nonautismmom

[nonautismmom]

My Not-an-Autism-Mom post for Autism Awareness (lol) Month

I say “not an Autism Mom” because although I raised a child with autism, the “autism mom” crew makes me sick. Their child’s diagnosis is all about them. It’s the chance for them to be a perfect martyr and victim. They post about their child on social media. They post their child’s picture, their child’s personal information, their child having tantrums, then cry about how hard their life is. They post sad stories about giving their child chelation, weird herbal therapies, ABA, and more. Of course none of it works, because you can’t rewire your brain with any of that crap.

My child always acted a bit weird. I didn’t think a lot of it because I acted the same way (as it turns out, I’m mildly autistic too - they called it Asperger’s then, now they call it high functioning - whatever). I was a single mom and the school was constantly in conniptions. Why couldn’t I come in to meetings at least once a month about his “behavior”, which mostly seemed to consist of mild classroom disruptions that poorly trained teachers were unable to control? It seemed useless to explain to them that I don’t get 12 days a year off to attend parent teacher conferences. Was every other mother at that school a pampered housewife? They began insisting that I drug my child, who was perfectly happy and calm at home. At home we adjusted the environment to be one that was calming. It wasn’t too loud, or too bright. I suggested he be put in a classroom more suited to his needs. “No, we believe in mainstreaming”. Okay, clearly this is your own fault, then. You refuse to give my child the services he needs but you want me to drug him.

Then they said I should put him in ABA. By now, I had been warned of the abuses happening at the nearby Judge Rotenburg Center, which is now recognized by the UN as literally practicing torture but which no one seems to be able to get shut down. I asked calmly about this, they said he should go in for THIRTY HOURS A WEEK of ABA therapy. Mind you, this is a child who can walk, talk, use the bathroom, read and write at higher than his grade level, and simply ACTS A LITTLE SOCIALLY INAPPROPRIATE AT TIMES. What did he need 30 hours of therapy a week for? I told them I didn’t have transportation to the center (I didn’t own a car) and was also working during the times they expected me to take him (after school, every single day). They offered no help with transportation and simply expressed “disappointment” that I wouldn’t quit my job to drive my child off to be tortured all on my own.

A year or two later I finally took him out of school and homeschooled him through the rest of high school. He has an associates degree now and lives on his own.

Sometimes I wonder if I’ve deprived him of something important by not giving him “the therapy he needed”, so thank you all for blogging about what happens in there. It sounds like a lot of awful nonsense.