"Don't mourn for us" — and the grief I had to unlearn

Jim Sinclair is widely known for advocating the idea that being neurodiverse is not something that needs mourning or curing. The 1993 essay "Don't Mourn For Us" helps us understand that autism is a way of being, part of a whole person — not a way of not existing normally. You do not need to mourn the loss of a child if your child is autistic.

I know that I am actually guilty of a tiny portion of me grieving what I worried was my child's marginalization when we discovered she had ADHD and a math impairment. The societal pressure to grieve being outside the normal is intense, and it took time to learn to unlearn that judgment cycle. I am putting that in writing because pretending otherwise would make this a performance instead of a journal.

Lorna Wing, whose daughter was autistic, was another strong advocate. Her research and publications helped us see that neurodiversity presents uniquely in individuals because it is a spectrum — not the same presentation, characteristics, or neurological differences in each person.

Advocacy like this pushes us toward accepting our biodiversity rather than trying to fit into a Western, white template of what a "normal" person should be.