AUTISM FACTS AND MYTHS

Let’s be honest, you’ve had one or two misconceptions about Autism Spectrum Disorder. You’ve probably even created your own myths as well on top of the already existing ones, am I correct? I know this because having raise an autistic child myself, there arere some myths about his mental condition. That is why today we are talking about autism myths vs facts.

Some of my son’s autism myths were spiritually related and some were based on culture and tradition. Now I believe that every race has a certain supernatural myth or fact-related kind of belief they have. In a black community or race, since I am black, we believe a lot in witchcraft. When, for whatever reason, you are not living your life to your fullest potential, we blamed witchcraft.

When all was going well for you and the world was your oyster, and then suddenly out of the blue and without warning everything goes pear-shaped, we say it’s witchcraft. When you can’t get married, have children, or succeed, we point the finger at witchcraft. When you have a child with a mental condition or disability, guess what we say — witchcraft. It’s WITCHCRAFT FOR EVERYTHING THAT YOU CAN THINK OF UNDER THE SUN! One of these days we’re going to start blaming it for the load-shedding crisis we have I tell you (joking) LMAO.

That is why when my son started showing that he was somewhat not okay, guess where we stopped first — witchcraft station. But it didn’t end there, this went as far as my church believing that he was demon-possessed. Now I am going to be honest, I myself (at first also) believed in both these myths and I’ll tell you why.

I started seeing my son at age 1 year six months that something was a little off about him and the first BIG red flag was him not responding when we called his name. I was so sure he was deaf. He didn’t want to be touched, when you tried to touch him, he would shake you off like you were some leper or something.

Fast forward, when I was busy taking him to see different kinds of doctors trying to figure out what was wrong with him, two doctors reacted in a way that made me believe that there was nothing wrong with him and that maybe witchcraft was actually the culprit.

The one doctor was shocked off his white coat and stethoscope when I told him my son was eating the same food all day every day and that he was not chewing. I’ve never seen a person’s eyes bulge like that in my whole life and you could literally pick his jaw on the floor. I gave him all the signs and “autism” things my son was doing although I didn’t know he had autism at the time of course.

Wanna know what he said? He said and I quote “there is nothing wrong with your son. The reason he’s not chewing his food is because you are spoiling him. You give him soft foods on purpose and as long as you do that, he won’t be able to learn to chew his food.” That was his response to me. Remember, I said there were reasons why children with autism didn’t chew their food, I wrote about it here.

Another doctor we went to see said and again, I am going to quote “leave the poor child alone, mommy. You worry over nothing, there is absolutely nothing wrong with your son. He is just being a boy and boys are usually slower than girls. All the things you say he’s not doing; he will do on his own time. You have nothing to worry about.”

After these responses from the doctors, I became convinced that my son’s whatever this was, was witchcraft related. Here’s what made me believe that he was demon-possessed. So, one Sunday I went to church with him, he was diagnosed by then thank goodness but the whole autism thing was still Chinese to me.

At the sight of the church and some congregants outside, and the loud noise from the musical instruments inside, my son broke loose from my hand and took off like a madman. Although under those circumstances, I’d say he took off like a real demon-possessed person dodging his exorcism. Even my pastors thought he was possessed when I told them what he was doing, and they often prayed and cast out the “evil spirits” in him, but he never got healed because he simply had autism.

All that said, that is why today I want us to look at autism and some of the myths around it. By doing so, we will also look at a few facts. Let’s start with the myths.

Autism Myths

1. Not all people with autism are like Dokter Ali, The Accountant, or The Rain Man.

2. Autistic people are not demon-possessed or bewitched.

3. Autistic people are not crazy, slow, or stupid.

4. Autistic people don’t lack a sense of humour, empathy, or feelings and they are certainly not rude either.

5. Non-verbal autistic individuals are not intellectually challenged or disabled.

6. Autism is not caused by vaccines or poor parenting (refrigerator mothers).

Autism Facts

1. Autistic people are kind, sincere, and sensitive.

2. Autistic people desire to make friends and have relationships. They just don’t know how.

3. Autism cannot be detected during pregnancy because diagnosis is based on behavioural observation and screening.

4. The average age for diagnosis is as early as 18 months.

5. Parents do not cause autism.

6. Being non-verbal at a certain age, especially early ages do not mean a child will

never speak.

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