Listen, if you want to help families of Autistic people, teach them to love, accept and support their Autistic family members.

That's the first step.

It's not good for a family to resent the Autistic family members and blame them for everything that goes wrong.

This is why I think it's entirely bullshit when people talk about support for "families affected by autism" etc.

If you're building your family's entire identity around one member's neurodivergence, you have a problem.

Until non-Autistics STOP centering non-Autistic people in relationship to Autistic people in like EVERYTHING—

and it really is everything. Their focus is on making us less of a problem for them, not helping us be our best selves.—

"Autistic people and their families" is crap.

Whenever I read anything about Autistic people related to families, I know automatically they mean Autistic children in non-Autistic families.

Autistic adult children even. Not Autistic people as partners, spouses, parents, aunts, uncles, etc.

So yeah, it pisses me off to hear/read "we need more support for Autistic people's families" because that's literally the mainstream focus of everything.

It doesn't work because they're doing it wrong.

Focus on actually making necessary supports available for Autistic people. That automatically puts less pressure on our families!

Focus on teaching our families that us being Autistic isn't A Bad Thing. That helps reframe their perspectives and attitudes!

Try actually centering Autistic people in services meant for Autistic people.

It turns out centering what non-Autistic people want doesn't help anyone.

I'm not saying non-Autistic people don't matter. Of course they matter!

I'm saying the entire perspective and approach here is a major part of the problem.

It's really hard to see what actually needs to be done in the current mainstream approach to Autisticness.

Like, maybe family therapy and communication exercises are a good idea. Get everyone to practice effective communication.

I think so much about my brother. We were diagnosed maybe a year or two apart, but he's 12 years younger than I am, so he was maybe 8 and I was 21/22.

I watched him suffer so much. Not because of being Autistic but because of mainstream wisdom about how to treat Autistic people.

The very concept of "Autistic people" and "our families" implies our families are entirely non-Autistic.

And that's not reality for a lot of us anyway.

What about how many Autistic people cut off contact with our families of origin once we reach adulthood?

Feels like there should be a lesson there.

The thing is, most of the non-Autistic family members of Autistic people automatically have access to more real support than the Autistic people do.

Because we live in a world that values non-Autistics more than Autistics.

Other non-Autistics will sympathize with them, commiserate over how awful it is to be around Autistic people, listen to them whine about how much of a burden we are.

Meanwhile, who do Autistic people have to talk to? Especially if we're kept segregated from each other?

The answer isn't "more supports".

The answer is "a different approach entirely".

I strongly suggest not implying that filicide of Autistic people happens because families "lack support".

It's the Autistic people being murdered who lack support.