When it comes to opposing the cure culture and tragedy rhetoric that perpetuates the dehumanization and abuse of autistic people, some people ask, Why does it matter?
Most of the people who ask me on this are the parents of autistic children, still in that dark, hopeless place where they believe acceptance is giving up and that they have to “destroy the Autism and rescue their children”. They’re hurting and they’re desperate.
They are desperate because they have been lied to about what Autism is and what it means to be autistic, and so they come to believe the untruth that to be autistic is to be worse than dead, that Autism is tragedy, and that disability (and any difference at all, really) is shameful, scary, and pitiable. So they ask, Why does it matter?
Why not use language like “epidemic”, “disease”, “eradicate”, and “battle” to refer to Autism?
Why shouldn’t I say that “I hate my child’s Autism but I love my child”?
Why wouldn’t I support Autism Speaks, Generation Rescue, Autism NOW, and other cure-focused organizations that spread messages of fear and tragedy to scare up funds?
What’s wrong with pushing towards normalcy, “Until all the pieces fit”?
Why shouldn’t I employ any tactic necessary to attempt to cure my Autistic child, or at least make them seem outwardly more “normal”?
And the answer is so simple, and yet so difficult, because to understand it requires letting go, and deep empathy, and the very active act of accepting your child for who who they are.
The answer is—when you refuse to accept your child for who they are, when you care more about your child acting “normal” than about your child’s health and well-being, when you subject your child to trauma inducing therapies in a futile effort to change their neurotype, when you fall for the lie that says that there is a “normal kid” inside your child under the Autism and if you just fight hard enough you can “rescue” them—when you fight against Autism, all you’re really doing is fighting against your child.
Because Autism isn’t something extra, something you can take away. Being autistic influences everything about your child– from the way they think, learn, communicate, and see the world around them, to the person they are and the autistic adult they will become. You can’t separate an autistic person from their Autism. Autism is a disability, but also a difference and a neurotype. Autism is not a disease or an illness, and it can’t be cured.
And your autistic child needs you.
Your child needs you to tell them, every day, that they are loved and accepted exactly as they are.
They need you to protect their childhood, so easily stolen by ineffective (and potentially harmful) treatments and forty hours a week of quasi-abusive therapy.
They need you to support them in the development of their self esteem, not to tell them with all of your actions and words that they are broken and sick and that the way to be loved is to be someone else.
They need you to build them up and help them grow in joy and confidence, not to break their spirit with compliance training, making them easy targets for abusers in the process.
They need you to accept and support them for all that they are and to not fight against them.
When it comes to acceptance, your child’s life is on the line. Your child can grow up surrounded by a message of fear, frustration, and tragedy, internalizing these messages until they hate themselves and have had every bit of joy stolen from them– or they can grow up within the understanding and unconditional love of acceptance.
Acceptance isn’t passive. Acceptance isn’t “giving up”. Acceptance is looking at your child and seeing exactly who they are—autistic, unique, an individual with their own unique challenges, disabilities, and strengths—and loving them for exactly who they are right now.
Acceptance means meeting your autistic child where they are right now, accommodating their needs and growing their strengths, so that your child can grow up to become a happy, healthy autistic person who can trust and love the people around them.
Acceptance is a brave act of every day saying no to cure culture, no to fear, no to hopelessness, and saying yes to love, yes to acceptance, and yes to your child.
Because when your child’s life is on the line, it matters.
Active Acceptance: Why Does It Matter?
30 Thursday Nov 2017
Posted Uncategorized
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