If you have been on social media today I’m sure you are aware that it is Autism Awareness Day. A day that hopes to make the population aware that autism is all around them.
Unfortunately people do know the word Autism but this doesn’t mean that they know what Autism is.
This isn’t something that makes me mad as I was one of those people, less than five years ago. In-fact it makes me sad that I wasn’t more aware.
Autism was a word used for people who were in ‘their own world’, people who would do ‘strange’ movements and would most likely be covering their ears. I didn’t know anyone with autism, this is what the media had taught me.
Then our world was rocked our little boy was born with autism. Of course we didn’t know this at the time, as autism creeps up on you slowly.
We have only been on our autism journey for three years but it feels much longer than that. It has been a rollercoaster of emotions with many highs and lows. It has changed every aspect of our life and is always present.
Autism isn’t something to be scared of and it isn’t something that can be cured, it is part of our son, part of his make-up and personality. It makes him who he is. Our very special little superstar.
All that we can hope is that Autism Awareness Day makes people aware and not scared of the differences that autism brings.
Great post. I understand that most people often don’t know what autism is. I have known what it is from age sixteen on when I first started suspecting it in myself (I wasn’t diagnosed till age 20). At the time, I read a piece on a disability awareness site for kids written by a ten-year-old child with auitsm and I thought “it must’ve been written by his Mom, because truly autistic children can’t write”. (I had heard of Asperger’s, which is what I suspected I had and am now diagnosed with, but I didn’t realize autism is a spectrum.) In the Netherlands, it feels as though autism awareness didnt’start to take off till Volkert van der Graaf, who killed politician Pim Fortuyn, was suspected of having Asperger’s in 2003. That did immediately set the tone for negativitiy. Then again, it might’ve been autism awareness existed before then or didn’t get groudn until much later, because 2003 was alsot he year I was obsessed with autism.
I had never heard the word autism mentioned at school. Now I know about it I think there were a few children on the spectrum. I think you’re right about the negative press and it’s terrible that makes people more aware for the wrong reasons x
I think you’re right – some people are scared of autism, because they don’t understand. One of the main things they don’t understand is that everyone with autism is different! So it’s very important to just treat anyone as an individual, and get to know what they do and don’t like. We can keep spreading the word! xx
All humans are different, its a shame ‘we’ tend to forget that! x