Every time I watch the scene from Rain Man when Dustin Hoffmann’s Autistic character, Raymond has a meltdown, I cannot help but to feel sorry for his new-found brother and caretaker, Charlie (played by Tom Cruise).  As Charlie stands by and watches his brother have a meltdown in a crowded airport, he looks helpless, confused and scared.

We often sympathize with the parents and guardians of autistic children and people because its difficult to imagine being in the overwhelming position of caretaker. We put focus on advocates of Autism, giving them thanks for raising awareness and funding for the cause. We praise the doctors and researchers who are studying this neurological disorder in hopes to find new causes, links and treatments that can help us to better understand Autism. We often wonder how all of these life-changing individuals get through each and every stressful day.

Parents. Caregivers. Advocates. Doctors. Researchers.

We’re forgetting someone. Actually, we’re forgetting thousands of people; those who are living with Autism.  Of course, I say this more figuratively than literally as we all know that the people who are suffering from this disorder are never forgotten.  However, they are often overlooked on the list of people who we wonder “how they have the strength to do it.”

In the years that Autism has been under the microscope, we’ve discovered how it affects the brain, what types of medications help to treat it, what types of things are linked to it, etc. It’s generally known what the symptoms are and what they look like as these are things that can be researched and proven. There are some things that you unfortunately cannot put under a microscope, particularly emotions and feelings. So, we’re left with the often unanswered question: What does it feel like to be autistic?

14 year old Carly Fleischmann was once assumed to be mentally retarded because she…