Our Human Services leader is telling us to be weak. To be devasted by a diagnosis. To feel damaged because our children are neurodiverse and may not pay taxes.

I was devastated but I CHOSE to RISE! I CHOSE to love my child for who they were and to find others that gave me strength when I couldn’t yet find it in myself.

Now I am a warrior.

I love my child and have a new appreciation for differences that I would not otherwise have if I were justified by “leaders” in my devastation. In fact, thats how so many with disabilities were housed in institutions. The photos from that time are unbearable to look at.

True strength is doing the INTERNAL WORK of understanding neurodivergence. Not pointing from the outside looking in and making judgements. And telling an entire country to make that judgement.

Here is my advice AS A LEADER BECAUSE I LIVE IT. Feel the devastation if that’s real for you, then choose to walk in it and feel the exhilarating growth of what seeing life from a new perspective feels like. That’s being a warrior, my friend. That’s being a true contributor, a true leader, to society.

Or choose to point to what you see as devastation and lack, and watch the lack and devastation grow because that’s what you choose to believe in.

I know what I have chosen. I chose to do the work of understanding neurodiversity, and I still am. It’s a path worth eternally growing in every.single.day.

Don’t let this so called leader set the clock back on our kids. Listen to the true leaders. Those of us who walk the walk and would never, ever call it devastation. Though many of us did once feel that devastation, we didn’t stand there long.

It’s a journey that first chose us, and now we undoubtedly and assuredly choose this Journey.