#FINALLY NO MORE PONYTAILS!! NO MORE PULLING MY HAIR OUT!!! NO MORE SENSORY NIGHTMARES WHEN MY HAIR IS DONE!!!

[weirdlizard26]

im getting a haircut tomorrow. im so excited i just might explode

[scriptautistic]

I'm sorry if this question is triggering or anything, but I was wondering in what ways an autistic child could be bullied and manipulated by their parents or other important adults using their autism as a centre focus? For example, a young child with sensory issues that prevents him from tolerating liquids on his skin being forced kicking and screaming into the shower (the parents know that he doesn't like water) etc?

Hoo boy, this is a very personal subject for me. I grew up in an abusive family, and I have lots and lots of personal experiences I can share as examples. Obviously this is not even close to an exhaustive list, just some examples from my personal experiences.

Do be aware that this post will contain descriptions of emotional/verbal abuse and some physical abuse. If anyone is uncomfortable with this topic, feel free to skip the rest of the post.

First off, let’s take a moment and look at why autistic children get abused. In some cases, a parent would be abusive regardless of whether the child is autistic or not. In such cases, the parent has their own psychological issues that influence them. If you’re writing this type of abusive parent, it’s a good idea to delve into their backstory a little bit and decide what their reason is for being this way. Portraying them as “evil” without a reason isn’t accurate and can even be harmful for real-life victims of abuse whose situations are not so clearly black and white. There are many possible reasons someone might be abusive, including having been a victim of abuse in the past and certain psychological disorders which can cause some people to act abusively, such as narcissistic personality disorder - but this blog isn’t about those topics. If you are looking for resources for writing such characters, we recommend paying a visit to @scriptsocialwork and/or @scriptshrink.

Another type of abusive parent is abusive specifically because their child is autistic. They may not realize the child is autistic. They may believe the child’s behavior is due to environmental factors, or that the child is willfully difficult. They may think they can make their child less sensitive or more social - more “normal” - by forcing them to “face” the things that upset them. They might feel like a victim who has been cursed with a difficult child and lash out at that child, or they might feel they need to be a superparent who cures their child of their difficulties by force. They may believe they are doing the right thing with this abusive behavior. They may also be responding to pressure from teachers or other parents who think that the child’s “problems” are the result of the parenting style and push them to be stricter, etc. They may be praised by others for this abuse of their child. And then there is “therapy” where autistic people are abused by “experts” who think their autism can be cured.

It’s important to note that abuse does not have to be intentional. If the abuser doesn’t realize what they’re doing is wrong, or isn’t intending to hurt the victim, that doesn’t make it not abuse.

That said, let’s look at some specific ways autistic children can be abused by their parents. Sadly, these examples are far from rare, and in most cases, the parents even believe they are doing the right thing by hurting their child in this way. As a side note, while we like to push for positive representation of autistic people, this is a subject which is not often addressed, and having an autistic child living through abuse in a story could be a very helpful thing for the world to see and learn to understand, so that changes can be made.

Physical Abuse

All types of physical abuse that can be used on allistic children can be used on autistic children as well. If the child is particularly sensitive, the abuse can be even more harmful. This includes all types of hitting, spanking, and other physical attacks on the child. All of these methods have been proven to be detrimental to the mental health of a person as they grow up, and children who are physically abused (even just spanking) have been shown to have greater psychological problems later in life.

In addition to these “classic” methods of physical punishment, anything that involves the autistic person’s particular sensitivities can be abusive as well. The example given in the ask of a child being forced screaming into a shower is a good one. From my experience, I can also add:

Being forced to go swimming despite sensory issues with still water on the skin. I was forced to take swimming lessons at a summer camp despite the water on my skin causing me to panic, and was consistently reprimanded for “refusing” to pass the tests at the end of each level and remaining in shallow water at all times. 

I was also once, as a teenager, picked up and thrown into a natural pond by my father’s girlfriend. Everyone else was going swimming on this hot summer’s day, but I didn’t want to because, in addition to not liking swimming, I was having my period. I didn’t want to communicate that in front of everyone, so I tried politely declining. My father’s girlfriend, who was “fed up” with me refusing to participate in group activities, physically picked me up, fully clothed, and threw me screaming into the pond. Everything fell out of my pockets and sunk to the bottom, and the pad in my underwear was soaked through. I ran sobbing into the house while my dad’s girlfriend continued to shout after me that I was being ridiculous and rude to everyone.

