Autism Awareness Week... *What I want to tell you*

The 4th April marks the end of autism awareness week.

All week I've been planning to write a post. 

All week I've drafted and deleted.

We have three sons, all diagnosed with autism. 

We live with it twenty four hours a day.

Before our gorgeous boys were born, we were 'aware' of autism, but we knew absolutely nothing at all about it. We would hear that someone's little one had been diagnosed with it and we made the right noises and got on with our life.

Then, our first born came along....

Suddenly, our lives changed and we joined a special club. 

It's an epic roller coaster of a ride. To get on this ride and experience the ups and downs of a parent of children with special needs, you need to have:

1. A very thick skin
2. A hell of a lot of determination
3. The knowledge that you will succeed in getting what your child needs
4. A damn good support network
5. The ability to cut yourself a whole lot of slack

You see, the difficulties that you encounter come thick and fast and mostly daily. It's often hard to comprehend why certain situations occur, or indeed, why you are restricted so much. 

All you want is for your little person to experience the same things their peers are, it's just that it may need to be tweaked somewhat.

I could go on, and detail these issues. However, all three of our little people are so different from each other and experience autism in different ways. You know, just like us neurotypical folks do....we aren't all the same and we don't have the same experiences. We hold different opinions about what we like and don't like.

However, what I will point out is that it has been quite an eye opener throughout the pandemic.

I have heard people complaining about wearing masks, going crazy disinfecting everything, worrying that people were in their personal space and not observing social distancing, hating staying at home, or worrying about going out in public for the fear of other members of the public behaving in an unpredictable manner....

....it seems we've all had a taste of what some people on the autism spectrum experience.

This autism awareness week, I have deleted all of my drafts of how our gorgeous boys are affected by ASD, I have deleted a 'be autism aware' post. I choose, to ask you to think about lock-down, think about how you felt when you were restricted, think about how you felt as positive cases were rising and you were forced to live in world that wasn't certain, or comfortable and completely unpredictable, out of your control.

This is how I would like to raise autism awareness this year....just stop and think.

Kate