Happy disability pride month! (And you thought I was gonna stop soapboxing...)
A fun fact about me: I've known I had depression and anxiety since I was ten, but didn't find out what that meant in practical terms til high school. I learned what dissociation was, and that I was doing it nearly every day, from a Tumblr post. Isn't that great?
I was lucky enough to have parents who did not attach negativity to my assorted disabilities and mental illnesses. I was (and am) autistic, ADHD, Deaf/HoH, depressed, anxious, the whole nine yards. I have so many things wrong with me that I routinely forget some of them. My parents didn't try to hide my diagnoses from me, deny their validity, or pretend that they were separate from me, which is more than I can say for a lot of my friends' parents. But they, and my doctors, neglected to talk to me about what any of it meant.
I've known for my entire life that I was autistic, even though it's been incredibly difficult for me to get diagnosed due to my high masking and hyperlexia. But until I was an entire adult, I didn't know most of what that meant for me. I knew I had trouble in social situations, of course, but I didn't know about anything else, including sensory dysregulation, hyperlexia, special interests, executive dysfunction, and comorbidities like digestive issues. The same issue has arisen with almost every disability and mental illness I have; the majority of what I know about myself, I had to learn on my own.
How did I find out all these things about myself, you might ask? The internet. I learned from people online who experienced the same things I did but had the language available to them to express what was happening. I thought that it was normal for people to get hyperfixated on topics they were interested in and that there was something wrong with me because I couldn't force myself to do tasks.
I don't place all the blame for this on my parents; after all, it was my doctors' job to tell me what was going on in language I could understand, and they didn't. (My high school therapist in particular can get bent; he dismissed my needs when I expressed them, told me to stick it out when I said my meds were making me more depressed, and generally didn't make any attempt to connect with me as a person, let alone make sure I understood what was going on with me.) That said, I didn't understand what was going on, and nobody checked in about it.
So first of all, to the parents who accept and want to support their children's disabilities: make sure they know what those disabilities mean. Get them support from peers, mentors, doctors, whoever can help them understand why they work the way they do. Read books, watch documentaries, talk to other disabled people - with your kids.
My parents did what they could, and I like to think that I turned out okay. Both of them have also grown enormously in terms of their awareness of ableism and their ability to support their disabled kids. They were the parents who wanted us to know that we weren't broken.
There are other parents. There are parents who hide their kids' diagnoses from them. "I'll tell them when they're older." Except if your child is struggling enough to get a diagnosis, they are struggling enough to know the reason why. There is no excuse for not telling your kids what's happening to them. They're too young/not cognitively capable? Use simpler language. It'll make them feel bad? So does letting them think there's something wrong with them. Maybe it's a phase? Big whoop, so was my minions phase. (Sorry, everyone, this was very embarrassing of me.)
Your kids deserve to know what they're experiencing and to know that they're not alone. Making them suffer in silence helps nobody. Just because you can pretend everything is fine doesn't mean they can.
That brings us to my least favorite type of parent: the one who rejects their kids' disabilities and pretends nothing is wrong. First of all, your ableism harms your kids and everyone around them; even if they personally aren't disabled, the attitude you have towards disability influences their attitudes. Stop it.
Second of all, who is this benefitting? What do you think is going to happen? Do you think that if you chant "I do believe in neurotypicals! I do! I do!" enough times, your kid will stop being autistic? Do you think that if they don't know they're disabled, they won't be disabled? Do you somehow have the audacity to think that, whatever higher power you believe in - nature, a god, karma, whatever - you can somehow override that power through sheer force of will and ignorance? I've had the same people claim that God made me exactly as I am and that His plan is unchangeable (and that I therefore should not be trans), and then claim that they "cured" their kids' autism. Which is it?
Disabled kids are an incredibly vulnerable demographic. They're more likely to be abused in every way than abled kids; they're at much higher risk for bullying and ostracism; they face higher rates of depression and anxiety; they're more likely to be written off by their schools as a lost cause and shunted into "special ed" or other parallel programs. Hiding our diagnoses from us doesn't prevent any of those things, but teaching us how to manage our disabilities and how to advocate for ourselves does.
So, parents, teach your kids about themselves, instead of waiting for them to figure it out on their own or hoping they won't at all.
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