How uneducated do you have to be to not be able to tell the difference between autism and Down syndrome???
I could do that when I was, like, six. Seriously. And I'm, like, ret*d, har-dee-har-har.
No-- not uneducated. STUPID. In the sense in which my father used the word-- "Chickie, stupid ain't being slow. It ain't making mistakes. Stupid is not using the sense God gave you."
You know, frankly, looking back on the last 20 years...
...I don't want to even pretend to speak for anyone who's profoundly autistic or raising a profoundly autistic child, because that's not within the realm of my experience...
...but I would be a lot better off if there was less awareness, thank you very much.
I was a lot better off when there was less awareness.
A little awareness-- or a lot of wrong information-- is a dangerous thing.
From the point of view of someone who could probably evade diagnosis if she'd been after that rather than trying to get her hands on solid answers (which there aren't any).
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"Alas, our dried voices when we whisper together are quiet and meaningless, as wind in dry grass, or rats' feet over broken glass in our dry cellar." --TS Eliot, "The Hollow Men"