I would have loved to have been in
Warsaw on Tuesday, World Autism Awareness Day, when, in solidarity with autistic
people, the Palace of Arts and Culture was lit blue – along with buildings
around the world, including the Empire State Building, the CN Tower in Toronto and the Shanghai Tower - there is a series of photographs from round the world
here. Katarzyna Marciniak, the Our Mythical Childhood Principal Investigator
told me about this yesterday and sent me the link to this newspaper report on
the initiative. The report also sets out a key message from this year’s campaign,
namely that autism is for life, rather than something that only effects
children.
People do not outgrow autism. And
what the newspaper report reflects is something that I have reflected on as
well over the time I have been writing this blog – and making gradual progress
towards realising my dream of creating resources that might be used by autistic
children. Autism isn’t something from which someone can be cured. As Jim
Sinclair said – I’ve quoted Jim Sinclair several times previously on this blog!
– it is not that autism is something a person ‘has’ – there isn’t some ‘normal
child hidden behind the autism.’ Indeed, ‘it is not possible to separate the
autism from the person.’[1]
I am not developing resources geared
towards helping children somehow outgrow autism – rather the resources are
geared towards creating a gateway between two ‘worlds.’ As Jim Sinclair also
says, whenever an autism person manages to ‘function at all’ in a non-autistic society,
they are ‘operating in alien territory, making contact with alien beings.’ One thing
I am seeking to do is to create space for autistic people to operate in a
non-autistic world, and also for non-autistic people to gain a glimpse into a
different way of being and of relating – into, as Sinclair put it, ‘a world you
never could have imagined.’
In the next posting, I am planning
to introduce a different image from the ‘gateway’ one – the image of the
crossroads. This is an image I am planning on using to frame the paper that I
shall be giving next month in Warsaw. Once I’ve had the green(blue…)light for this from my colleagues, I shall share the
title and abstract.
[1] Jim Sinclair, “Don’t Mourn for Us.” Autism Network
International (ANI) website, http://www.autreat.com/dont_mourn.html
(last accessed 31.07.17), originally published
in Our Voice 1.3 (1993).
1 comment:
A follow-up: Katarzyna Marciniak has now sent me a link to this newpaper article which contains photographs showing just how far Poland was in blue on Tuesday! http://warszawa.naszemiasto.pl/artykul/swiatowy-dzien-swiadomosci-autyzmu-2018-budynki-w-calej,4591574,artgal,t,id,tm.html
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