We were at the mall today and we walked past a jewelry store and something caught my eye. It wasn’t the sparkling diamonds that lured me to investigate the counter, it was a blue puzzle piece sticker. There was a little display of this heart shaped jewelry that you can buy and a portion of the proceeds would go to Autism Speaks organization. The sign had a little footnote that said “1 in 150 children have autism”.

A sales woman came up to the counter and asked me if she could help me and I told her that I was just reading about their advertisement. I was sort of waiting for her to tell me a little bit more about it, but when she didn’t I then carried on the conversation and asked her how much of the proceeds go to Autism Speaks. She said she didn’t know but told me that jewelry they sold for a cancer organization received $25.00 from each purchase. I said that was great and then pointed out that the information on the pamphlet was outdated and it’s now 1 in 110 children and then lifted up Bryce’s hand as I was holding it and said that my child was one of them.

Now I know I may be looking a bit too much into this, as she was just a sales person and not a representative for Autism Speaks, but it sort of bothered me how little she knew about something their company was supporting. I mean she could of lost a sale because of the lack of knowledge she had regarding the cause. I don’t know why, but it really made me a little angry.

Then it got me thinking. I have never seen anything about autism let alone autism awareness anywhere in my area (aside from WAAD). In fact, I don’t know if it’s because we’re not huge socialite people, or if we have to know some secret knock for some secret autism society in our area, but we have honestly never heard of any autism support groups in our area and never see autism ribbons magnets car bumpers.

Isn’t autism supposed to be this huge epidemic? Isn’t it supposed to be more common than childhood cancer, juvenile diabetes, and pediatric AIDS combined? You’d think there would be more awareness and support coming from something that is labeled as an epidemic.

I’m not expecting everybody to know everything there is to know about autism. I still don’t know everything there is to know. I’m learning everyday. But the more you know about autism, the more you can accept it. The more people we can support, the more we can all learn.

It wasn’t until we decided to join the online community earlier this year that we finally felt like we were not alone. In the beginning of Bryce’s diagnosis, it would of been nice to have what I have now: the beautiful hearts all around us from the autism online community.

So thank you to all those people and organizations that connect people who can relate to one another and promote awareness like:

Facebook pages Artists and Autism and Autism Mothers
Facebook groups Autism Support and Autism Awareness and Join if you know somebody with autism
Other social networks The Autspot and Autism Support Network

And these are just to name a few. You honestly have no idea how much we appreciate the amount of time and energy you put in for our children, for us, and how truly grateful we are that you support us and spread awareness.

Nothing is more frustrating than not having somebody you can talk to.

Thanks for reading,
Tanaya