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I am still sitting with all that was discussed last night at our last autistic parent support group. The one takeaway I have from it all was: there is grief inherent in being an autistic parent. We grieve the parents we wish we could be. We grieve the community that is not there. We grieve the pain our children experience as the sensitive autistic people that they are. We grieve that we cannot take that burden away from them, no matter how hard we try to be a buffer between them and this incredibly harsh world we live in.
The autistic community is vast and divided and it is hard to find supportive spaces as an autistic person who is also a parent of autistic children. We need safe non-shaming spaces to speak about our exhaustion, our frustration, our grief, our pain, our joy, the complexity of our experience.
I feel this all as an autistic person and as a parent of autistic kids. I feel guilt, grief, frustration, joy, exhaustion, loneliness, despair, stress, irritation, connection, disconnection, bliss, terror, love... on a daily basis. I cannot boil my experience down to a couple of sentences or paragraphs, I cannot just call myself a label to capture my experience. My life is lived each and every moment and, in every moment, there is never-ending complexity and nuance.
This group is a place where nuance and complexity are welcomed. We don't have to feel a certain way about ourselves or our experience, we can be raw and real and unfiltered. It is beautiful to witness and be able to hold space for the unique challenges of being an autistic parent. Hope to see some of you next time!
This group is open to parents anywhere in the world. This is considered coaching not therapy
~ Danielle
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