I think the main reason growing up autistic and raising autistic kids is so hard is because society doesn’t accept us yet. I hear a lot of autism parents rant about how difficult autism is and how some parents just cannot cope. It made me think of the nearsighted analogy I see floating around so I’m gonna expand on it.
I’m nearsighted, which is technically a disability, but I’m easily able to get glasses, to get them repaired when I need to, and nobody thinks twice about it. I got teased a little bit when I first got them, but people wearing glasses is basically considered normal and kids will tease you for anything.
But imagine if nearsighted people kept failing classes because they couldn’t see the chalkboard and glasses were too expensive or you had to jump through hoops to get them. Imagine if instead of wearing glasses, they had to go to expensive and ineffective therapies to train their eyes to see normally.
Of course, these methods would lead to physical and mental exhaustion and really painful eye strain as well as feelings of guilt and shame for something that’s beyond the individual’s control, so nearsighted people would protest that they are ineffective. But what do they know? They’re nearsighted.
Imagine if you were told you were stupid for holding the book close to your face to read, or not being able to read a billboard. Imagine if you were trained not to squint because squinting made the people around you uncomfortable. Imagine if people told you that if you would just go outside more or try harder, your vision would go back to normal.
Imagine finally getting glasses, only to find out that they don’t actually help because they’re one-size-fits-all. They just make everything blurry in a different way and give you a killer headache on top of that.
Imagine growing up with access to glasses that do help a little bit, then becoming an adult and realizing that you can’t get help if your glasses break or your vision changes because the only nearsightedness programs around are for children and you’ve aged out of them.
Imagine people assuming you were stupid, slow, lazy, and irresponsible just because you have a physical difference in your eyes that could easily be fixed with glasses, but for some reason nobody thinks to accommodate you.
Imagine seeing your mom cry because she hates that her nearsighted child will never experience the world the way someone with 20/20 vision does. Imagine hearing her tell her friends that she’s afraid to send you to school because of the way the other kids treat you, and because the school doesn’t do anything to help. Imagine hearing her say that sometimes she wishes she aborted you because the stress is too much.
Imagine seeing on the news that a mother killed her nearsighted son because she “couldn’t cope with the stress” and not being charged with murder because the court sees it as a valid reason to kill someone.
If we as a society put more effort into accommodating neurodivergent people, parents wouldn’t be fighting against the world to provide for their kids. Autism would be just another way kids can be different from each other.