Autism Awareness Day 16 - Love your child for who they are, Autism and all. I had planned to write something different today but then I came across this shared post from Rebecca's page. What Marcus says here really speaks to me so I feel it needs to be shared yet again.
As a child I was diagnosed as having attachment disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, depression, multiple personality disorder, and many other wonderful diagnosis; almost to many to count. The short version? I am autistic. I didn't get the love I deserved, that every single child deserves. I didn't get to keep my family, not a single family that adopted me was able to keep me. I had no stability and I was miserable a lot. That is why I try so hard to help others on the spectrum. I don't want anyone to ever have the life I had as a child.
I don't work essentially for free, and remain on disability because I love free money. I don't give away everything I create, and ask nothing for myself because I am against making a profit. I do it because to me, the biggest profit and reward will be knowing that I have done my part to make sure that no one else has the life I had. I fight because I am scared that if I don't I am consigning some other innocent to the life I was trapped in.
I was nonverbal until around age 6. I hated to be touched. I couldn't eat if anyone touched my food (which meant I was hungry a lot), and I had frequent meltdowns. It took years of the kind of help you only get on an inpatient basis, and a great deal of luck for me to become who I am today.
Please, stop posting how bad life is for your kids. The simple fact that they have someone posting anything because of them tells me that at least they still have love. Please, stop posting all the negatives associated with your child ASD symptoms. From first hand experience I can tell you how crushing it will be for them when they realize how you see them.
I have always been the smartest person in the room. It doesn't usually matter what room I am, in as that never seems to stop being the case. In school I was always the first with their hand up, because I knew the answers. I was out of my chair bouncing because the teacher didn't want to call on me over and over. My parents were given the option of special education classes or gifted classes and to this day I don't understand why they chose the special education classes.
Just because your child doesn't seem to understand you, I would not suggest making the assumption that they don't. There is every chance that your autistic child is as brilliant as I am, and just has trouble speaking up.
Your child needs you. Maybe they don't show you love the way you think they should. Maybe they can't speak and socialize like you wish they could. Maybe, they are a burden on you financially, emotionally, and mentally right now. They didn't ask to be the way they were born, any more than you asked for them to be that way.
Please, be the parents that I didn't have, at least not for very long. Please stop finding things to blame, things to champion, and demonizing what makes your child different.
Love them completely with all your heart. If you hate that they are autistic and you wish you could cure them, change them are you really loving them for who they are?
My friend John Poer posted something on an article I wrote:
"Even though I have never MET Marcus, I have known him for a very long time. He's a very good person, who, given how he was treated growing up, has no reason to BE a good person. I am amazed that he has gotten this far against the odds.
He has already helped a lot of people, and continues to try every day, to give something he never received himself.
Go Marcus."
That made me cry. I am not a good person, a loving person by accident. It was a choice that I made because I had seen enough pain and suffering. I was once told by one of the counselors at a placement called Spectrum Care Academy that as a victim of childhood abuse I was going to hurt others. Victims become abusers unless they choose to be something different. I refuse to ever become the monsters that have been in my life.
Be the example. Show your child how to love, by loving them fully and completely; autism is just a part of who they are and it can be a wonderful part. Stop feeding into the blame, the mistrust, and the hate and maybe your child can learn to love others through your example more than they ever would by treatments, therapies, and interventions.
How do I manage to be as loving, trusting, giving, and yes naïve as I am if it isn't they way I am by default? That is easy. I simply do the opposite of what I have known my entire life.
Why do I keep trying to help, to serve when almost every part of my heart and mind scream that I have done enough, hurt myself enough, sacrificed enough and no one could ask any more of me? I remind myself constantly that when it was me, when I was the child; I screamed in every way I could for someone to be who I am now for me. I remind myself that there are kids, teens, and adults out there right now that need me to be who I am, and I will be damned if I let them down.
