Sunday 5 August 2012

I Want to Write a Book about Aspergers

I really want to write a book on Aspergers Syndrome.
As someone who's finally got a provisional diagnosis for their child, I think I've just about heard it all....
"She can't have Aspergers. She doesn't toe-walk or flap, and she has eye contact"
"But she talks too well. She looks normal"
"Ohhh, so you finally got a "label" for her"
"Everyone's got a label these days, don't they"

I know people don't really know what to say, but it's not comforting to be told over and over that they don't "get it", and they don't understand because "she seems so normal". She's an amazing kid with a lot of social/emotional/behavioural problems that she hides extremely well. I've been told for a long time that she'll grow out of the "bad behaviour". She hasn't.

There's a good saying out there, one that's very well-known in the Asperger/Autism world.
"Once you've known a child with autism, you know one child with autism."

In other words, not all autistic kids are the same. Some flap, some don't. Some talk, some don't.
There were a lot of signs with Madd, that I saw but no one else did. I let everyone convince me that she was normal and she'd just "grow out of it". I should have listened to my inner voice that was screaming at me.

I want to write a book about being a parent to an aspie child, especially an aspie girl. Girls are very different to boys, and Aspiegirls are usually very different to Aspieboys. In this book, I also want to have a list of online/offline places that you should go to get help/support when you think your child has autism/aspergers, or after you get a diagnosis. There isn't really any one place to get all that information that's easy to find when you need it.

So.... that's my long-term plan. Hopefully I'll get somewhere with it.

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