Feeling Isolated From the NT World

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I've had a couple of frustrating and heartbreaking situations lately concerning my profoundly autistic daughter and some other issues surrounding related autistic issues. When my NT aquaintences chit chat about life's frustrations and heartbreaks, I'm hesitant to talk about my situation. Some kinds of problems people feel comfortable talking about with each other but, unless they're walking the talk as a parent of an autistic kid, they get squeamish and don't know what to say.

So I don't talk about my family's autism related problems to outsiders unless I'm craving self-conscious contrived sympathy. With my circle of autism friends, we can feel free to laugh and joke about the challenges as well as offer sincere sympathy and understanding.

i think so many of us are in this same situation.......things that we cheer over, others simply don't understand. things we despair over they just don't get it.......when i talk to other parents who don't have and dxed kids, i tend to only talk about my ADHD daughter, and my NT son.

I feel isolated from any parents. Other "autism parents" in RL are obsessed over biomed treatments or radical therapies. I actually don't know any non-autism parents well. My husband and I are weird for various reasons: being married for over 11 years, moving so much, not belonging to a church, having an autistic child, not obsessing over mainstream things (the latest movie, tv show, new car, clothes, etc). There's a flurry of divorces at my husband's workplace, they all have small children. It's very sad.

I don't really have any mom friends anymore. I don't personally know anyone else who has an autistic child either. I feel pretty lonely.

I saw a woman at our local roller rink who had a kid that is just like my son. I wanted to talk to her so badly, but I couldn't walk up to a stranger and say, "Hi. Your son appears to be autistic like my son."

We have a local autism support group, but I do not go to the meetings. The lady in charge of the group is so obsessed with special diets, biomed supplements, and her son is undergoing chelation right now...even though he's capable of being in mainstream classes and is on a sport's team. My son can't attend public school (i homeschool) and there's no way he could be on any kind of a team. Also, our local autsim group is convinced that vaccines cause autism and I do not believe that.

My daughter is a young adult now. You're not kidding about those obsessed cure parents. It's like if there's a lot to read about autism and in those millions of articles there's one single word "cure." It's all they see, like if a guy sees the word "sex" in the middle of a zillion other words. (Sorry guys. ( know this isn't all of you,! Haha)

I talked to a friend yesterday about the cure people and how they owe it to those parents who bond over their cure watering hole to make them have balanced views about their kids. I said those cure parents ruined my daughter's life. What I meant by that is that her future after I'm dead doesn't look promising. However, I'm working hard to change that. I meant that those other parents should have been bonding over their kids' futures with an eye out for any good treatments that may come along.

That reminds me of the mother and autistic son who were ahead of me in the grocery store last week. The very tall boy was stimming on a furry ball. I said hi to the mom and told her about my daughter. We smiled at the clerk and I said, they're a part of my tribe! The mom said, yes, we're all a tribe.

That is so sweet. I keep going back to the roller rink (it's a homeschool regular event) and I'm hoping I see that lady again with her son. I will definitely talk to her if I see them again.