My shirt is offensive

the puzzle controversy

I bought a new shirt, I bought it for autism awareness month, I think its cute. I wasn’t sure if I would want to wear a shirt about autism, it feels a little strange to me to be at the grocery store wearing one. Maybe its because I am still not comfortable with autism. But I bought one that I thought was cute, with what I think it’s a cute saying.

With April being Autism Awareness month, my local autism mom Facebook group was blowing up with graphics, and t-shirts you could order, jewelry, you name it. April 2nd roles around and many people in the autism community choose to “Light it up Blue” in support of autism awareness. But evidently that is controversial.

I am not much on origin stories, the movies are never as good. With the exception of Captain Marvel, I LOVE that origin story. Or maybe I just love having a female superhero, but thats irrelevant. Because the internet is full of only the truth, it should be easy to find the origin of this symbol. It seems like originated to represent the puzzling condition. A quick google search says it represents the complexity of autism. But there is a strong feeling in the community that it implies that something is missing. The singular blue puzzle piece is hurtful to some.

No let me stop the eye rolling right there. There is a segment of the population that thinks everyone is offended these days, that there is no way to say anything right, and everyone should toughen up. I am not those people. I care about the words that come out of my mouth, and I care if my choice of words offends someone. But I do agree that it is impossible to please everyone. Before I wrote my first blog post, I polled my community am I supposed to say

Rivers is autistic?

or

Rivers has autism?

It was a civil discussion with lots of responses. The overwhelming answer was that “Rivers has autism” was more PC, but most people were ok with either. With a few scattered responses that were completely irrelevant to the question; I love social media for that. This is call person-first language. And please don’t ask me to explain this further as grammar is not my strong suit and I don’t understand how “Rivers is autistic” is not person first. I digress. But you’ll notice, I didn’t not say “Rivers has autism”. While it received the minority of votes, the consensus among most living with the diagnosis preferred “is autistic.” That was an important distinction to me. I don’t really care what those living without ASD think is right, I care how those living with it feel. Rivers is not yet old enough to ask or understand really, so I may change my tune on this as he gets older and has opinions.

I wore my shirt yesterday for the first time. I thought a lot about its meaning. At the time I ordered it, I didn’t know it was controversial. I think that maybe the phrase “Until all the pieces fit” could be interpreted that he somehow needs putting back together. That is he broken.

I still think my shirt is cute. I will wear it. I decided, that for me, it means until everyone is accepting of differences. Until he can “fit” into society exactly how he is. That he will not need to conform to make society feel comfortable.

I imagine a future for him where his house is filled with the most uniquely engineered doors. Like you can clap and they will close, or his front door will be like the automatic doors you walk through at Target. I don’t know exactly, but I am sure they will be cool. I imagine him explaining to his children how he engineered them, and why they are superior to regular doors. Maybe one day he will create and run a successful door company that employ other autistic engineers and it will be more successful than Apple.

I want him to be proud of what makes him unique. He has been given a gift, a brain that thinks differently. Different is GOOD. That does not mean it is not without challenges, it means that he will struggle to focus or hyper focus (weird that these are exactly opposite and both problematic). It means he may stim while learning, or wear headphones to block out the noise. These are real struggles in a society that is constantly moving and extremely noisy. Its something I cannot relate to, but I can support him. I can give him the tools needed to strengthen his weaknesses and I hope, strengthen his strengths. He is the most unique child and I am proud to be his mother.