There is only one of me though. I can only do so much. Hence my reason for writing this, my reason for existing. Please, I am begging you to learn acceptance, tolerance and love and to never give up hope.
Thank you for your time,
Marcus Shane Morris
At the time I am writing this: I have a beautiful wife, two amazing little autistic boys, my own home, and all the love I ever begged, prayed, and pleaded for. It is possible for your kids as well.
I don't work essentially for free, and remain on disability because I love free money. I don't give away everything I create, and ask nothing for myself because I am against making a profit. I do it because to me, the biggest profit and reward will be knowing that I have done my part to make sure that no one else has the life I had. I fight because I am scared that if I don't I am consigning some other innocent to the life I was trapped in.
I was nonverbal until around age 6. I hated to be touched. I couldn't eat if anyone touched my food (which meant I was hungry a lot), and I had frequent meltdowns. It took years of the kind of help you only get on an inpatient basis, and a great deal of luck for me to become who I am today.
Please, stop posting how bad life is for your kids. The simple fact that they have someone posting anything because of them tells me that at least they still have love. Please, stop posting all the negatives associated with your child ASD symptoms. From first hand experience I can tell you how crushing it will be for them when they realize how you see them.
I have always been the smartest person in the room. It doesn't usually matter what room I am, in as that never seems to stop being the case. In school I was always the first with their hand up, because I knew the answers. I was out of my chair bouncing because the teacher didn't want to call on me over and over. My parents were given the option of special education classes or gifted classes and to this day I don't understand why they chose the special education classes.
Just because your child doesn't seem to understand you, I would not suggest making the assumption that they don't. There is every chance that your autistic child is as brilliant as I am, and just has trouble speaking up.
Your child needs you. Maybe they don't show you love the way you think they should. Maybe they can't speak and socialize like you wish they could. Maybe, they are a burden on you financially, emotionally, and mentally right now. They didn't ask to be the way they were born, any more than you asked for them to be that way.
Please, be the parents that I didn't have, at least not for very long. Please stop finding things to blame, things to champion, and demonizing what makes your child different.
Love them completely with all your heart. If you hate that they are autistic and you wish you could cure them, change them are you really loving them for who they are?
My friend John Poer posted something on an article I wrote:
"Even though I have never MET Marcus, I have known him for a very long time. He's a very good person, who, given how he was treated growing up, has no reason to BE a good person. I am amazed that he has gotten this far against the odds.
He has already helped a lot of people, and continues to try every day, to give something he never received himself.
Go Marcus."
That made me cry. I am not a good person, a loving person by accident. It was a choice that I made because I had seen enough pain and suffering. I was once told by one of the counselors at a placement called Spectrum Care Academy that as a victim of childhood abuse I was going to hurt others. Victims become abusers unless they choose to be something different. I refuse to ever become the monsters that have been in my life.
Be the example. Show your child how to love, by loving them fully and completely; autism is just a part of who they are and it can be a wonderful part. Stop feeding into the blame, the mistrust, and the hate and maybe your child can learn to love others through your example more than they ever would by treatments, therapies, and interventions.
How do I manage to be as loving, trusting, giving, and yes naïve as I am if it isn't they way I am by default? That is easy. I simply do the opposite of what I have known my entire life.
Why do I keep trying to help, to serve when almost every part of my heart and mind scream that I have done enough, hurt myself enough, sacrificed enough and no one could ask any more of me? I remind myself constantly that when it was me, when I was the child; I screamed in every way I could for someone to be who I am now for me. I remind myself that there are kids, teens, and adults out there right now that need me to be who I am, and I will be damned if I let them down.
There is only one of me though. I can only do so much. Hence my reason for writing this, my reason for existing. Please, I am begging you to learn acceptance, tolerance and love and to never give up hope.
Thank you for your time,
Marcus Shane Morris
At the time I am writing this: I have a beautiful wife, two amazing little autistic boys, my own home, and all the love I ever begged, prayed, and pleaded for. It is possible for your kids as well.
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