World Autism Awareness Day. How much hypocrisy in that word: “awareness”. The years pass, the “blue” days pile up, but the full awareness of us parents of people with autism, about what an existence is and how it changes, corresponds to an absolute unconsciousness of those who live two centimeters from us and not he doesn’t even realize we exist. The day itself risks showing the typical traits of autism: repetitiveness and difficulty communicating.
The society that cannot tolerate differences
Autism, although scientifically not contagious, is socially contagious, because the families of people with autism are imbued with the isolation of their children, they tend to withdraw, to isolate themselves from a society that cannot tolerate differences. And then in turn the mothers and fathers of autistic children become friends with each other, they hang out, they close themselves in a community, because it is often considered the only way to avoid the humiliation of seeing someone laugh at their child, of reading the annoyance in look of those who cannot tolerate “abnormal” behavior, in a pizzeria, at the cinema, at the bar. We Italians who rightly challenged all this when we decided to close special schools and mental hospitals and chose to exchange experiences, even profoundly different ones, because we thought about the wealth that comes from it and that better women and men could be born from sociality , we cannot give up.
The huge sacrifices
Mothers and fathers work hard every day, with great sacrifices and with the support of tireless professionals, to teach their children to hold a fork and a knife, to sit at the table, to tie their shoes, to dress, to communicate , even in an unconventional way. They are the rudiments for a life that will never be completely autonomous and independent, or at all, but they are the efforts that allow you to improve the quality of life of your children and push them to live in society. To those who are reading this piece of mine, in good conscience, I now ask you to try to answer a question: in the face of this enormous effort, what do I do, even in a small way, in my life to welcome this diversity?
Happiness built on different parameters
This is what World Autism Awareness Day must be for, to find an answer to this question, otherwise April 2nd will always and only be the day of people with autism and their families, who don’t need a day, they have already a whole life that makes them aware.
We parents are not people who are unhappy with our children, put that out of your mind, we wouldn’t exchange our children for any other child in the world, the discomfort arises with the diagnosis, in moments of difficulty, but then we roll up our sleeves and go. If anything we have learned to build our happiness on different parameters.
A cost considered unproductive
No degree in engineering, but the pleasure of being able to build laborious communication channels with our children. No one to accompany to the altar for the wedding, I don’t know if my daughter Sara would have wanted to get married, but if it had been her wish I would have been at her side, just as happiness was given to me when I accompanied Sara, dressed in white, on the day of his Communion.
However, our happiness in this society, a society obsessed with success linked to wealth, money, does not have the same dignity.
Being able to do speech therapy, psychomotricity, behavioral therapies, supporting research costs money, and that cost is increasingly considered unproductive.
The importance of inclusion which is not begging
The presence of children with disabilities in the classroom is increasingly seen as a nuisance, a complication for learning, we do not perceive the presence of a “subject” that is not in the school programs but should be present in them: inclusion. Which is not begging to share space and time for the fragile, but is reciprocity, exchange and human growth.
The “After us” imagined exclusively as four walls where we can hospitalize our children when we parents are no longer here, while we think of their happiness as close as possible to that perceived today thanks to our closeness. Which is the basis of the law that we approved a few years ago. Rather than thinking of them living in the new mental hospitals, it is better to survive our children, it will be unnatural, beyond the thoughts of any parent, but it is our legitimate feeling.
Support for the Italian Autism Foundation
Yes, we want legitimacy to be given in this society to our happiness, which is totally denied today. We ask this on World Autism Awareness Day. Dignity for our happiness, not being cataloged as the eternally unhappy, the unfortunate, those who beg for attention.
In the meantime, however, if I can ask you for an immediate concrete gesture, I ask you to support the Italian Autism Foundation (FIA), to support scientific research, with a text message to 45585, until April 14th. Visit the site and discover its activities by reading the social balance sheet.
#hypocrisy #autism #families #left #achieve #happiness
– 2024-04-04 08:27:20
