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"His Autism Is in Your Head"

Being Punished by Family Members When Difference Isn't Allowed

By Abellona TPublished 6 years ago 3 min read
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When we shared my husband’s Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) diagnosis with his parents, they sat there in silence. Slow-motion minutes passed by as my father-in-law, whom I’ve come to learn is all about the control and conformity (he frequently tells my one year old to use his right hand), continued to stare down at his hands, stunned. Finally, he looked directly at my husband and said:

“You don’t have Asperger’s.”

It was a decisive statement. An announcement that he felt by making, would allow everyone to move on and forget about this particularly inconvenient conversation.

I could understand that perhaps, he must have been shell-shocked. At the time, I reasoned that maybe, his parents even felt a little guilty that it had taken their son over forty years and the support of his wife to come to know why he had always felt just a little different, a little apart from others. I hoped these were the reasons for the reactionary outburst but knew differently from within.

My husband corrected him and said that the condition is no longer technically known as Asperger’s syndrome and is now simply called ASD and that the long and in-depth assessment indicated, he was indeed on the spectrum.

It was a no-go. The man continued to stare at us. I broke the once-again heavy silence by recommending a useful book on the topic. The in-laws' abrupt response was to stress how traffic would be brutal unless they left within the next few minutes, proceed to gather their belongings, put on shoes and coats—and leave.

Fast forward a few weeks and these particular family-members were back at ours for lunch one Saturday.

The ASD diagnosis came up.

My husband’s father zoned in on me alone this time, staring me out.

"It's total crap," he said.

“He isn’t autistic. Actually, we’ve been doing a lot of thinking and it’s all in your head. It’s probably just his personality that you’re mistaking for autism. The problem lies with you: you’re too sensitive,” his wife quickly concurred.

“She’s a bully, is what she is!” glared the father in-law.

I realized then (though I should have much sooner), that reasoning with these people about anything that didn’t fit with their thinking would be futile. So I said very little as they instructed my husband that: the diagnosis was completely wrong—he was not autistic (after all, he held down a job and didn't flap his hands); and, most importantly, that he should stop being coerced by me into believing lies.

They then left and I sat there feeling shaken.

In the following days and weeks, my husband and I had numerous conversations where he tried convincing us both that perhaps he was "on the borderline of ASD" and "mostly normal." He also lashed out at me many times when I urged him that it was highly inappropriate and disrespectful of his parents to refute and ridicule his diagnosis just because it didn’t suit them. Despite things being fraught with tension, my mission was to stop him and us, being dictated to as to what was "normal" and what wasn’t.

The only thing he convinced me of (and that awful day bares testament to) is that his parents leave no room for diversity or vulnerability. In fact, they seek to stamp it out with fervent anger and indifference.

This is the murky world my husband grew up in and continues to be trapped in because he assumes they’re his parents and want only the best for him.

This is the treacherous world my husband learned to navigate relationships in.

This is the terrifying world that despite my ongoing support, my husband often also retreats into, with a need to cling to what’s familiar rather than what’s healthy and nurturing.

As someone who’s not from this world but regularly gets numerous disheartening glimpses into it, I can only empathize with how intimidating it must have been to grow up being him; only very conditionally accepted by the people who are supposed to love him and have his back.

It breaks my heart that amidst everything else, my husband's ASD has been minimized as my sensitivity. His differences have been fully erased instead of embraced. And, instead of supporting us as a new family, learning about our neurological differences, his parents continue making forceful attempts to rewrite our story—with a plot where Autism doesn’t exist.

humanity
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About the Creator

Abellona T

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