The Investing in Brighter Futures partnership gave us lifetime membership to the NAS.
Being an NAS member is about knowing that you're not on your own and that you share experiences with other people and other people share experiences with you. Because having a diagnosis of autism is not the end of the world, not for parents and not for the children who have autism.
Our membership gives us Communication magazine for free. That magazine gives hope; there's always hope. We read articles about people and we think that we may be able to help them because we've been through the same thing, or it tells us something we didn't know. It becomes a sort of reference for living.
We see things differently now. Our mantra for life is not to get too stressed and to take every day as a bonus. Our son has a love for life which rubs off on us.
Andrew
To find out more about becoming an NAS member, visit www.autism.org.uk/joinus