Aspies For Freedom

Thank you for your apologies, and welcome back. I really appreciate it.

Just to clarify, I found out my oldest daughter had autism nearly 16 years ago. A year later, my youngest daughter was diagnosed. It was indeed devastating...THEN.

In 1998, six years after that first diagnosis, our lives were in chaos. We had been offered little to no hope or assistance from anyone in the schools, doctors, etc. I spent those six years self-educating myself on autism spectrum disorders,

Shamshir, I hope you are referring to the ex-therapist!

To Janet Boyce:

Firstly, thank you for being so brave, coming back here nearly two years after being misunderstood. I quite understand the mixed emotions - when it was suggested by a teacher that my two youngest "might be somewhat autistic" My reaction was that the woman was mad! How could they be autistic? They were normal as far as I could see; just like me, their father, their older siblings, their grandad...

Reading all about it, and going through the diagnostic process made me see what I had failed to see in my succesful-enough life; that we were all on the spectrum. It explained why I failed to 'get' certain people. And why I had never been able to see anything 'wrong' with children who were introduced to me as Autistic.

Like you, I was in ignorance of the truth about the spectrum. There is little but horror stories in the popular press and on TV. In order to find out the truth, one has to become a detective - and why would anyone with no connection (as they see it) to autism bother to do that?

When 'different' lives are always portrayed as unmitigated disasters, to the extent that you were part/mis-quoted in the original article to give the same effect, it is small wonder that other people who have been equally or even more abused by the system get really upset.

I hope you will be better treated here this time around. I also hope that you will find it in yourself to forgive Amy for her response: she has had it particularly hard, and I understand her reaction, although I know only a little of what she has been through.

As the parent myself of four sons who are probably all on the spectrum, and a daughter who is so much more 'together' than I am even now, as a grandmother, let alone at her age, I understand all the emotions that go through a mother when a potentially devastating condition (not merely autism) is diagnosed in a child. Experience has led me to believe in a far more positive outlook for a diagnosis of autism than certain 'autism charities' would like.

I think that it is up to people such as you, me and another Janet to publicise the truth about spectrum people. That, really, is what this site is about; and if some people are somewhat strident in the defence of an autisitic outlook, that is not surprising given the hysteria on the other side.

I hope you'll stay - we need brave, committed, experienced and compassionate people like you.