We come together. Mothers, fathers, families. Suddenly, we
find ourselves in an unexpected community. There are those of us who started
this journey around the same time. We are sort of the veterans, though there
are those older and longer on the path than ourselves. Their numbers are more
sparse. We were the first wave of the documented autism increase. When we find
ourselves the subject of news, many react as I do: Been there. Done that. Here
we go again. Partial eye ball roll. As I set out for the movies last night,
aiming for levity for my heavy spirit, I thought about the newer parents. The
ones who are where I was 10, 15 years ago. To have their children’s diagnosis
be the target of news scandal–how must they feel? How did I feel? I can tell
you now, ever since Columbine, I hold my breath and brace myself. I know I am
not alone.
So, once again, we parents, a community, find
ourselves—already misunderstood, misaligned—a spotlighted element of a heinous,
unconscionable crime. We hear the details of the perpetrator, and we know, it
sounds like one of us. BUT: that is only part of the story. On Saturday, news
media, eager to give our t.v.-tuned country a target for collective finger pointing,
jumped the gun (no pun intended) and said the Newtown shooter of 26 elementary
school children and their peers, had autism. We don’t know that yet. In
reality, the televised doomsayers may turn out to be right. But in the
meantime, we get lumped in with a crime.
And that is wrong. Both journalistically and factually.
A cartoon making the rounds of Facebook pages accurately
depicts the dilemma that guns are more accessible than mental healthcare. It is
not a funny cartoon because it is true. Whether or not the shooter had autism,
he had some sort of co-morbid mental illness, which could have been depression
or another psychiatric disorder such as schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder, etc. Autism is not a mental
illness and planned violence is not a behavior of autism spectrum disorder. I am not
in any way suggesting, that, therefore, go blame mental illness. We are in this
boat together, whether mental illness advocates or ourselves in the autism community
want to be. It is a complex situation. Sometimes mental illness in autism
results because of parental and peer abuse (I’m talking about years of
misunderstanding and bullying, here. Again, history reveals a similar story for
past shooting sprees.) Very often depression co-exists with the autism spectrum disorder.
So, this is not my first time as a veteran parent to have my
community so uncomfortably the subject of media mania. But it is for many
younger parents. We find ourselves either further isolated or rushing to do
damage control as I did on my Facebook pages this afternoon and am doing so here as you read
this on my blog.
