I took a break today from the news as my stomach was in knots and tears were just to hard to fend off thinking about the families in Connecticut. Although I turned my thoughts away from it, or tried, it was still on the front of my mind like all parents today in America. When I sat down tonight to check Facebook I found I had missed the part of the news I needed to see and we all know why.
The man who carried out this massacre is now rumored to have autism among other things he struggled with. When I see this come up it just takes that knife and twists it right in. What always follows is ignorant, yet educated, expert telling all of America autism lacks empathy. People start coming forward with statements about how "weird" the person was. That is when every person with autism or who is fighting to raise awareness slumps back and knows they are now starting all over to stop this way of viewing those effected. I just came across it and I slumped back and realized we don't have to keep sitting back and watching this happen all over again and say nothing. I say again because the same rumor flew shortly after the theater tragedy. Even if these are not just rumors it in no way means autism played any part in what was done.
Kids and adults with autism do not lack empathy and I can't express that enough. What they do is fight to make sense of things, including emotions of others. I don't mean they don't understand emotion, I mean they view expressions differently. They may react differently but lack empathy? No way.
My son is three and autistic and I want to give an example of his regard for feelings of others to clear the confusion media creates. I was sick for three days with the stomach flu. On the couch and out of commission. Not only sick but my head hurt so bad I wanted to cry. Day two I woke up in the morning and my three year old non verbal son was standing beside the bed.
I wanted to stop that paragraph so your mind could go were media has led it. Think about what you might imagine he was doing at this point. From what you know of autism did your mind go in a negative direction? For many of you it probably didn't but someone who doesn't know autism it did. My son was holding my hand, brushing the hair out of my eyes, and when I opened my eyes he smiled. When I said good morning to him, he laughed and danced with joy. I will add he held my hand very carefully and gently moved my hair from my eyes because he knew I hadn't been feeling my best.
To clear the media driven, misleading,distorted,incorrect information that pollutes the air....this example I have given you, is the kind of empathy autism has and we rarely hear about on the news.
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