I’m going to ruffle some feathers here. Only because I’ve met many parents who are determined to find the ‘why’. They want to know what made their children autistic. It can stem from:
- A desire to help understand their child better.
- A sense of guilt that it might have been something they did.
- A feeling of anger at their and/or their child’s situation, so they need something to lash out at.
- A hope for a ‘cure’ as if this is a disease.
- Pure frustration.
Back when my son first became diagnosed as neurodivergent, I began reading up on autism. To be clear, he wasn’t officially diagnosed with it until he was entering 6th grade, but it was mentioned a lot. My research was mostly to see if he fit the criteria, but that’s when I learned about it being a spectrum and such. Understanding the habits and ways to help him when he was having rough moments became a top priority. I also got close to the edge of the ‘why’.
Now, it isn’t wrong to try and find out why your child has autism. There is a heavy lean towards it being genetic, but science is still looking into it. Unfortunately, this means many have stepped in to use autism as a scapegoat for their own ideas. The one I butted heads with a lot years ago was ‘vaccines cause autism’. The only studies that have ‘proven’ this have turned out to be faked or purposely manipulated to get the desired outcome, which isn’t science. Of course, you have frustrated and desperate parents who will latch onto anything to explain why their child is autistic and more difficult to raise than they wanted.
IMPORTANT: It isn’t wrong for a parent to get this desperate or frustrated, especially if they have a challenging autistic child. They are human and want explanations to help them through what they are dealing with. It can turn into wanting to blame someone for hurting their child, so things like vaccines, various foods, and some rather outlandish boogeymen get targeted. This doesn’t mean that the parent hates or lacks love towards their child. They do love the child and want them to flourish, but they are letting out their own anguish. It turns into a ‘I will not let this happen to someone else’s child’ situation as well.
One of the spiraling paths that this can take is the parent searching for a why and then wanting a ‘cure’. Even writing this makes my skin crawl because a ‘cure’ makes it sound like someone with autism has a disease. That’s not the case. Their brains are wired in a way that they perceive the world more differently than the rest of us. Yet, a child that is nonverbal and/or prone to violent outbursts can make a parent believe they are sick and need to be ‘cured’. This is why autism gets lumped in with mental illnesses like schizophrenia and bipolar at times, which is wrong. Big difference between a mental illness and being neurodivergent.
Unfortunately, the quest for a ‘cure’ can be somewhat dangerous too. There is one theory that autism is created or at least made worse by heavy metals. It is thought that exposure to heavy metals during pregnancy or early years is a big contributing factor. Chelation is the procedure of injecting chemicals into a person to bind and remove heavy metals from their bodies. So, some parents will opt to do this to their autistic child even though there is no evidence that it will work and has extremely high risks such as kidney damage and heart failure. A terrifying result that parents who are only looking at the ‘cure’ possibility might not realize.
The only way to really handle autism is patience and getting your child as much help as possible. There are so many local and national programs out there that will give support for autistic children and adults. The earlier you start on getting your child the services they need, the faster they would progress towards gaining control. It’s not easy and can be painful at times, which is why the quiet and good times need to be cherished. Otherwise, you can fall down the rabbit hole of hunting for the ‘why’ and a ‘cure’ that doesn’t exist instead of utilizing services that can actually help.
Should a person NOT go looking into what causes autism? No because we all want to know what triggers this. Yet, everything out there is still being researched and very little is set in stone. So, you have to be careful about being drawn in by predatory theories that want nothing more than to get the creators money and attention.
Legends of Windemere 