Why families need Autistic community too
By Helen Edgar and David Gray-Hammond · From the Re-Storying Autism workbook, Module 7
It is not only Autistic individuals who benefit from Autistic culture; wider family networks and friends benefit as well. Parents, partners, siblings, caregivers, and friends often carry their own wounds from living in systems that pathologised their loved one, carrying grief, confusion, guilt, shame, exhaustion, and loneliness.
Autistic community provides:
- Clarity where systems give confusion
- Solidarity where systems give blame
- Hope where systems give deficits
- Strategies where systems give compliance training
- Understanding where systems give judgement
- Language where systems give labels
Families who engage with Autistic community learn to let go of fear and begin to build a relational world where life is not only possible but joyful for everyone.
Keep going in the course
This is a short extract. The full lesson in Module 7: Learning From Autistic Community includes the video teaching, the rest of the workbook text, reflection questions for parents, carers and Autistic people, and progress tracking.