That was really interesting. Not sure how Dylan Kleibold got lumped in there considering it was about forming identity based on what others perceive as problems, but the stuff about his family was interesting (sad).
re: this:
Quote:
Jim Sinclair, a prominent autism activist, said, "When parents say 'I wish my child did not have autism,' what they're really saying is 'I wish the child I have did not exist and I had a different, non-autistic child instead.' Read that again. This is what we hear when you mourn over our existence. This is what we hear when you pray for a cure -- that your fondest wish for us is that someday we will cease to be and strangers you can love will move in behind our faces." It's a very extreme point of view, but it points to the reality that people engage with the life they have and they don't want to be cured or changed or eliminated. They want to be whoever it is that they've come to be.
I don't really think that all parents mean that. I suspect it's hard for parents to understand how much our Autism defines who we are. Many of them just want their kids to have less frustrations and rejection in life, I think.
I guess we all look for strengths in what would be a weakness if we just fell apart from it.
But really who wants perfection? And who gets to define it anyway? Who wants everybody all the same? Too boring!
30 Mar 2014, 1:39 pm
