While we as a society, company, and individual really talk about “diversity”, “inclusion”, and blah blah. There is really no true sense of inclusion in the real world. The real world just doesn’t care.

Below is a picture of a mother and son. The son is 38 years old, non-verbal and heavily autistic.

Now, just take a few seconds and imagine the psychological difficulty of parents of autistic children. It is extremely difficult, and probably more difficult than any terminal illnesses (that usually come in the later periods). It is a lifelong difficulty of psychological trauma. Yet, we don’t have any consideration for them. For example: My son is 8.5 years old, autistic and non-verbal. People just ask me “how is your son?” and they don’t even listen.

I don’t know what it takes for people to really understand: may be to have a difficult autistic child for themselves. The trauma and psychological difficulty of being a parent for a child who is not independent and not leading life individually like others is very very high. Yet, if you have to choose between two people to understand and empathize, you will immediately side with someone when you hear they have a cancer or they faced an accident. Nothing against people having cancer or people facing accidents, but parents who have autistic children (especially non-verbal level 3) have an extremely difficult challenge that is not very tangible. You don’t see that injury, the person is not dying, but it is difficult. Yet, we don’t care!

I have seen repeatedly that educated people don’t understand it. Yet, we talk about the big words “mental health”, “diversity”, and “inclusion”. Such a pity!!

A parent of heavily autistic kid – Nikki Charlotte – posts the below. The trauma is real, and we just don’t care enough.