Once, as a “punishment” for not taking part in a social activity (I was overloaded and went off on my own to read for a while in a quiet spot), my bed was sabotaged by my father and sisters. Everything metal in the room, including a set of metal dumbells and a guitar stand, was hidden underneath the blankets and pillow of my bed. When I jumped into bed (as I always did, onto my knees, something everyone in the family was aware of), I landed on metal. I hurt my knees quite badly, but was ignored when I asked for help. Afterwards, when I was limping for a few days, I was yelled at for “making a scene” and “trying to get attention”. (I still have issues with my knees.) After removing the objects from under the blanket, I threw myself down on the pillow, not realizing something was under that, too, and got quite a lump on my head.

I was once forced to eat food the taste and texture of which made me gag. My dad’s girlfriend had cooked a sort of strange pizza with unusual ingredients, and I couldn’t choke it down despite being desperately hungry. I tried to get up from the table and was shouted at, told that it was extremely rude to refuse to eat someone’s cooking, and that I was not to get up until my plate was clean. Everyone else quietly ate, finished, got up. My sisters went to play. My dad and his girlfriend went off to do whatever they did. I sat at the table crying for two hours, feeling bruised from the hard wooden chair, my stomach aching with hunger, but unable to eat the food. Eventually my father relented and allowed me to simply go to bed without eating rather than force-feeding me the “pizza”.

My mother and grandmother were obsessed with making me “ladylike” (I was widely regarded as a tomboy). Throughout my childhood, I was forced to wear my hair up in braids and ponytails, tightly pulled together with elastics or scrunchies. My scalp was particularly sensitive, and I could feel every hair being pulled out. I cried all the time and begged to be allowed to let my hair down, but was refused. My grandmother frequently insisted that “beauty hurts sometimes” and my mother told everyone that I was known to “make up” aches and pains for no real reason other than to get attention, encouraging everyone to ignore my tears. As soon as I was out of sight, I would always let my hair down. My scalp would hurt for hours afterwards, and then I had to endure being screamed at when I was found out.

Physical abuse can also involve meltdowns, which are often mistaken for tantrums by parents, and shutdowns, which are often mistaken for refusal to speak (the “silent treatment”).

I remember having a meltdown at the end of a camping trip with my dad, his girlfriend, and my sisters. The overload of an entire week without any time alone, sleeping on a hard surface, constantly bit by mosquitoes, eating food I didn’t like, and other sensory nightmares of the forest, had taken too much of a toll and I finally couldn’t stand it anymore. When I was ordered to help clean and pack the tent, my brain went SNAP and a meltdown started. All I remember is feeling a need to escape, to be somewhere quiet. I tried to run, and I was chased by an angry father and his girlfriend. I tried to hide in the backseat of the car, which was the only suitable hiding space I could find, and was grabbed by the ankles and ripped out of the car. They were screaming at me to calm down, holding onto my arms and legs with a much-too-strong grip while I thrashed around, unable to control my body, sobbing my eyes out. I was “in trouble” for weeks after that for “throwing a tantrum” instead of helping out like the others.

During shutdowns, when I typically go nonverbal and am unable to speak, I have frequently been grabbed, shaken, pushed, etc. as attempts to force me to speak while I “rudely” “refuse” to communicate.

These are just a few of the many examples of physical abuse from my childhood. There were also plenty of unpleasant situations that weren’t abuse - for example, when I had to put my shoes on quickly because we were late for something important, but I didn’t have time to straighten the seams on my socks, and my feet hurt all day as a result. I don’t really blame my parents for things like that. But when a child makes it clear that something is painful or very unpleasant for them, there is no reason to force them to endure it, and the parents insist on forcing them anyway, or use sensory overload or other such things as “punishments” for autistic behavior / failing to act allistic enough, then it is abuse.

Emotional and Verbal Abuse

Even more common is verbal and emotional abuse. All physical abuse is also emotional abuse, but there are many types of verbal/emotional abuse that often go unrecognized because so many people think of abuse as a physical thing. Emotional abuse of autistic people is very common, as many of our traits and behaviors are seen as “deviant” in some way, and it is a common cultural idea that deviant behavior, regardless of whether it hurts anyone, should be corrected or even punished. There are also many parents who feel entitled to a “normal” child and will blame an autistic child for making their lives more difficult. Then there are, as always, some parents who will be abusive regardless of what type of brain the child has.

While most of my physical abuse was at the hands of my father, his girlfriend, and my sisters, my mother was a neverending specter of verbal and emotional abuse. I should note that my mother has her own psychological issues and was equally abusive towards my allistic sisters, though they were far better equipped to deal with it than I was. Here are some real-life examples from my childhood.

