April is Autism Awareness month. For those of you who don't know, I am on the autism spectrum. I was diagnosed with moderate asperger's syndrome at the age of 40. I'm sure if you look around you will find many of us, living and working among you. Our brains may be wired differently than neurotypical brains, but we are your friends, co-workers, family members, and folks you see every day. Autism isn't caused by vaccines - it's a genetic condition. Nor is it 'dramatically on the rise' - it's just that we are more able to diagnose it and that's a good thing. Early intervention prevents kids these days from having to go through 40 years of their lives before learning what they can do to help themselves function in a neurotypical biased world.
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I know a lot of people who do not understand a thing about autism, not even about the 'simple' version of autism. Let alone the classical autism. (At least, that's how they call it in Dutch.)
There are a lot of things I don't understand about autism... yet! I'm not in the autism spectrum myself, but I have a lot of friends who are. I'm interested in autism for a couple of years now. There are people who believe in love on first sight, you know. I believe it's possible to tare some of the people who are on the autism spectrum apart from 'other' people. Some of them are obviously different, not in just one but in so many different ways. So is my best friend. The way she can be so easygoing, a blabber or the way she thinks is sometimes just so cute and some people call her childish.
I think you should be very happy to be living your live for 40 years until they found out what's it with you. I don't doubt that you have had that moments in your life when you thought you were so very different. It must have been such a relief when you finally knew that there is a name for what you have. Despite all that stuff there are also people who misuse that information. My best friend told our classmates what she has - also Asperger, just like you - and they started bullying her as hell. OK, they already did that for two years. But now they knew why she reacted the way she did and where they could bully her with. So it didn't stop, no, it just got worse and worse. My friend struggles with the fact she's in the spectrum a lot and has been bullied for years now. So am I. Not because I'm in the spectrum but because I stand up for her and it has not been taken very well. But yeah, some people are different and some people can't stand that. I would better have a chance to be bullied myself than would not help anyone who's bullied, especially for being different...
If you are going to have kids yourself (already/anyday) there is a big chance they'll be on the spectrum to. I figured you already knew that because you're diagnosted a while ago, but still I hope they will never have to be whitnessed that...
*Sighs.* Wow, that such a story. I guess I just did it again. Wahah. =3