So, over the years, my attitude towards awareness has changed and evolved.
When we began our journey, I felt that we needed awareness, for the sake of my son, so that people might think before judging him, or me, based on his challenging behaviour.
Then I went through a phase where I was so hopping mad that I felt that every time I heard calls for "awareness" I felt that what people were asking for was acceptance. Acceptance though can go two ways. Acceptance of the person, absolutely. Acceptance of the reality that autism is somehow normal, never. Acceptance of the ridiculous discrimination, challenges, denials of sickness, absolutely never.
I feel like I'm starting to come to a balanced opinion. I can finally see past the blue puzzle pieces that stand for fundraising and money going to pay for celebrity campaigns whilst offering no help to families.
Our cause needs awareness. It needs for people to recognize how many affected children there are out there. Awareness for the shear numbers. Awareness of how those families are struggling. Awareness that comes with awakening. People need to bloody well WAKE UP!!! If not out of compassion, then out of financial concern. The country cannot afford for so many children to need such expensive interventions. Schools are at breaking point. Parents are at breaking point.
Our schools need awareness. Our children are everywhere. Teachers need the tools to be able to educate these kids in spite of their challenges, because they aren't going away.
The medical profession most of all needs awareness. They need to recognize that there are indeed things THEY can do to help these children, without resorting at the first appointment to a prescription for risperdal.
Our government needs awareness. They need to be asking questions as to why the numbers keep climbing with NO answers. What causes autism? How many children recover? How many children are truly affected. Why do the cases present so differently? How do we get answers? Why the proverbial dead horse of genetics and eye gazing keeps being flogged?
It's time to get serious. It's time to really look at these kids from a true biological perspective. There was a study not too long ago that found that some children with autism could be grouped into subsets. Are we really dealing with autism or autisms? If that's the case, we need to be figuring out which autism children have - could it open a door for treatment and recovery, even for a small percentage of children?
Why do these children have immune problems? Why do they have food allergies? What is going on from a GI perspective?
Let's make this upcoming Awareness Month both Awareness and Action Month.
It's time for answers.
I get a headache sometimes with all the "awareness". This time of year there seems to be a lot of "awareness", but it's all over the place. There is very little cohesion in the autism community and too much bickering. You wrote about there being many autisms, and I think you are spot on. There seem to be multiple medical issues affecting children who seem to have similar behavioral symptoms (which they clump together and call autism). It's been two years since my son was diagnosed. He's had hundreds of hours of therapy, I've researched and researched, and it still seems pretty confusing.
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