Odin Camus and his mother Melissa celebrate at his birthday party.
So many Aspies have difficulties making friends and struggle with being bullied. 13-year-old Odin Camus was no different.
Odin was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome eight years ago when he was five. Like many Aspies, he has problems with social interactions. Still, neither he nor his mother Melissa could have foreseen that when he invited 15 friends for a 13th birthday bowling party in March, not a single one would want to attend, or even RSVP.
So the heartbroken Peterborough, Ontario, mom made a post regarding Aspergers bullying on her Facebook page, “Some of you have seen me post about my son, Odin. His struggles with bullying, his difficulties with Aspergers. Today is his 13th birthday, and, unfortunately, not one kid rsvp’d to his birthday ‘hang out’ invite.”
Melissa posted to her Facebook local mom group that she’d gotten Odin a cell phone and asked them to text him birthday wishes. One of them screenshotted it and shared it, and then another did the same, and from there Aspergers bullying awareness went viral.
More than 5,800 people on Facebook contacted Odin to wish him a happy birthday and give him messages of encouragement. Celebrities such as singer Carrie Underwood, actor Elijah Wood and Canadian politician Justin Trudeau sent birthday wishes. So did Canada’s pro sports teams, the Toronto Raptors, the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Toronto Blue Jays. In the end Odin received over 5,000 text messages and 11,000 Twitter messages.
But that wasn’t the end of it. When Ptbo Canada, a local social news and entertainment company, learned of Odin’s Aspergers bullying story, it wrote a story about his plight and then offered to throw him a gala birthday celebration at the local bowling alley, where reporters, photographers and about 450 other people showed up for his big day.
At the event, his mom said, “People are here because everyone knows a kid who struggles to fit in. [But] no matter how down you feel, there’s always someone there. Always.”
She said she was glad to be given “this opportunity. . .to bring a little bit of awareness to Aspergers bullying.” She said that even though Aspies often lack social and fine motor skills and can easily be misunderstood by their peers, “they’re smart as whips. We’re hoping people learn to more appropriately handle kids with Asperger’s and not to just exclude them.”
She said that what she hopes comes out of the story will be “more of a sense of community amongst those with Asperger’s, whether it’s adults, kids or their families. And beyond the sense of community that we’ve gotten from everybody worldwide, that the Asperger’s community gets a little bit tighter.”
Odin, whose hyperinterests include swimming and taking part in his local sea cadet corps, has now been invited to continue his birthday celebration as an honorary captain of a Halifax navy ship at Maritime Forces Atlantic headquarters for the Royal Canadian Navy.
Odin said, “I’m a sea cadet now and to get to be the captain of my own ship for a day. . .should be fun.”
Comment: From all I’ve read about this story it seems like Melissa Camus must be a single mom. I guess that proves the point that I made in my book Aspertools that single moms of Aspies deserve a special place in heaven.
