I wasn’t really sure I wanted to do this. Just over a month ago I was preparing for a Fire Walk in aid of We Are Beams, a local charity that support families of children with disabilities including autism. Beams have been a massive help to my family over the past few years and walking over burning coals to raise a few quid seemed like a good idea when I signed up two years ago. The event was postponed a couple of times due to COVID and this gave me a couple of additional opportunities. Not only did I have longer to raise money for this fabulous charity, but I also had longer to read, watch and learn all I could about autism.
Initially this endeavour was for my own curiosity. I wanted to know what I should be doing as a dad of a little girl with autism. What did I need to know? Who should I speak to? What’s with all the acronyms?! However, what I found was that the more I learnt, the more I spoke with friends, family and colleagues about autism. And surprisingly, people were interested in what I was saying. Or were pretending to be interested at least!
So on the 1st March 2022 I began the #abcofautism on Facebook, adding a post every day about a different aspect of autism and how it impacts on Victoria and us as a family. And the response was fantastic. People liked, commented and shared my posts. I had private messages from people I had no idea had any interest or relationship with autism. And a lot of the comments I received said the same thing: this should be made into a book!
I’ve thought long and hard about where I should take this idea, or whether I should take it anywhere at all. Like many my life isn’t exactly quiet so spare time isn’t something I have a lot of. But if my ramblings on social media can help anyone else travelling this autism journey we are on, give knowledge to anyone with a relationship with someone on the spectrum, or simply give a smile to someone reading who knows they are not alone on this journey, then the effort will be worth it.
Over the coming weeks I plan to grow this site to a point it then becomes a more stable blogging platform. If anyone has any advice or suggest for this site then please do get in touch via the links in my contacts page.
And yes, I am aware that I have skipped over the whole walking on fire bit. I’ll cover that off in a future post.
Thanks for reading
autismDAD