A Mom on a Mission to Build Autism Awareness

By Angela Murphy

Some like to just talk about the trials of loving someone with autism, but I choose to focus on the triumphs.

Some like to just talk about the trials of loving someone with autism, but I choose to focus on the triumphs. In August of 2002, my husband Derek and I became the proud parents of our first son, Nicolas Murphy. At 2-years-old his doctor noticed that Nicolas wasn’t making eye contact and seemed apprehensive around her, and she mentioned the word “autism.” I responded by putting Nicolas and his now two siblings in daycare, thinking all he needed was a little exposure to other children. But there wasn’t any real progress.

At 3-years-old, we were told Nicolas had the speech of an 18-month-old, and he was diagnosed with a severe speech delay. But even after the diagnosis, we were down, but not out. It was suggested we start early intervention. Nicolas began Pre-K that spring semester at Libery-Eylau and he quickly flourished. He soon began saying tons of words and could even identify them on sight. We were so impressed, but still he had difficulty with eye contact and conversation.

With the support of the school and his doctor, we had Nicolas evaluated for autism. The day I got the news, I was devastated and broke down completely. When I called my husband I was a sobbing mess because I thought my son had been given a death sentence. I though he would never live on his own, get married, or have children. I had never felt so alone in my life. I prayed every day that Nicolas would wake up and be “ normal,” but the more time passed the more frustrated I became.

Then something happened. I realized that while I was praying for Nicolas to be different, I was not accepting who God had made him to be. I was not appreciating Nicolas for Nicolas.

Once I acknowledged the fact that he was not going to be defined by his autism diagnosis, life began to change. I came to understand that I had to be his voice and his advocate. I began studying about autism and learned what I could. I formed a relationship with every teacher he had and the special education department at his school. Teamwork was necessary to help Nicolas accomplish everything we knew he could do. Our goal was for Nicolas to be in only mainstream classes, and by second grade it happened.

Nicolas is now a 6th grader and doing great. He is in all regular classes, with the exception of reading and language arts; he plays percussion in beginner band, and is Mr. Popular with his classmates. He still has his struggles, such as the overwhelming amount of language in social studies and science, as well as word problems in math, but he is determined to do his best.

After some time, I began to talk about our story and others began to listen and share their own. I learned I was not the only person who felt alone in dealing with autism. It was like we were part of a secret society that no one wanted to admit existed. I decided to talk even more, and I began sharing my story anytime I heard someone mention autism. People began to ask me about Nicolas; they would see us in the store and want to know how he was doing and what he had accomplished.

Once I acknowledged the fact that he was not going to be defined by his autism diagnosis, life began to change.

In spring of 2014, I approached two other mothers about joining me in launching an organization called Moms on a Mission for Autism Awareness, or MOMAA. At the time of my son’s diagnosis in 2005, the average for autism in boys was 1 in 150. Now, that rate has increased to 1 out of 69 boys. Together, the other moms involved with MOMAA and I decided that if we could just bring awareness to the subject of autism, our city and society would learn to be more accepting of people with autism. On April 2, 2014, we held our first Autism Rally and the success was overwhelming. There were many people who said they had been waiting for something like this, and the support from the community left us speechless and ready to do more. Exactly one year later, on April 2, 2015, we will do it again, and we expect this year to be even bigger than the first. Our theme is for 2015 is”Autism Warriors” because while we are not experts, we are warriors who are energetically and aggressively engaged in the cause of autism awareness.