A lot of time has passed
since then. I don't have meltdowns nearly as often as I used to, and
they are never as severe. I have learned how to better control my
environment through routine, and my years of carefully watching other
people communicating have helped me to be able to communicate on my
own. Sure, those coping mechanisms and personal growth that help me
to function in society didn't come easy, but myself and my loved ones
worked hard, and they came in time. There was suffering, but it was
temporary and minor in the grand scheme of my life.
Last week, Suzanne
Wright, co founder of autism speaks, took some words from her mind
and put them on the internet. Words like burden, lost, epidemic,
gravely ill, and unable. She used phrases such as “these families
are not living”, “their lives are lived in constant fear and
despair”, she said many parents are too “emotionally depleted”
and that families with an autistic child will break apart and fail.
I know autism. I've lived
through the hardest of hard times because I'm autistic. I was in a
psychiatric ward on 24 hour suicide watch in the fourth grade because
that's when I realized that no matter how hard I tried, I would never
be able to stop being autistic. I knew in my heart that no cure was
ever going to come. So I did the only logical thing, I embraced it. I
worked with my autism instead of against it, and the wheels started
turning. My behavior started improving. I needed less and less
medication. I started to function. Autism did that. The process was
in no way easy, but the end result was worth twice the pain and
suffering I endured. And I did it on my own, not some scientist doing
genetic tests, not some people walking 5k and donating money, not
even my parents. It was me.
I know autism. Suzanne
Wright claims to know autism. She is mistaken. She definitely knows
and feels passionate about something, and that something sure does
sound bad, but that something isn't autism. She should take her
organization, her money, and her time, and dedicate it to fighting
that something. Because whatever it is, it sounds bad. Who knows?
Maybe her fight against this something will make the world a better
place.