There are moments in life that one doesn’t expect; they simply arrive because it’s time to live them, whether perhaps by coincidence or because it’s an experience placed before oneself to learn something specific or to get to know oneself and take time to be with oneself.
Each person takes and perceives what is presented to us in a different way, regardless of whether they are moments of happiness, joy, sadness, frustration, fear, or anguish. People will never act or perceive events in the same way, as each mind is a world, just as the feelings and reactions of each individual are also completely distinct.
The confinement situation experienced in recent months has prompted us to reflect on everything we are living now. The quarantine has represented a “Stop,” an indicator that has given us a “halt” in life, to realize that it is time to stop, sit down and think about what we can change for the world and for ourselves.
If we stop to think: people with autism live this every day. By this, I mean that they live in a daily quarantine. People with autism experience everything with greater intensity in every sense, having to adapt to our world. Likewise, people don’t always understand them and don’t stop to think about what each of them feels and why they think or react differently from us.
With all that we are experiencing, we have heard, seen, and read publications telling us that people with autism have a ribbon on their hand to go out for a few minutes a day. Not even because of what we are living now can people be respectful of this situation, and they have been criticized in different ways.
These wonderful people from whom we can learn every day tell us the following:
I am much more than a label: “I am authentic, unique, tenacious, incomparable, sincere, wonderful, and original.”
Just as they are more than a label, all of us are too, but why don’t we show our families, friends, country, the people around us, and the whole world that we are capable of being more tolerant, united, patient, loyal, supportive, and empathetic?
Therefore, those of us who are undergoing a quarantine or have undergone one in recent months should begin to reflect that these types of decisions are made for the well-being of the world, of the people around us, and of ourselves. We cannot or should not go outside, but we can enter our own world to learn more and understand the reason for this situation and why it happened to each of us at another time and under other circumstances in life.
I hope these moments serve to make us more united and respect people as they are, without the need for anyone to adapt to anyone else; rather, we should adapt to the world.
Unity is strength; now and always, the world needs us united!