Advantages to Autism

So one of my son's friends posts on Facebook, "in my opinion Autism is worse than cancer." His friend has PDD-NOS. This friend never had to deal with being non-verbal for his young life like my so did. As a teen, I am guessing this friend also has not watched their grandmother battling breast cancer as we have either.

I told my son, feel free to reply that that you strongly disagree if that is how you feel.

It is how I feel, my so stated in his pragmatic tone of voice.

Furiously he types on his iPhone into Facebook.

Why do you disagree, I ask.

Because there are advantages, he says.

Like what?

He says, I think in pictures. So I can build battle mechs or giant robots in Google sketch up from nothing in less than a week. He smiles to himself.

Plus I rather enjoy echolalia. It's a joy in my life and he laughs to himself. Then starts his internal repertoire that I am sure is his own ongoing comedy skit.

While I type this he finishes his post to Facebook.
He wrote: As a person with autism, while autism comes with disadvantages, it does come with advantages. People just have to find these advantages within themselves. For example, my autism lets me see in pictures and I have used this ability to build giant robots with 3-d modeling software in less than a week.

He had me grammar check it for him. I do so without changing any of his words.

Now he's onto funny posts on the interwebs, laughing to himself.

It is I, the mother, who can't let this go.

Autism is not like cancer. For a person with Autism does not know what their life would be like without autism. If you took it away from them they would not think it was a gift from God as many people with cancer would. A person can lead a normal life and then by struck with cancer. They may even heal. Carry around scars and be stronger for the cancer that came and went. They may have had lasting friendships with no trouble. May have achieved in school, had a career, marriage and family without any strife what so ever.

As a mother I look to the future for my son with uncertainty. My husband and I plan for our son to live with us as long as

His friend posts back: I'm probably the most higher functioning side, but so am I. And yes there are advantages, but you don't have a choice, you take the disadvantages and what advantages that come with it.

What do you want to post back, I say. Do you agree?

Hmm as he eats away part of a baguette: Well I do agree that we don't have a choice in the matter, but we have to work with what we got here.

I battle internally with giving him my thoughts on that matter or letting him tell me more of his.

So are you going post back, I ask.

Humph he says scratching at the gap between the leaf and the wooden table. He checks his Facebook again.

I wonder if I should unfriend his mother. It is difficult to be a child of autism. It is just as difficult to be a mother of a child with autism. I have heard this mother scream and yell at her son that is my son's friend. I have heard her curse his PDD-NOS. I wonder if this boy curses his neurological difference because of his mother or his own actuality.

My son posts: while we don't have a choice in being autistic, we have a choice in making the best with what we've got.

Someone else posted before me, he says. It's really long and he read it aloud to me.

He asks, can I like a strangers post.
Yes, you can even send them a Facebook email and tell them that you saw their post. You have autism too and they might turn out to be a good friend, says I.

I kind of have a rule of not being friends with people on Facebook unless I know them in the real world, he says.

I try to explain about making friends via the Internet and how it can be helpful even if you never meet them in real life. How having autism in a smallish town, he may not get a chance to meet someone who sees having a neurological difference as a good thing. He goes silent.

My mom-ness pops up and I think, he's a good boy. I've bounced onto one his hard and fast rules and there is no way he is going to change his mind. This is an absolute. Yet he loves me too much to argue. The Love and Logic I've used for years is evident in this. Yet, because of the autism, he can't quite voice it. So he moves onto his homework that is next to his breakfast plate. He asks me if the Planet Comicon flier should be recycled or if I want to keep it.

He moves on. This is done for him.

As a mother this is not done for me.
I struggle with whether I want him to be with more people such as himself. I struggle with how others view him. I struggle with when to push against an absolute in his mind and when to leave it alone. Should I have sent him to autism summer camps? More like, should I have forced him to leave home to go stay a week with strangers in a strange place and strange foods where he feels powerless? No, I say to myself. Let him be who he is.