A New Open Letter To the Autism Community

To all parents of children with diagnosed or suspected autism, autistic individuals, diagnosed or self-diagnosed, autism professionals and autism specialists:

I realize that I'm writing to a people group who share one thing in common, that you have contact with the condition we call autism, in one form or another. That is true whatever your political views, your religious beliefs, your lifestyle, your stance on vaccines, the cause (s) of autism, whether it is a disease to be cured or a difference to be celebrated, whether autistic children should be taught to "fit in" to accommodate themselves to society or society should be expected to accept autistic people exactly as they are. I have a wide variety of you in my networks.

I know that many of you have created and maintain blogspots, many of you have set up Facebook profiles or pages, many of you are writing books, and some of you have set up autism nonprofits. I know that you all have another thing in common, whatever your connection with autism. You want autism services to be available to all people who need them, regardless of their ability to pay. I know you do because I have read many of your blogs and some of your books. I have seen many Facebook posts. We know that many people remain underserved or unserved. Yes, there are fine nonprofits that seek to fill the needs of a number of these. But I notice that almost all of them have been set up to serve autistic children, and they tend to be underfunded. Adults? Services are mostly nonexistent if you are an adult who wants to get checked out to see if you are autistic or want autism services for yourself.

When I use the word autism, I mean all levels of function, from those who are nonverbal and classically autistic, to those who are verbal and are (for want of a better word) higher-functioning. Yes, I know that level of function has little to do with intelligence when it comes to this population. You all know this but most outside our community don't know this. They also don't know that every autistic person's autism is different and unique from every other person's autism. But we know this and I'm including this here for the benefit of those who don't have any known connections with autism, are if they do, remain uneducated about it. We also share in common that we are disturbed at the alarming high rate of autistic children and sometimes autistic adults, who go missing because of wandering. We also share in common our sadness and anger at the way so many in society continue to misunderstand, mistreat, and abuse autistic children and adults.

Many of you are in my networks, especially on Facebook. I have had bad experiences with some of you, usually due to misunderstandings and conflicts that never were resolved. I know that so many of you have been officially diagnosed, some of you who have children who are autistic also. You know that I have never claimed to be anything but self-diagnosed, as I have never had access to an affordable but qualified autism professional who can give a screening leading to a diagnosis. I know that some of you who are diagnosed and many parents with autistic children, frown on people like me and view me as a fraud or imposter of sorts. I know this because of comments made. I had made an appointment for an autism screening about eight months ago and I plan to go to this screening in a couple of weeks. The autism screening is a four-hour round trip, but it is the only one that my insurance covers. No, I don't know if I will end up with the autism diagnosis, another diagnosis, or no diagnosis at all.

Whatever happens as a result of that autism screening, I will stay a member of the autism community. I have a daughter with autism and she is 13, in the 8th grade, in middle school, and active in her church youth group. Without her, I would never have gotten educated about autism, identified myself as possibly sharing her condition, and I would never have started an autism petition to get government funding for universal autism services. My signature is high enough that the US government won't get these signatures until long after this shutdown and when we have another US President. In the meantime, I am still collecting signatures and I need every one of you in the US and at least age 13 (minimum age to sign at Change.org), to sign this petition and to share it. Since I have links to the petition all over this blog, sharing this BlogSpot is sharing the petition. Will you click here to sign?