Back on my soap box! Letting my Crazzy out in force with this one…
I saw this link with the title…Age of Autism…and I thought…Yeah, man, now that’s what I’m talking about. Someone as militant about AWEtism as I am (Maybe just need to teach them the right way to spell it).
Then when I check it out…it was all about mercury…vaccines…chemicals…all the possible causes of AWEtism. Like that was a bad thing?!?!?
Mutations…Evolution…even Survival of the Fittest…these are not bad things.
NOTHING is WRONG with your child!!!
They are just different!
DIFFERENT! Not broken! Not disabled!
One of the scariest scenes from my X-Men favs is this one…
This father could not accept his son…because he was DIFFERENT! He shamed him. Forced him to hide his beauty away. Then he spent every thing he had to find a cure. He coerced his son into being experimented upon. He was even willing to use to force against his own child…for his good of course.
BULL SH!T!
He wanted convenience. He wanted the easy path of having a ‘normal’ child. A human.
At all cost…even his son’s emotional or physical well-being. His life even?
Another X-Men son had it even worse…talk to Mutant 143 Jason Stryker. His father locked him up, experimented on him and ultimately lobotomized him.
You think I am being overly dramatic? Paranoid? An alarmist?
It has happened already. The deaf community has been torn apart by cochlear implants. Some choosing to have them…others not. What is to say that autism is any different? Personally, I will never give a red cent or a pence to any organization that seeks a CURE.
Maybe you think that is easy for someone like me to say. Judgemental even? After all PanKwake is high-functioning. She can speak. She can manage her bodily functions (baths not included of course). She will be able to live independently one day. What do I know? How dare I think of it as AWEtism?
No, I have not walked in your shoes. But neither have you walked in mine.
When I look at the mutants in X-Men, they fall into three broad categories…that roughly approximate functioning of those on the spectrum. You have…
- Charles Xaviers, Jean Greys and Magneto types – mutants who can blend in unnoticed. Heck, they are even seen as ‘gifted’, talented…sought after. The stars…like some very notable Aspies out there.
- Beast, Toad, Nightcrawler – The names say it all. They hide away…or are hidden. They will never be accepted. They are ‘scary.’ Sound familiar? That is what life was like for those first diagnosed with autism. Classical autism.
- Emma Frost, Angel and my favorite Raven/Mystique – They hide it within themselves…bottle it up…until it explodes. They are angry. Angry that they must try to be normal. Angry at the DEMANDS…unfair ones often…placed on them by society. Perhaps even Pathologically Demand Avoidant?
But they all share one thing in common…they are all different. Special. Yes, mutants. The next step in human evolution?
No, I don’t support a cure. Treatments…therapies…means of bridging the communication and sensory issues that isolate some more severely than others. Those I can and do hope for…especially as I know how hard we have struggled to find what works for us. And that is what matters…what works for the individual…and why no cure…no prevention will work.
I warned you…I am RADICAL about AWEtism! Just like this guy…
And her too…
Self-Directed Learning & Neurodiversity 