Munchausen by Proxy
There are certainly other names for this psychological disorder, such as “Factitious Disorder Imposed on Another.” There are also people that would refuse to consider it altogether as a psychological disorder. But the thing is, no matter how much people try to paraphrase it, or put cosmetics on it, the damage to autistic children from adults carrying Munchausen by Proxy is all too real.
So, what is Munchausen by Proxy? It is a mental condition in some parents, guardians, or caregivers, manifesting in:
1. An obsessive desire to gain sympathy or praises from other people. Very often, by exhibiting publicly the difficulties in handling their own children, including episodes of medical emergencies, or situations of violence coming from their children (e.g. having to call police).
2. A fascination and exceptionally deep knowledge about medications.
The thing is, for the parents that are affected by this mental condition, they are not really seeking for anything material. They are just addicted to the sympathy and praises from other people.
The saddest thing is, these parents would use their children for that purpose. Furthermore, like most other forms of addiction, once the “high” wears off and becomes less satisfying, these parents would then find new ways to escalate the situation, in order to gain even more sympathy or praises. Of course, such a spiral is unsustainable. The only possible ending is tragedy for the parents, or for the children, or both.
Our society has the knew-jerk reflex of telling parents of autistic children: “You are doing such a great job!” or “I can’t even start to imagine how hard life must have been on you!” In a sense, we are the ones responsible for creating the monsters of Munchausen by Proxy.
Once a parent enters the dark realm of Munchausen by Proxy, their children’s development would work against these parents’ objective. Just imagine what would happen if one day these children could become verbal enough to describe their parents’ crimes. So, of course, these parents would do everything possible to prevent their children from actually developing.
Don’t get me wrong: the absolutely majority of parents love their children. The Munchausen parents make up just a rare, tiny fraction of all the parents. If anything, most parents may be making mistakes in raising their children, due to ignorance, or false believes. But Munchausen by Proxy is something different altogether: it comes with malice, and deception.
Munchausen by Proxy is an issue that is best left for our social workers, law enforcement, and legal system to handle. Of course there are no good solutions for the affected children. One can only hope for second-best arrangements.
Stockholm Syndrome
The adults in our society are surely responsible for the underdevelopment of our children. However, the situation is more complex once the autistic children turn into young adults themselves. Being young adults, they are supposed to have certain degree of autonomy and certain ability of reasoning. However, at that stage, almost all of them fall into the trap of Stockholm syndrome. Namely, they become sympathizers of the very people that have caused harm to them, and furthermore, they will try to adopt and defend the point of view of their abusers. Unfortunately, once the young adults adopt the same perspective of their abusers, it also prevents these young adults from acquiring skills that can set them free and improve their quality of life.
The term “Stockholm Syndrome” came from a bank robbery incident in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1973. The hostages defended their captors after being released and would not agree to testify in court against them.
A similar situation happens with autistic children raised in a biased environment where autism is treated as a mental disorder, a medical condition, or a form of disability. These children are often brainwashed into believing that they themselves are truly defective. Therefore, many of them have come to believe that they can never become “normal” and that their current situation is what they can best hope for. Some of these children become convinced that they can only carry out their daily life by using medication. They blame themselves for their intellectual disability and for their anxiety and depression issue. They say, their life is miserable because they have autism. They stop trying to learn new skills. They look down on themselves. They become idle players, and only hope that one day there would be some magic pill that can “cure” autism. So, they do nothing productive, except waiting for that day to arrive. They spend their entire life lamenting. Some even state explicitly that they deserved financial welfare, due to their condition, that it is an obligation of the society to sustain them, while they vegetate their lives away.
How did we get to this point? How did we turn the best minds in our society, the people that were supposed to be our leaders and innovators, into completely shameless parasites?
We have allowed that to happen, because (a) we pathologize autism, and (b) to prevent us being discovered as criminals, we further brainwash our children, push them into developing Stockholm syndrome, so that our victims can also become our advocates. In real life, that strategy works out pretty well.
Autism is one of those conditions where no one in the society takes responsibility. There are millions of underdeveloped autistic children, but zero parent, teacher, psychologist or doctor sent to jail for not developing their children properly. For neurotypical children, we have something called “truancy laws.” If a parent doesn’t provide conditions for their children to develop, theoretically the parent can be sent to jail. There is nothing like that if the children are autistic. If autistic children don’t develop well, we just say: “oh, it’s because of their autism.”
On top of the lack of accountability of the adults, our autistic young people further buy into the lies we have made up about their condition, and stop pursuing skills that can actually set them free. Instead of uncovering the ugly faces of the true criminals, we let those criminals get away, forever.
06 Oct 2019, 12:26 pm
