This is just a quick note to everyone who feels the need to judge, ridicule or otherwise make assumptions about an Autism parent, based on what they see but don’t take the time to understand.

I will speak only for myself but I know this to be almost universally true for Autism parents.

It’s not uncommon for me to get comments on this blog that reflect a complete lack of understanding.  People feel the need to be critical of a decision I’ve made or a shortcoming I’ve shared as a means of helping others learn from my experience.

You need to know something.

There is absolutely no other person, alive or dead on this planet that’s harder on me than I am.

Every single day I wake up after very little sleep and take on a day filled with challenges that majority of the world can even imagine.

I give my kids the very best of what I’m capable of doing.

The amount of guilt I feel for my water being shut off because I’m too far behind on the bill,  pales in comparison to all the negative comments you can make combined.

Despite knowing that on my best day, I’ll never be enough to meet the ever growing demands of raising 3 kids with very special needs, I try anyway.

Don’t think for one second that I need your help to feel guilty about my limitations or shortcomings.

I beat myself up for not being able to do better than I am.  You’re not bringing anything new to the party with your snide, thoughtless and judgmental comments.

It doesn’t matter whether they take the form of comments on this blog or said under your breath while I’m out in public with my kids.

There’s nothing you can say about your perception of my parenting skill that I haven’t heard before and nothing you can say or do could make me feel worse than I already do when I lay in bed at night, worried about everything.

There’s so many things that I do need help with but feeling guilty isn’t one of them.