Hell no, I will not #CelebrateDifferences this April

Written By Jill Escher, President

A mom rages at the idea of Autism Acceptance Month: “It is REJECTION of people like my son”!

By Juana C

I keep receiving these emails…. April is no longer autism awareness month but now the month to #CelebrateDifferences!

What have these people been smoking? Do they know anything about autism? Have they met autistic people like my son? If they did they definitely would not celebrate autism. Not for a second. They would hate autism. HATE IT. They would do anything to make it go away.

For my son, autism is hitting himself hundreds of times each day.

For my son, autism is not being able to talk, or communicate, only moan, scream and grunt.

For my son, autism is not being able to go anywhere, being stuck at home all day, because it takes three people to safely take him out and I don’t have that sort of help.

For my son, autism is living in pain, agony, isolation and poverty, forever.

It is not a #Difference. It is #PureHell.

For my son, autism is siblings who love him but who will not and cannot care for him when I die.

For my son, autism is seizures and pain, and trips to the ER (where they don’t know what to do with him), and calls to 911 (and they don’t know what to do with him either).

For my son, autism has ruined every moment of his life.

#CelebrateDifferences is NOT ACCEPTANCE! It is the opposite! It is REJECTION!! It is rejection of people like my son and his horrible fate!

I hate Autism Acceptance day — I will never accept what happened to my son. Never, never, ever.

Juana C is the pseudonym of a mother of a young man with severe autism. She lives in California.

Disclaimer: Blogposts on the NCSA blog represent the opinions of the individual authors and not necessarily the views or positions of the NCSA or its board of directors.

Jill Escher, President

Jill Escher is president of the National Council on Severe Autism and the mother of two children with nonverbal forms of autism. Through the Escher Fund for Autism she promotes and funds research on the genetic toxicology of autism and related neurodevelopmental conditions, and she has served on the governing council of the Environmental Mutagenesis and Genomics Society, where she co-chairs its Germ Cell and Heritable Effects special interest group. She was president of Autism Society San Francisco Bay Area from 2013 to 2019 and, through her family business, Claradon Properties, provides housing to adults with developmental disabilities in the Bay Area. See more of her work at jillescher.com.

https://www.jillescher.com/
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