back in the early days after diagnosis.

I wanted it gone also.

I wanted our kids to sleep. I wanted our older son to talk. I didn't want any more gastric pain or sensory pain or social anxiety. I didn't want locks on doors and windows or family arguments or toileting accidents or crippling fear. I didn't want people to look at our kids strangely any more.

I wanted to be normal.

What is normal, anyway? As I grew more comfortable in my own shoes as a mother to these two special children, I became more certain every day that we created our own definition--and that it wouldn't happen overnight.

As a mother to two children with autism, I am a spectator to their lives, an advocate when called to duty,and a cheerleader always. I stand in awe of their strength.

To them and to you, I want to say, "Thank you".

Thank you for not only living your life loudly, but for screaming it from the rooftops so that a generation of medical science, of educators, of neighbors, family members and of friends can learn.

Thank you for leading by example.

Thank you for making your life seen today so that autistic people tomorrow can be better understood.

As a community, we've not yet hit our stride. We're getting there, and often we're looking to you to blaze the trail.

Thank you. I know that it isn't easy.

In our house, our quest is to scale those hills to progress each day, even the ones that seem insurmountable. For, really, what other choice is there?

On our way, we lose our footing. We stumble. We fall.

We might even wish that we weren't on the journey.

But, then we get back up, and we keep moving forward until one day, we can stand at the zenith of our climb where autism no longer defines us but is merely a part of us.

Thank you and thanks to the countless others in the autism community for not giving up on the climb. This is a joint effort, and we all have our place in it. Part of yours was not too long ago when you created a search about not having Asperger's.

I have empathy for your situation. I have gratitude for your recent efforts, and I have hope for the future.


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This entry was written as part of Autism Positivity Day Flash Blog 2012 and is the FINAL response in the Blogging A to Z April 2012--I promise there are a couple "z" words in there somewhere...