[quote="KimJ"]We're all raised to understand what's right and wrong, good and bad and expected and not expected. Well, we display "not quite right" and we are the "unexpected". Some autistics are forgiven because they "look" disabled. whatever that means.
I remember years ago, when my son was about 3 (he still fit in the seat of shopping cart). We were at the pharmacy and had to wait for my husband's meds. Something set my son off, he wasn't speaking but otherwise "looked normal and healthy". He was crying at the top of his lungs. I couldn't soothe him, hold him, scold him or anything.
It was taking an awfully long time. Soon, people were loudly talking about "I'd get slapped if I did that!", glaring at us, me. We finally got called up and I got the meds. I looked over and there was a mom with her "clearly autistic" child. He was inside the cart, older than my son and rocking, hitting his head and moaning. No one said a word, no one even looked at them. For a moment, I was jealous of that mom. I started to cry. Why do they forgive her son and not mine?!
quote] They could explain the other child's behaviour by saying to themselves he wasn't "normal". They just don't "get" that a normal looking child would behave any differently to the ones they were used to.
Unfortunately, I would have got very distressed in a shop with a yelling child and the aspieness would have started to come out - putting my hands over my ears, mumbling to myself, getting agitated. Usually I can act fairly "normal" in public but noises that are really loud can cause this facade to drop very quickly.
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Break out you Western girls,
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