Awareness Month Tiring

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This year I'm finding Autism Awareness Month particularly tiring. I don't want to have arguments with my Facebook friends, especially when they're well-meaning, but they're filling my newsfeed with memes and statements that are partially or entirely false. DS's school also sent out a message that said the autistic spectrum "ranges from genius to nonverbal," as if nonverbal is the opposite of intelligent. I'm feeling like this month is just a time for clueless people to pat themselves on the back as they spread insulting misinformation.

Yep. It quite reminds me of when, in the 1970s and 1980s, certain Americans believed themselves to be LGBT friendly and would openly ask a gay or lesbian couple, "so, who plays the female role?" Really?!? Then they would apologize with the excuse that they "knew a gay friend" with whom they could joke similarly, "and he doesn't mind."

So, yeah, same thing here.

This is why I am so sick of cultural awareness months in general. For Asian awareness months, I have twice seen people standing around with a bunch of free Chinese takeout for people to sample in order to "celebrate" Asian culture. Native American/American Indian awareness month was even worse - someone just brought their rock collection and arranged it on a table in the hall. Reducing these cultures like this and calling it celebration/awareness is too ridiculous!

I think these are important voices to add to the discussion.

Perhaps something like "I appreciate that people want to raise awareness and increase understanding, but it can't be done through a meme or a few simplified descriptions. The condition is complex, and the people who have it incredibly diverse. Sometimes well-intentioned attempts to increase understanding actually do the opposite. Perhaps the best answer is to learn how to approach everyone in our universe as a unique individual of worth to start with, instead of following our instincts to sort, rank and judge. When we do that, doesn't everyone win?"

Today I told Toys R Us on their Facebook page how evil Autism $peaks is, and how bad they are for supporting it and that they should be boycotted unless they smarten up. Of course, I've bought and ordered things from their store because all the stores where I live stink and don't have what want but they do, so I'm a hypocrite.

Yeah, I wish it would go away. I am so sick of seeing puzzle pieces all over my newsfeed. I hate the puzzle piece symbol, or the puzzle with a missing piece. My kid is not a puzzle missing a piece. He is not missing anything, or searching for anything.

I also had to hide a couple of people from my feed who used awareness month to post all of their anti vaccine stuff, non stop.

One of the perks of being autistic is finding anti-vaccine stuff and saying something like "I have autism, and I disapprove of this message" in the comments.

Awesome.

Yep - "vaccines cause autism". Such scientific sounding quackery (thanks, McCarthy, NOT).

I find things get very from October to January, because that's when flu vaccines come out and kids usually get their booster shots, and I see all kinds of lovely things like why I'm a sheep and an idiot for getting a flu shot, It's a government conspiracy, doctors are all evil, bla bla bla. It's no good arguing with these people, they won't listen to anyone but themselves. It's tiring listening to this nonsense year after year and knowing it's no use to argue. It's tiring just thinking about it. One of them told me not ago the government is deliberately giving out ineffective vaccines for whooping cough, and that you can cure it right away with some vitamin.

I've had to unfollow at least one person on Facebook and blocked those who weren't on my friends list because they totally believe the crap about vaccines "causing" autism. One page I've unfollowed for supporting Autism Speaks is a school for children with developmental disabilities, and that was where I attended preschool.

The puzzle piece crap really has to go. I guess it makes the NT parents feel all fuzzy and warm with the sound bites that go with it, but I have yet to met on ASD person who likes it. It's just a magnet cling to toss on the back of grandma's mini van.
(I hate all that ribbon rememberance stuff too. I suck)

My daughter's school has autism awareness month going on. Lots of posters with stupid puzzle pieces, and almost about very low functioning ASD people.

Her ASD friend hates this because..

She is not a puzzle piece.
She doesn't need to be fixed.
The kids that made those posters want nothing to do with her. So in her mind it is all BS.

Unimpressed by token efforts, and links to crying parents from A$.

This is the real problem. Too many people jump on a "spread awareness" bandwagon because it is so much easier than actually going through the momentary discomfort and adjustment involved with actually caring, in real life, and taking action. Awareness is a more accessible way to gain the warm fuzzies involved with caring.

Of course, my son refuses to be someone's project, as well, so it doesn't really get better when someone who he has nothing in common with tries to care and connect, real life. I was so stunned when the school's homecoming queen started to talk to me one day about how cool and interesting my son was; he had never indicated this was someone he knew. When I asked him about it, I had to describe her before he could connect it. Then he realized he had met her at one of the lunch time groups he used to go to, set up to help ASD students practice social skills. While he loved those groups in elementary school, the effort to repeat it in high school proved to be a waste of time, as far as he was concerned: there was nothing to talk about because there were no shared interests, and he did not want to be someone's "project." He did admit that this girl was still friendly when she saw him, and was widely considered sincere by people at the school, but he was much more interested in the people who he was actually friends with, some popular and some not, than what he saw as a random person building a resume.

All of which basically had me shaking my head, because of course I'll take it over having my child teased and thought poorly of, but it seems like it benefits the NT world more than the ASD one.

I found this interesting because I posted an article on social media that describes my situation and some one I know who has an autistic child jumped down my throat because what I posted wasn't their experience.

She doesn't know I'm on the spectrum and I feel like I'm not close enough to her to tell her. It's one of those acquaintances "you keep on your friends list to be polite" things.

You can't just assume that everyone posting things is clueless just because their experience isn't your experience.

I assure you I am not.