Aspies For Freedom

Apparently one of AFF's goals is to make people, especially parents and teachers, understand how autistic people think and feel. Parents of autistic children who have an autism neurodiversity themselves are often more successful parents of autistic children because they recognize and understand their children's struggles. Making parents and teacher understand autism better could maybe make many of these scary "treatments" less attractive.

But when trying to spread this view I see that many of us fail to try to understand the parents' situation. To raise their autistic children is often a hard struggle that dominate large parts of their lives. No wonder why they sometimes feel that they are in a miserable situation, and they often find that the community around Autism Speaks give them someone to blame with their conspiracy theories. (the big lies of the pharmaceutical companies) And no wonder why they are provoked when people like AFF say something they could perceive as "You are bad parents".

Well, I think it would be a breakthrough if we could make more parents support neurodiversity, at least somehow.

Yeah, understanding parents is a big topic.

My parents never knew I had Aspergers. They just thought I was a problem child. After I got a good job and married a nice girl they got over it.  When I became more p;rosperous than they ever were they finally respected me the way I am.  Then they died of old age without ever knowing what I was going through.

My parents did their best but they were very busy people and very little was known about autism when I was a child. They knew something wasn't quite right with me but thought I would grow out of it.

Dad died before I got the diagnosis of Aspergers and mum seems to alternate between being very accepting and perhaps being in a bit of denial about it. She is relieved that there is now an explanation for some of their weird things I did (and still do).