shame and the theoretical model of the autism mom pipeline
Originally published on Cohost. Contains themes of self-harm, parental abuse, horror, and sympathy for "autism moms".
let's play pretend, before you read this essay. you don't have to, it might be painful or just weird, but i'd really appreciate it.
let's say your smug-ass coworkers are talking about how "they" won't let you spank your kids anymore and you're compelled to give them shit. so you hit all the points that seem reasonable to you-- hitting people is bad ceteris paribus, it's a lack of imagination to say you've exhausted every other option, blah blah blah.
and let's say something gnaws at you, something you feel you should say. so you tell them that if you raise a child to expect physical punishment as a direct consequence of their actions, it's not unreasonable to wonder if they'll grow up and learn about anthropogenic climate change or systemic racism and feel unable to atone for their wrongdoing without wanting to hit or kill themselves.
of course, you aren't entirely convinced of what you just said. as you shouldn't be-- you're a non-professional spitballing off anecdotal evidence to make a sweeping generalization to win an argument. what's more interesting to me is something that got dredged up there, something you were compelled to communicate to those who couldn't understand. the feeling of being an outcast inheriting the suffering of your elders. the feeling that you, as an Other, can't escape being determined by a world that wouldn't stop hurting you.
try to inhabit that feeling as much as you can. which part of your body are tense? where are you looking? are you fighting, flighting, fawning, something else? really imagine it, if you can. remember, all this came up from a normal conversation with your smug-ass coworkers, who are now wondering why their token weirdo is malfunctioning.
is there shame, just a little in the strange mix of emotions? shame that maybe you've said or felt something wrong? treasure that feeling if there is. keep it lit.
now let's play pretend again.
you're raising a child, specifically an autistic child whose needs and habits are counterintuitive to you (either because your brain chemistry is different in some way, or you've spent years sponging up the mores of neurotypical society and the mask has become the face, or because you've forgotten how to speak to someone who isn't living up to their role in the nuclear family. pick anything). anyway you're looking for advice because as a Nuclear Parent you hold all the responsibility to not traumatize your kid too bad, and also prepare them for a world you know will be unkind.
so you look for support networks online. but the biggest one you can find... well. they're all outwardly grateful for what makes their kids special, but in practice there's a lot of complaining about that uniqueness. completely reasonable-- people need to vent, and in the right environment complaining is the first step to getting a grip. but some of the complaining makes you uncomfortable, and you wonder whether you're tone policing or something really is off.
i mean, Kirsten is mad because her son plays "wrong" when the moon is full? this crap gets 60 likes?
it's moot, though-- you can't raise a baby without a village. you don't have an in-person community, your friends have work and school and crises of their own. your suburb is nice, but it's isolated from everything-- family, elders, libraries, the places people tell you to go for help. you wonder if you could meet people where you are, but the local Facebook group is defunct and you can't justify waiting under an empty ramada for someone to commiserate with.
so you join in. you still think some of these people talk about their children weird. in fact, the knot in your stomach is familiar. it has a name: you call it Shame. you hate it, it's paralyzing, and it makes you waste countless hours thinking and judging instead of acting. but at the end of the day you tag along. they make you uncomfortable, but they'll butt heads with the school board for good reasons sometimes, and that's enough for you.
it's inevitable you yell at your kid, and when you do it you know it's bad. she was just singing like she always does, a little too loudly and a little too in-public. you apologize with a cookie-- that was a bad solution, you know that too, but it said "I love you" in icing. you brood in bed wondering how to prevent it the next time. you feel tainted. you don't know how to use the few resources you trusted anymore-- they say things like "Don't yell at your children, duh" and you already failed that.
and that's how you conclude that the therapist you cussed out was right after all: everyone yells at their children. you won't hit anyone like that piece of shit said to, obviously-- but your body doesn't know what to do with the shame if this isn't the solution. and you figure you can't spend more time drowning in shame, lest the TV replace you as a parent.
you feel less bad yelling now. and one day, magic happens. once the first "because I said so" leaves your mouth you realize it reverberates with the "because i said so" of everyone before you. spellcraft. a thousand other words become speakable with those echoes in your mouth. beliefs are a tight web. once you believe that the earth is the center of the universe, it becomes easy to scoff at Newtonian physics. so you become more and more like that Facebook group that you were once so reluctant to join. and you know what? you like it. you're confident now, because whatever criticisms people have of you, your worldview was formed the hard way, aligning the puzzle pieces until most of them click.
the shame isn't disabling you. you feel... productive again.
years later you're getting coffee with your "political" friend. you mention your kids' IEPs, and one thing leads to another and they bring up how ABA is actual torture and you're nodding along, maybe even understanding. what you're not feeling is the shame short-circuiting before it gets even halfway up your spine.
and you respond: "i don't know about all that. all i can say is, it worked for Kirsten from Puzzle Piece Parenting".
and at last you're dead right-- it did work for Kirsten, you don't know about all that, and it is all you can say.