Autistic boy who spent birthday alone gets incredible response from strangers

[AGXStarseed]

(Not written by me)

The internet rallied to give Ben Jackson a birthday to remember


An autistic boy left heartbroken after no one showed up to his birthday party is smiling again after the internet had an amazing response.

Lisa Jackson, from Southsea, Portsmouth, invited 25 children to her son Ben’s 10th birthday party, but said only two parents replied to say their child would be attending.

Lisa Jackson

“He was so excited and really looking forward to it,” she said.

“The party was arranged and paid for and Ben was excited about it so there was no way I could cancel it.

“I wrongly presumed that a few more would just turn up on the day but at least two were coming which was better than none at all.

“Everything was set up and Ben sat there eagerly waiting for everyone to turn up. 2pm came and went and nobody had arrived.”

She added: “It was the most heartbreaking moment ever not only for me but for him too.”

Ben finally got his dream birthday

So this year, she decided to give her son a birthday to remember and appealed for Facebook users to send him a birthday card.

The mother said she has been “overwhelmed” by the response after Ben received “thousands and thousands” of cards.

She said her son, who has high-functioning autism, has a “heart of gold”, but struggles to make friends and often sits alone in the playground.

“He just wants to be friends with people but his autism makes it extremely difficult for him to achieve this,” she wrote in a Facebook post.

Find out how to send Ben a birthday card here.


Source: Autistic boy who spent birthday alone gets incredible response from strangers

 

[OlLiE]

i always wonder when i read these things, who was actually more happy with the attention, the child or their parents who are projecting their need for a 'normal' child

i never wanted anyone to come to my birthday parties

 

[Katleya]

Seeing those stories always makes me sad, but I never thought about what OlLie just brought up, and that seems like a very, very valid point.
I had a few birthday parties as a kid, because that's the usual thing to do, and I remember terror at being surrounded by so many people, being the center of attention, loud noises and overall too much commotion around me... I didn't even like the gifts, they were hardly ever something I was interested in, just the toy that was trendy that year. I didn't want toys. I wanted dictionaries. Trying telling that to the other kids, and see if anyone returns for your birthday party the year after, lol

 

[OlLiE]

Seeing those stories always makes me sad, but I never thought about what OlLie just brought up, and that seems like a very, very valid point.
I had a few birthday parties as a kid, because that's the usual thing to do, and I remember terror at being surrounded by so many people, being the center of attention, loud noises and overall too much commotion around me... I didn't even like the gifts, they were hardly ever something I was interested in, just the toy that was trendy that year. I didn't want toys. I wanted dictionaries. Trying telling that to the other kids, and see if anyone returns for your birthday party the year after, lol

it could be me projecting, but in the first picture, i think i even recognise the kids eyes, its too bright outside and its painful, i also recognise the 'i'm expected to be smiling' fake smile - oh well, at least the parents were able to post a happy family pic

 

[Bolletje]

i always wonder when i read these things, who was actually more happy with the attention, the child or their parents who are projecting their need for a 'normal' child

i never wanted anyone to come to my birthday parties

I remember my 7th birthday, my parents threw me a huge party and turned our house into a haunted house. The entire class was invited, there were tons of games, my mom was dressed as a witch. They put tons of effort on throwing me an awesome party and I spent the day crying, yelling at the other kids to go away and hiding in the shed with my cat. My parents were understandably angry with me at the time, because everyone was having a good day and I was ruining it. I ruined many more parties by hiding in my room and crying uncontrollably. I never understood these meltdowns myself, until I was diagnosed two years ago.

 

[Questella]

I tried to have a few parties for myself as a child. Nobody ever showed up.

One time a couple people were supposed to come, I sat in the window and waited for over 8 hours for somebody to show up. Eventually it was bedtime. No "friends", no phone call, no cards, nothing. My mom just thought I was stupid though.

When I had my baby shower for my son, nobody showed up for that either. It was me and two of my moms sisters, I was super depressed. The worst part was up until a few days before I could text the people and they would respond they were coming etc etc. The day of and the day before every single person started ignoring my texts and wouldn't respond, a few days after they still were just ignoring me. I completely removed all the people from my life afterwards.

I'm terrified to try again for this baby and my mom has already banned me from having a baby shower too. Dude's brother and his wife has offered to have one but do I even want the stress and depression of trying to invite even one person?

 

[Katleya]

This is terrible. And it's also why I stopped having birthday parties after I turned 10.

I do have a funny/not funny tale of my 5th (I think) birthday:
My mother had noticed I lacked friends. My mother is also this person who wants to nurture every single poor soul, so since I couldn't come up with an actual list of little guests, she took matters into her hands and invited all those poor souls. Meaning I had a birthday party filled with all the 5 year old pariahs my kindergarten hosted, many of whom I actually hated because they were bullies.
I hated that party, obviously. BUT there was a silver lining: the mothers of each of those kids wrote thank you notes to my mother, because they were moved that somebody had invited their evil spawn child, as no-one ever did (huh, wonder why?). So I guess at least there's a good deed that makes up for my experience. And I had kids show up to my party, just umm... I'm not sure I would have wanted those to.

And it never ends, either. I tried to organize at birthday drink or dinner after turning 30:
- One resulted in 4 people showing up, 2 of whom I'm still secretly mad at because they got me gifts that showed they knew me so poorly that they might as well have got me a card that read "F*** you" (and they were supposed to be the 2 I was closest to... but the other 2 people each got me a little something that was the most thoughtful thing, both having identified a special interest and capitalized on that).
- The next one resulted in a wave of last minute cancellations. Well, at least I had good food in that restaurant and nobody to point out my quirky/neurotic eating manners.
- The last one resulted in 2 people, and that's most likely because they were coworkers & I picked a bar we could go to immediately after work, in a convenient place. And my mother was there (nope, not awkward, she was a hit with my coworkers, probably more than I ever was).

 

[OlLiE]

i don't really understand why one would make one's own happiness dependent on irrelevant others, and why one would want to focus on what one doesn't have rather than appreciate what's in front of you, people that want to be with you and share your moments will be there, why worry about the people that don't want to be there, birthdays are a great test of friendship, just discard the one's that don't show up, why would one make oneself's happiness dependent on the number of people that show up, easy to say as an adult tho, i assume a child would be too young to understand