High Functioning Assholes that like to flag people that don’t agree to their personal prejudices as ableist will turn the other side to see what really goes on to the non verbal, consensual types that come off lower functioning.

Autism is such an identity to a family unit from a few that I know. It’s really tragic. I see one acquaintance on Facebook (whom I am not friends with on the platform) with their younger sibling on the spectrum by a couple of years.) The individual is 33, but seems to be that sibling taking control of their life. It’s almost as if the parents go, that individual will be the primary care taker. I repeat this a million times, why the hell do hierarchal children have to be the primary care taker of an autistic? Why are you keeping the scope so damn tight? WHY?

I suspect that toxic families may be a lot worse for people who have children, or have siblings or autistic themselves.  I outline some of the toxcitites:

Cognitive Dissonance: This is the feeling where your brain is torn between a fight, flight (or most recently the “freeze”) I can speak personally that I have been in more of a freeze than fight or flight, for an autistic to have not be recognized for inconsistency in routines or messaging, etc. is saddening. If an individual is so anx’d up, it could very well be a dissonance that the parents who take so much pride for raising their autistic offspring; that conflicts and issues are being ignored

Attachment parenting: This is a cult that I think is going to mess up more kids – typical or atypical. I do not understand why parents feel they are entitled to have full access and agency to their child, worse is what I fear is the guardianship just enables the parents to not change or modify behaviors because the autistic hierarchal child will never be able to grow. Instead of a 50/50 of agency/autonomy, it’s mostly 100%. When I hear an arrogant parent; say “I know my son or daughter better than anyone else” – this is pretty bad if the child is typical; imagine if the individual is autistic or with other disabilities, it’s audacious!

Gaslighting, minimizing: I don’t think I need to go this far, but other than they often downplay a child’s wants and needs and attacking others who meaningfully challenge the parent’s SOP.

Enmeshment (also known as: Emotional Incest): Enmeshment is a newer phrase in the toxic family unit, that often are from families with claim to believe in nuclear family values, but I do not care how many years after the 1950s, this was all a sham. For most typical families (use the word “typical” loosely) enmeshment has no hierarchy, or no boundaries. While I do not lecture that parents and adult children should or should not be “friends”, I fear that enmeshment is actually common with families around autistics.

The “boundaries”  if enforced, are often with odds favoring the authoritative parent. The autistic child will like every one who has been exposed to narc abuse, not just walking on eggshells, but broken glass instead. I hate the well-known expression because, it doesn’t infect you the way it would if you stepped on glass. It’s an oxymoron to the idea that an expression to use to describe narcissistic abuse is being devalued, which defeats the purpose of using catch lines to describe the feelings. This can impact any autistic from 21 to death, whether or not they have autonomy or agency.  With this perverted belief structure, it’s interchangeable for the interest of the parents, worse the siblings when they become the primary caretaker. And a relationship with a brother or sister is already been breach the moment the autistic appears in the family.

I mentioned the emotional incest, as of 2022, this is becoming more of a discussion as narcissistic abuse is getting very same nuclear energy is destroying the very same system everyone that’s a hard right person thinks should be.  Emotional incest, like in the sexual sense, an abuse of physical autonomy; such as a family member engaging in sex from within. Emotional incest is without the sex part. This may result in parents of autistics questioning very personal things about a child’s reproductive or their toilet cycles, basically not trusting the hierarchal child’s ability to see-something-say-something if it’s in their private parts. Why can autistics have the same right of privacy, and responsibility to report to their parents if something is amiss to their body? Parents have a justification for emotional incest, like with any narcissist, control freak, untrusting or have existing attachment issues.

Emotional incest related to ASD can be easily pointed to books and websites like the Age of Autism and To Siri with Love. While I may lack boundaries of how much I share about my family, nothing compares to having mama-bears write online about their autistic daughter’s menstrual accidents or even “crapisodes” when the child can’t go to the bathroom properly, or worse exploit the child’s challenges without a filter, without being kind (because you know a non verbal autistic doesn’t feel because “he” can’t talk…) One was a Facebook post of a hotel room completely shut tight with chairs and other heavy furniture so the autistic child wouldn’t run away. It was a sarcastic tone of “this the real autism” style of abuse.

I can’t imagine why I am the only one who sees these stupid and hurtful things happen to my groups of people. Why do society associate parents and siblings to all of the disabled population? Why can’t we have friends? Why can’t we have romantic interests? Why can the safety net be expanded? Why can’t we have meaningful work, because family can’t be used for references? Why do parents refuse to not understand the commands to back-off?

Parental relationships never get revisited on an ongoing basis or a lifecycle. A non verbal or lower functioning autistic can’t just break up with their guardian parents. They are forced to have relationships with siblings, if they have one, the flat hierarchy is completely celebrated. We used to have an annual Family Support Conference, exclusively for typical parents and siblings of a family member with a disability. What to defend the emotional fortress of a restrictive life because the parent’s are control whores?

As much as I believe in loving family members, I do despise them as a unit, as a protective class, so in that sense, I say: Fuck Families, and fuck the family unit! 

P.S. As a sidenote, from the beginning (as far back as An Alleged Autistic) the first known boundary I had was family was out of discussion, outside of personal or emotionally intimate information. This policy had since been modified, but for all intensive purposes, the family’s business was off-limits, in fact that’s how I kinda differentiate between this and say the Age of Autism rhetoric. It was intended to be the better-person setting a better-example when talking about families and ASD.