A is for Autism... Now, get off my planet!

It's that time of year again. April is upon us. It's Autism Awareness Month. Again.

I have three kids on the spectrum, two of whom are now adults. I have to admit that part of me wishes the whole awareness thing would just go away. Haven't we pretty much saturated the world with awareness by now? Shouldn't we be moving on to other things at this point... like maybe Autism Understanding Month?  I haven't met anyone in the last several years who hasn't heard of autism. What I have met are hundreds, no thousands of people who don't actually have a clue what it really is or how to deal with people on the spectrum.

Oh, there are people who think they know, and even think they have the cut and dry one-size-fits-all answers. These are the people I would like to eject from the planet. When it comes to autism, one-size-does-not-fit-all. That's one of the things that makes Autism so incredibly difficult to treat. Every single individual with autism is exactly that: an individual. What works for one may not work for another. What one thinks or feels may not be shared by them all. In fact, it very rarely is. If ever.

This morning I published the article "Autism and Geek Culture: The benefits of fandom". I got an amazing response that was, for the most part, very positive. Quite a few people thanked me for it. But, there are always those people...

One lady private messaged me to tell me that I had done the entire Autism Community a horrible disservice by promoting the idea that people with autism should be allowed to throw themselves into their obsessions. This, right after my niece, who is also an Autism Mom, told me about how people at certain meetings tried to  essentially bully other parents into depriving their affected children of TV and video games.

These are the kind of people that need to go. This is the kind of thinking that needs to stop. This "My Way - No Highway Option" sort of thinking and acting is doing more harm to the Autism Community than any single recommendation or point of view out there. It's like the people who insist that Autism is caused by mercury and that's that. I had all of my children tested for heavy metal poisoning and guess what? Nada. In fact, one of my kids was suffering from a slight copper deficiency. I had no idea that could be a problem, but a single injection of special vitamin cocktail that would allow her to retain copper was all it took to settle that issue.

And she was still autistic.

Does that mean that mercury doesn't cause autism? No, it just means that it didn't cause my kids' autism.  But going around shouting at me that I'm neglecting my children because I haven't gotten them Chelation therapy, when I know for a scientific fact that they don't need it, doesn't help. In fact, it makes you look like fool. It also spawns Bad Ideas and Bad Situations, were young parents find quacks who are willing to do the the therapy willy-nilly and kids end up dying for no reason.

And yet, some people's children have been relieved of their autism symptoms through Chelation and the relief of heavy metals poisoning. One size does not fit all.

Likewise, telling a young mother that she has to deprive her child of television and video games can be just as ridiculous and narrow minded. Geek Culture helped my children, and continues to do so. That's the entire reason I started writing about it for that publisher. If that's not a fit for you and your family that's fine.

As for me and house, we are Whovians. If you have a problem with that get off my planet.

And as for April... Welcome to Autism Understanding Month!