The Autistic Design

“I’m so sorry for his diagnosis,” she said as we ate lunch together on a pleasant Friday afternoon.

I smiled and for the first time ever, I got to say, “I’m not!”

She was taken back, but curious. And I was then able to explain why I not only am not sad about my son’s diagnosis, but I also celebrate it!

I remember the day the psychiatrist sat us down and asked, “Have you given any thought to how you would feel if you walked out of this room with a diagnosis of Autism?”

I felt like someone had just punched me in the gut. I knew my son had some struggles. I knew he had major sensory issues. I knew he lined things up in a row. I knew he didn’t want to play with other children and was borderline obsessed with cars. But Autism?

I cried and cried as I processed what I thought that meant. I grieved the things I thought he would lose. I prayed. I wondered if I didn’t pray enough. I wondered if his diagnosis was my fault in some way. What if the vaccines had caused this?! I knew I should have researched them more. (Spoiler alert: Vaccines don’t cause Autism. Do they damage the body? Absolutely. But they don’t cause Autism specifically. I know many many families that did not vaccinate and still had Autism. It’s a design…not a flaw. But keep reading!)

I began researching at a high rate of speed. What does this all mean? What will this look like? Will he have to live with us forever? Will he have superpowers and be brilliant like Sheldon or the Good Doctor?! Or will he stand outside screeching at cars as they drive by and never be a productive member of society?

Before you judge me for these questions, please remember that I was so limited in my knowledge of Autism and what it is and what it meant. I thought all Autistics were the same. I thought you could cure Autism. I believed there must be a way to pray it all away…Jesus could just heal him. We would show the world that Jesus heals!

And boy does Jesus heal…but he didn’t take my son’s Autism away.

Why? Because my son is not broken. My son doesn’t need healing there.

Tools to help him grow? Tools to help him figure out how to get dressed in the morning and to help him strengthen his hands to be able to hold a fork and a pencil? Yes.

Tools to teach him how to operate in his design/giftings? YES!

But healing from Autism? No.

The narrative around Autism has to change.

There is an entire people group…Autistic people…that are being alienated from the rest of the world because they are being told that they are broken. Different. Don’t fit. Not welcome. There’s no space being made for them…no grace for their struggles.

I want to shatter the narrative on Autism today. And I have to confess that the view I have on Autism now did not come because I had an epiphany about my son. It came because I had an epiphany about me.

I am in the process of being evaluated for Autism myself. I’m no doctor…but I have researched Autism like a pro for a year plus now and I think I know a few things. I think I understand my son better now because I realized that we are the same. I’ve just had almost 37 more years than he has to figure out how to live here in this world. But I spent 37 of those years trying to live the way other people do and stuffed who I really was deeper and deeper until I couldn’t exist anymore.

As I researched Autism and the things my son specifically struggles with, I kept finding breadcrumbs. And every single breadcrumb strung together to make a path to me. That part of me that was stuffed so deep inside…the breadcrumbs led me straight to her. I found her!

This led me on a journey to discover more about myself, as well as my son. Then I joined a group of women with Autism who were very welcoming and supportive and understanding. They didn’t discount me because I didn’t have a diagnosis or even an evaluation yet. They understood how hard it is to 1. Get/pay for an evaluation as an adult, and 2. Get a diagnosis as a woman. (Many of the evaluations are done with criteria for men. Autism in women presents differently than in men. But this is often missed.) They were quick to embrace me and allowed me to ask allllllllllll my questions…giggling at how “like them” I really was.

Then I came back around to some thinking I had been doing before I got sidetracked by my own personal journey with Autism…But how is my son broken? How am I broken?! Because this is what the world believes…this is what they imply.

I began praying heavily about this because my whole life I felt broken, but didn’t understand how I could be so broken or why I couldn’t fit in. I felt so misunderstood — like people were missing something about me. And I began to see what was happening with Autism not just from an outsider view — but from the inside now too.

I began asking God why should I get an Autism evaluation. Why would I want to get a label like that?! And He responded with something so beautiful and that made so much sense to me…that it made me cry.

”Autism is just a name for your design. It’s like the word Rose is used so we all know what that shape of a flower is. It’s to help you find the others like you. Don’t worry about the disability part. I’ll take care of that.”

And that’s when I began to see the split. Autism Spectrum Disorder can easily be separated at the word “Disorder” to explain how we are all wired. (And yes, I’m identifying this way before I even have a diagnosis because when you know, you know.)

Autism is just a name for the design we carry. It helps us identify each other in a sea of faces. The disorder part we don’t have to identify with. We are not a disorder. We are not broken. We are designed on purpose. We can identify as Autistic because that’s like calling us a Rose. We don’t have to be called “The Rose with Thorns.” Because just like everyone assumes roses have thorns…so we ALL as a human race have struggles. And some of us need different supports for those struggles. Sometimes Jesus heals those struggles completely! And sometimes He heals us by placing us in a community of people that are like-minded or have gone before us on this journey and learned the tools we need. God bless those people that have gone before us and found tools to help us! (Autistic or not!)

The narrative around Autism is so negative…and I think that’s because people don’t understand…they don’t know what to do and they are afraid. It’s okay to not have all the answers. It’s okay to lovingly say, “I don’t know what I’m doing here…will you help me learn?”

What’s not okay is to stay stuck in your old pattern of thinking and not stay open to what the Lord is doing through Autistic people. Have you ever realized the purity they carry? The world calls it naive…but what if they are just living as we were ALL meant to live? In a world without judgment…without sarcasm….in a world where we just spoke the truth and didn’t hide behind subtleties and hints. What if we all were meant to tap into our creative sides…our own designs and gifts…to fulfill an even greater purpose on this Earth?

What if we stopped defining Autistic people by their disorder and started celebrating them for their design?

Do we all have some things to learn? Yep. But if you stripped away all of the rules we’ve made in society about how to dress and how to behave…how to sit still and be quiet. If we got rid of all of that and started embracing how people are wired, I don’t think Autism would stand out quite as much as it does right now.

I do, however, believe that Jesus wants to heal the Autistic person. I do not believe He wants us to suffer. I do believe He can miraculously take away some struggles…and I do believe He will provide the right supports to help us grow in the areas we need to grow — like executive functioning, emotional regulation, etc. Those things may require a process of healing versus a miraculous healing…but healing WILL come if we pursue it! We can ALL live up to our highest potential!

I also believe He wants to heal the heart of the Autistic person. I do believe He wants us all to know that we are on purpose. That our gifts and talents are for a beautiful purpose. That we do not have to conform to being like the world because we were set apart on purpose. We don’t fit in because we were never meant to. We are pioneers…and we are lights with different colors that the world has never seen before. Don’t hide your light/color anymore. Don’t shrink back. Stand up…take the mask off…go on a journey to love yourself, and then as you become yourself — the real you — you’ll find your purpose on this Earth. You’ll see what God has carved out here just for you.

I can’t wait to see what’s next for me and my family and the world of Autism. The future is not grim…it’s SO BRIGHT. Let me go get my sunglasses real quick… 😉

Blessings,
~Nikki