Ive read some negative comments regarding the parents of #autistic children lately. As a parent of an autistic child & many others who advocate and do everything humanly possible for theirs here, can I explain in a thread what it is like to be a parent from the start? 1/ #autism

You have a beautiful baby who misses all their milestones. You spend months thinking you are a terrible parent and that everything is your fault. Dreading taking them to checks incase the health visitor thinks you are as awful of a parent as you feel 2/

They don’t laugh, smile, look at you, mumble the words mummy, want to eat, cuddle, be touched or engage in play with you. You genuinely start to think your own child doesn’t like you very much 3/

So you take them to the GP. They do a referral it’s comes back as not enough evidence...this will happen over and over again. In the meantime you are left to deal with the unknown and following your own thoughts that your child may be autistic while also thinking you are crazy 4/

You send them to pre school and hope that socialising with the other children will help. It doesn’t. It’s awful. You are called to collect them early every day to arrive to a screaming distraught child who have 9/10 injured themselves in their distress. 5/

Still no help from anywhere so you become desperate and find a private autism pre school and pay £15 a hour to send them there not knowing if they are even autistic because NO ONE will have the conversation with parents about this or say the word #autism but will drop a hint...6/

Finally you get to the diagnosis appointment. After hearing and eye tests, SALT and everything in between. My son luckily had only just turned 3 but others will fight and fight for years for a diagnosis for their child which causes so much emotional distress 7/

We attend endless parenting courses aimed at parents who have children with #send. Fitting these in while working/caring/in education/running a family and a home. You read every book on autism and research online for hours 8/

Every single time you go out someone will make a comment or stare. It can takes months to feel brave enough to use the disabled badge or disabled toilet 9/

Your relationship with everyone around you breaks down, with your partner, your friends, your family no one understands, you have no one to talk to and you are left isolated 10/

Then we hit education. Reduced timetables, meltdowns, trashed classrooms and bullying. Receiving phone calls asking you to collect your child and hearing them screaming having a meltdown in the background, you can’t get their fast enough to console them 11/

EHCPs & ILPs. The paperwork and hours spent fighting for these are gruelling. Reading what your child cannot do. How they are 4 but working at 6-12m & how much help they need when all you want to do is scream how amazing they are & how they know every dinosaur name 12/

You can’t go anywhere, do anything. We watch them go through so much finding their way in this busy, loud, sensory overloading world and it’s hard to see. We just want to wrap them in cotton wool forever 13/

Some of our children do not have a voice yet, so we use ours for them. It doesn’t mean we are speaking for them but as parents we are pretty good at being in tune with them and knowing what is best...They can literally mumble nsjdjdnbdjsnd and we know they want a cracker. 14/

We spend hours in thearpy with them, appointments and endless meetings. We wake up at the crack of dawn to take them to SEN activities to ensure they have some fun, because obviously businesses can only offer autism sessions at 8.30am on a Sunday morning 15/

Parents of autistic children are at higher risk of suffering from PTSD, anxiety and depression 16/

We truly want what’s best for them. Maybe we will use the wrong wording & make mistakes sometimes but we are learning too. Take people at their intent & ours is for them to grow up in a world with better understanding and not to face the difficulties we have seen others face 17/

I can’t speak for other parents. This is just a snippet of my experience thus far. But the parents I have met along the way are some of the most incredible, kindest, knowledgable people I’ve ever met and who I would turn to before health care professionals for advice 18/

I wrote this to just give you an idea of what goes on in the background and to help give some you a better understanding of us as so many of you give us of you 19/

Thank you for everyone’s lovely comments, DM’s and RT’s, I have read them all! I’m so pleased that so many of you could relate to my thread and it was so well received #autism