Not just an American problem...

In the UK, a mom committed suicide when officials denied her severely autistic child a residential placement.

Here's a Murder/Suicide where Mom killed her severely autistic 16yo son in the UK
HEre's a Murder/Suicide in British Columbia...
and those took me a whopping 10 seconds to find on google.  There are a plethora more. 

Meanwhile, in the US we're up to double digits of autistic kids gone wandering and dying this summer alone.

What is it going to take to stop the madness???

There simply aren't the services required ANYWHERE on the planet to adequately support families with autism.  For anyone not directly affected, there seems to be NO sense of urgency.  There seems to be no concept of how much strain autism families are under - emotionally, financially, even physically.

Emotionally - we are drained.  We work all day, and then we come home and provide supervision at a level that a toddler requires to our preteens and teens.   We spend a ton of time grocery shopping because of all the label reading and spend hours cooking special diets because if they get into food they shouldn't... they regress.

Financially - we would spend every penny we have taking care of our kids.  This means we don't have money for lots of other stuff.  I saw a crowdfunding page a week or so ago for an autism mom to be able to put her brothers ashes in an urn.  Let that sink in.  She was hoping for a little extra to be able to HAVE a memorial service.

Physically - many of my facebook friends have older teens / young 20's boys.  They are Big.  Some are in diapers, some are wearing helmets.   All three that i'm thinking about right now have seizures and they have hurt themselves seizing badly. One broke his collarbone.    Imagine the level of care and supervision a 15 month old baby requires.  thats the level of supervision these adults with autism need.  Where do they get it?  Their parents.  Until their parents cannot anymore.  Then in theory the state should step in.

In the US, the InterAgency Autism Coordination committee is on hiatus.  They haven't met in over a year.    No one is using the word Epidemic except the parents of affected children.  

They don't care.