It was made clear to me from a very young age that what I felt and what I wanted was not important, especially if what I wanted was different from the majority. If my mother wanted something and we didn’t give it to her / do it for her, we were being selfish. If we wanted something, we were being selfish. This was done both to my sisters and to me, but my sisters had the support of friends and teachers at school, who reassured them that it is normal to put yourself first sometimes and that it was not acceptable for a parent to treat their child this way. I did not have any friends and I didn’t know how to communicate my problems to my teachers (or even that I had a right to), so I had no support, and slowly developed a complex of believing I was a bad and selfish person. This led to a series of further abusive relationships later in my life, as I felt I had no right to refuse someone’s demands or stand up for myself. This was made worse by hyperempathy - whenever I felt I might have upset someone, hurt their feelings, or done anything they might find unpleasant, I suffered terribly, so controlling me was always as easy as warning me I would upset someone if I didn’t do exactly as I was told.

I always did my best to follow all rules and instructions exactly as they were explained to me, but often misunderstood because I didn’t catch the tone or implications of something. I was screamed at on a nearly daily basis for “refusing” to follow “simple directions”. I was constantly confused, constantly trying to do exactly what I was told, never understanding what I had done wrong. I learned not to trust my own instincts and to think of myself as inferior, stupid, lazy. There was a period of time I considered committing suicide in order to rid the world of my hideous presence, but (fortunately) I could never work up the nerve to do it because I didn’t actually want to die.

My sisters and I were all sent to a therapist after my parents’ divorce (when I was 5). I continued to see a therapist or counselor for many years after that, usually through the public school system. My mother frequently attended part of the sessions with me. Frequently, she would contradict me immediately after I spoke (or even interrupt) by claiming something was untrue, that I had made it up, that I had a history of doing that. You might think the therapists would believe their patient over their patient’s mother, but most of the time, they believed her. I was awkward and communicated strangely. I didn’t make eye contact, which they took as a sign that I was being dishonest. And my mother was good at playing the “loving and patient mother” around other people. She actively prevented me from being diagnosed with anything until I was 18, prevented me from getting any actual help, and prevented me from getting any accommodations, because she claimed I was being lazy and entitled.

She did the same thing with medical doctors. When I, at age 12, tried to talk to my pediatrician about sleep issues, she butted in and claimed that I slept fine (despite the fact I slept very little and was constantly tired). She did the same when I tried to talk to the doctor about depression and prevented the doctor from recommending a psychiatrist. When I was given medication (such as an asthma inhaler), she took it away and prevented me from using it. She claimed I was simply “being too sensitive” and needed to “toughen up” rather than relying on extra help, or, that old classic, that I was making it up for attention or “just being dramatic”.

Due to hyperempathy, I took the deaths of pets very badly. Having to look at or touch a dead animal could cause shutdowns, meltdowns, or panic attacks, as I automatically imagined how it would feel to be dead and was unable to handle the thought. My mother forced me to hold dead pets and bury them myself, then insisted I get another one. She always made me chose animals with short  lifespans so that I would have to face death repeatedly (this is by her own admission, as she proudly explained to me a few years ago - she thought she could make me stronger by forcing me to face death regularly).

When I was exhausted or overloaded, I was regularly forced into difficult situations, like going to a crowded shopping center or a party. I was not allowed to spend time alone. When I inevitably had a meltdown as a result, I was screamed at and punished for “throwing a tantrum” and embarrassing her in front of other people.

Again, this is a short list of examples from an entire childhood living with an abusive family. I could write a whole book about this, but this should be enough to get you started.

I am fortunate enough that I was never subjected to ABA therapy, and I was almost always verbal, so I never had to experience certain types of abuse firsthand (and can’t offer personal experiences as examples). We will have a post on ABA therapy soon where you can find more information.

If you decide to write a story with an autistic character who is abused, please do so with care. Rather than relying solely on the examples I’ve given, try looking for other sources. Please find at least one or two beta readers who are autistic and grew up in abusive households (sadly, they’re not that hard to find) so you can be absolutely sure you represent the experience fairly and accurately. All too often, it is seen as socially acceptable to abuse autistic children, because it is not seen as abuse: it is seen as a parent trying to teach a difficult child how to be normal. It does not work that way, and it causes a lifetime of psychological issues and trauma. Stories that show how wrong this is can be a big help in showing the general public that this behavior is not okay, does not work, and should be stopped.

And please, whenever you’re writing about topics like this, be sure to include content warnings somewhere.

Thanks, good luck, and happy writing!

-Mod Aira