Autism: We Need Acceptance and Training—Not A Cure

As I write this, I am fuming mad.  I am so filled with anger and frustration and want to find a productive way to channel it—so, I writing in my trusty blog.  Why am I angry?  I am angry at the parents of autistic children that insist on using biomedical treatments that claim to cure autism.  I am tired of hearing how autism is caused by vaccines, gluten intolerances, gut problems, mercury poisoning, blah, blah, blah…

I am tired of being mocked for believing that my children were born this way—and it is just how God designed them.  I am tired of there being a lack of support in the Christian community for evidence-based therapies in autism.  (This is not a slight at any of my friends, as you guys are not the problem.)

I did a search yesterday—looking for online communities, blogs, and books by Christian parents—and was appalled that they all supported biomedical interventions.  They all supported the crazy claims and the unproven causes.  They all claimed to “cure” or dramatically improve their children using alternative medicine.

Now, I am not going to throw everyone under the bus that uses alternative medicine, but I don’t believe all of it honors God--especially when it claims to cure a developmental disability.  So much of it is tied into the New Age movement and mysticism (and yes, I do have personal experience with this and am not just passing judgment).   

A great quote I read somewhere was, “You know what happens to alternative medicine that is proven true?  It becomes medicine.”  There are so many conspiracy stories about the government covering up the supposed vaccine link.  This doesn’t even make sense.  Medicine is a business and if modern medicine truly believed that alternative therapies worked they would be pushing them and profiting off them instead.  But the research is just not there!

Sigh.  I am just tired.

I love my sons just the way they are.  TJ has such a different way of looking at the world.  I can’t imagine taking that away with a “cure.”  There is all this talk of gastrointestinal problems in autistics and how they need special diets to relieve the pain they are in.  This is part of a movement that claims there is this connection between psychology and your gut. 

I always wonder if these parents talk to their kids (the ones that have verbal children).  I have asked TJ if he has any pain. No.  Do certain foods bother him? No.  And what does he think of people that put kids on these diets?  Well, he is blunt and he thinks they are stupid (his words).  He asks me why the parents can’t just accept the kids.

Aha! Acceptance!  Why can’t we accept them?  Sure, give them the tools they need, like speech and social skills, but accept them.  Don’t worry about placing blame.  Don’t worry about why they are autistic.  Just accept them.  Isn’t that what we all want? To be accepted?  How are my sons any different?

I’m still angry and I am praying God shows me how to let the anger go.  I want to be at peace and shrug off the crackpots and misguided.  I want to focus on my children and raising them to be good disciples in Christ.  But I also want them to be free to be themselves.

By the way, if anyone knows of a Christian organization or author for autism that does NOT support biomedical interventions, please pass it along to me.