Current mood:	thoughtful
Current music:	none

Negative Press
After the joys of the this and Daniel TAmmet giving some possitive press towards Autism, Autistic Spectrum Disorders, and getting rid of the Rainman picture we are again in the world of negative press regarding ASD.

However Next Thursday a programme will be shown on Channel 4 called "Make me Normal" saying that people with High Functioning Autism and Aspergers Syndrome are problem children.

Half the problems occur by being misunderstood, getting fustrated. How can we help it if we don't understand. My SAL development may have always been ahead of my age and I may be clever. I may have an amazing memory, but I still get fustrated and stressed. I can't express my feelings. Even for myself to experience "Happy" or "Sad" it has to be extreme. I only smile when I giggle. But that is me. That is what being autistic does to me.

I pay for everything, like my memory, by being autistic. And you know what. I sometimes wish that I could deal with Loud music and being able to not panic when anyone gets on the seat next to me on a train or bus. But I can't.

Sometimes I am glad that the progress I have made in term 1 and the beginning of term 2 is still here. I am learning socialisation skills. I want to be able to but this is skills at age 20 I STILL need to learn.

But there is one thing. I never wish to be NT (NueroTypical). I have my gifts and if the flip side of that is ASD. Give me the ASD anyday. Sometimes I do get selfish and wish to be more Autistic, but that is only then I could be able to get help with things, like cleaning, tidying and organising that I do need, I do have problems with. And also so then I would have never had the "problem child", "naughty" or "disruptive" label I had in Primary School. (By being more autistic I mean having the Speech Delay that would have classed me as having HFA and not AS)

I had to learn to adapt on my own, to a world that doesn't understand. A more understanding world would have meant I could be me, not pretend to be someone who I am not. I had to learn things that other children had learnt. It meant that by the age of 20, I was still not completely ready to move out.

I am still learning things. I still need someone at the end of a phone for me 24 hours a day. I need people there for me alot. But for one I would never, not now, be anything other than myself.

And if you think Autism is completely negative. Without it there would have been no Einstein, No films like Jurassic Park and Shindlers List, no Newtons laws.

No two autistics are ever the same, no two people otherwise are the same.