Tag Archives | blame

Laying the blame

By on May 27, 2013 in General

blameThere is so much blame going around, I seem to find it everywhere.

There are parents that blame vaccines or the environment or doctors for their child’s autism. There are some autistics blaming their autism for their inability to succeed. There are some parents blaming autistics for giving people a false impression to people of their child and then there are autistics blaming parents for giving people a false impression of autistics in general.

The worst is when I see advocates (you know, the people who actively try to reach as many people as they can and even influence people in some way) that blame each other for something or another. Especially when someone actively goes out of their way to either visit someone in their home (their blog or place they advocate) and attack them there or to write on their own about those other people.

I’ve written several times about how division in the autism community saddens me and I’ve felt that it’s far too depressing and, quite frankly, pointless to continue writing about. It would seem that there will always be division, so wishing for it to change just isn’t going to make it so.

I’ve grown a lot since I started writing though. I mean, I still believe now, as I did then, that people should not be fighting and should work together instead. However, now I realize that wishing for something isn’t going to accomplish anything. Even some positive words, a moment of enlightenment, won’t change anything.

What I have found, what I believe, is that the root of the problem is blame. We’ve become so frustrated with our own situations that we need to find someone or something to blame.

We can’t work together and we can never come together as a community until we can learn to stop blaming each other.

I’ve come to realize that blaming someone for saying or being a way that I don’t agree with is no way to resolve a situation. Blaming them for affecting my life or anyone else’s life is no way to bring about peace and unity.

The best that I can do… the best that I can be… is to focus on me. Improve my message, make my message a message worth hearing. Make what I have to say, better and more worthwhile than the message that I disagree with.

The best way I can bring about positivity is to let go of my own negativity and stop laying blame. If someone is wrong or is doing something wrong, they’ll have to live with that and it’s consequences whether I say anything or not. And if I do play the blame game, I myself will have to live with that and it’s consequences too.

If you can’t climb the stairs, don’t blame the stair maker. Find another way. If you can’t see the words on a page, don’t blame the author. Find another way. If therapy isn’t going your way, don’t blame the therapist. Find another way. If your finances aren’t going your way, don’t blame your job. Find another way.

Focus on you and how you can be the best that you can be. Over come the obstacle, don’t focus on who’s to blame for the obstacle.

There is zero success in blame. Your success will come from realizing there is no blame, there are only challenges to better yourself by.

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Searching For A Reason, For Something to Blame

By on May 19, 2010 in Diagnosing Autism

I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately on all of the various possible causes of Autism and it got me to thinking… we really have no clue! I am no doctor and certainly not a scientist but let me give you a rundown of a few things that I have read, and a few things I know.

Possible causes have been tracked down to genetics, birth defects, gastrointestinal tract problems, vaccines, viruses, pollution… ok, I can’t list them all or you may be here reading all day. A little more specifics, they tracked down a rather high rate of Autism in a small town down wind of a sunglasses factory where the pollution was heavy. They have discovered that Autism happens more frequently in boys, especially if they have an older sibling with Autism. They’ve discovered that more people with certain viruses get Autism and of course, vaccines.

Here’s what I know, some children have Autism despite no family history of it, no pollution, their country doesn’t get vaccines and they didn’t catch the same viruses. So… what caused it?

The organization that wrote the main article accusing vaccines has since retracted their findings, one organization in Europe actually found that children with vaccines had less cases of Autism than those without!

What this all means is that if your child has Autism, it’s perfectly natural and quite alright to want to find out why. It’s perfectly natural to blame yourself, someone else… to spend all of your time and energy looking for a reason.

However, unless you are a doctor or a scientist and even then, a very very good one… your time and energy can probably be better spent elsewhere, like learning how to help your child through it.

Since Cameron was diagnosed, we’ve had a lot of questions from a lot of people and I think it’s safe to say that the majority of them have been about vaccines and what we think caused the Autism. People asked if we were still going to get our second child vaccinated…  we did. They asked about our family history, if we thought something went wrong somewhere. They still ask us why there’s more kids with Autism today than before, what we think causes it, what we think about vaccines and diets.

Superman has villains, your child does not.

Denial, anger, shock, self doubt… I went through them, every parent does. If they don’t, they’re not human. But sooner or later you’ll have to accept it. If you don’t, you’ll eventually find that you’re focus hasn’t been where it should have been and for that, you’ll have only yourself to blame… and that brings with it a whole new circle of grief cycles.

Your child doesn’t care what caused it, you do. You finding something to blame is for your own self satisfaction because if you have something to blame, you can feel that it’s not yours nor your child’s fault… even though you already know that.

Put down the lab coat and find out what you can do moving forward. Your child will appreciate it much more.

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