It's Bridget's Word  

What follows is my contribution to #BoycottAutismSpeaks flash blog, #LoveNotFear. It is sparse. I wanted it to be more because I believe in this effort. I believe the rhetoric of tragedy and the push to fix what is not broken hurts the connection between children and their parents, and that breaks my heart.
However, I could not bring myself to write of how my life has changed so dramatically in the last four years. It is a beautiful thing, but some stories are not ready to be told.

I am safe now. I am safe.
Some days, I need to remind myself over and over. It becomes a mantra. I have to remind myself.
Some days I forget. Some days I just cannot believe.
Fear kept me alive for the over forty years I lived as a disposable human.

The fiction that I was less than human crumbled when I was faced with my own neurodiverse children. They are wonders. They are art. They are so fully human that it fills me with awe and sets my heart on fire. I never felt fear or disappointment in their deviance from some mythic norm. They are precisely as they should be. Yet, I see myself in them, and for forty plus years, I heard nothing but how I am damaged, defective, less than. I could not apply the corollary to these loves of mine. I have always, and will always love, accept, and treasure exactly who they are. I could live no other way, even in the absence of anyone who loved and accepted me. Love outweighed my life experience.