Dear TPGA Autism Experts: Thanks For Advising Us to Love Our Autistic Son! If Only We Had Known Sooner!

During recent weeks the TPGA "autism experts", have done a great favor to children, like my son, who suffer from severe autism disorders.  The TPGA autism wizards told parents like me who speak candidly about the deficits that limit and impair his ability to function independently in this world that we are making "monsters" of ours and all autistic children. 

Our children's autism disorders, in the view of the humble yet brilliant autism experts are not really disorders, despite the title, despite the medical diagnoses that identified them as autistic. For our children's benefit we should learn to accept them as they are; autism and all.  

The wise and brilliant thinking persons of the TPGA have advised us to ....... love our children. ....... wish we had thought of that ourselves.  Maybe our Conor would have turned in to a warm, smiling and happy young man ..... like the Conor in these pictures.  

What is Severe Autism?

What is severe autism?  Kim Oakley asks the question rhetorically before answering it in Silent Alarm. I strongly recommend anyone who wants to know what severe autism is read this latest comment by someone who has dealt with severe autism first hand, someone who knows what she is talking about:

Parents of severely-autistic children have had enough of feel good façades. We can’t stand silent as a parade of imposters infiltrate the autism community. Nor shall we bow to the self-appointed autism elite. We’ve survived too much to play that game. We’re in the trenches. We know how to fight. Remember no pain, no gain? Severe autism is painful. By lifting the weight of it all, there is much to gain. Kim Oakley

Silent Alarm is exactly what the title says. Read it if you want to know the truth about severe autism.  Or read some mainstream media pap about the joy of autism if you don't want to know the truth. Better yet just sit back and wait until the DSM-5 pushes the severely autistic off the spectrum completely and remodels the autism spectrum in the image of those who are anything but severely autistic.

Severe Autism Parenting: Tetanus Shot One, Two

Conor is a tremendous joy in my life.  When I say he is a joy I mean HE is  a joy not his Autistic Disorder.

My blog sidebar, and many of my blog comments feature the tremendous joy and pleasure we find in Conor. But his Autistic Disorder is exactly that. It is a severe disorder which restricts and limits his life and, sometimes, poses serious challenges for his mother and me as his parents.  Last night between 2 and 4:30 am was one of those times.

Conor has been a bit out of sorts with the long school Christmas vacation. (Here in New Brunswick the students don't return until next Tuesday with the teachers taking a professional development day next Monday  at the end of the vacation which they often do at the end of vacation periods).  Last night around 2 am Conor woke up agitated and turning on televisions, computers and running around the house.  He got worked up at one point and began hitting himself in the face and head and biting his hands.  I tried to talk him down but he was too wound up last night.  At a solid 6 feet Conor is strong and too much for Mom during some difficult times even though they are few and far between. Last night when I tried to grab his arms to keep him from hitting himself he lunged forward ... quickly ... and put a serious bite in my arm.  You can see the result in the picture above, taken this afternoon.

Today I attended at outpatients at the Dr. Everett Chalmers Hospital in Fredericton and received a tetanus shot and an anti-biotic prescription for infection.  That last tetanus shot I received was 10 years ago after an incident coming out of a local grocery store when Conor bit the back of my hand causing blood to shoot up like an oil well causing a woman nearby to look very faint.

Conor does not mean to cause harm. He is a great joy. He is our buddy forever and he is worth every challenge we face from his Autistic Disorder and then some but there are times when it is tough, very tough, to be the parent of a severely autistic child.

Last night was one of those times.