top of page

Refusing To Fight (or Self Advocate): The Consequence


I'm going to use this post to educate neurotypicals and non-neurotypicals about something that is very real for many autistic couples and their families. Some of you reading this may find validity and comfort in seeing the silence broken and viewing palpable evidence and examples of the abuse the majority of autistics endure from extended family, which is why there are those of us who must disengage and go estranged.

Note: The below link contains David's blog post written in 2013 that inspired a disturbing public Facebook defamation from David's estranged half sister, who still compulsively spies on all of our internet activity and reports it back to other, more passively abusive former relatives.

We separated ourselves from the most abusive in the family circle and refused to respond to any contact they attempted to make. At that point, we didn't know if we would be able to preserve our relationships with the rest of the family, who had been silent bystanders but would marginally acknowledge the abuse when nobody else was around. The fanatical gossip going on within the family is evident in this public Facebook post by David's other half sister, in which friends and business partners were tagged, containing many hurtful lies, including suggesting a negative relationship with my deceased mother whose end stage of life had been long and painful for my father and myself. My mother's decline spanned my son's first year of life and the pregnancy with my first daughter.The in-laws intentionally caused upheaval during my pregnancies, and I was toward the end of my third pregnancy.

Most of David's side of the family and our mutual friends were tagged on the post, my Soliloquy Art page included, which cost us customers and page-followers. As a result of the sudden emotional shock of it all and beholding the thread of disturbing and exposing comments, I was overcome with panic and had an asthma attack, which started premature contractions. Thankfully, we were able to get the contractions to cease with the help of a registered nurse and doula. Our daughter could not be born a month early. Because the pregnancy was already high risk due to autoimmune issues, an early birth could have been dangerous.

(I have been conditioned to provide proof for any claimed abuses)

The proof, which counters all of the false claims and allegations, comes up in David's response to his sister and can also be viewed via this link to "Pandora's Box." I'm publishing this post and the corresponding evidence to demonstrate the familial abuses endured by Autistics with their own families because we get too hung up on the naïve romanticization and idealization of the value of extended family bonds, which are exploited by abusers who, in truth, care nothing about family. Our quiet, pensive, and reclusive nature is used against us. We're accused of coldness, unappreciation, selfishness, obstinacy, causing discord, and being incompetent parents. Autistics may navigate family dynamics differently than non-autistic people, but that doesn't mean we can't fulfill the obligations and responsibilities of parenthood. Autistic adults, especially if they're also parents, will have to face bullies at one point or another, either from the outside or from the inside of extended family networks. This isn't the case for every single family in which autism is present, but unfortunately, the mounting stories of interfamilial abuse paint a grim picture for autistic family households who wish to retain or attempt to salvage relationships with prejudiced extended relatives.

Below is the Facebook post that thrust us into the decision of finally going no contact with the perpetrators and their associates:

This is all the more disturbing because the person writing it is a mental health professional in an outpatient facility! What she has studied in university and practiced in the fields of psychology and social work with trauma, interpersonal relationships, mental illness, and disability, she has employed against her half-brother and his family.

Unfortunately, this is a common motif in extended families of which disabled and/or Autistic adults and children are part, especially when there are family members in the professions of mental health, I/DD care, rehabilitation and special education who have deep seated prejudices against neurodivergent and disabled people. Sometimes, the prejudice is evident; other times, it is covert, flying under the radar until a big event teases out the jaw-dropping reaction, like the Facebook defamation shown above.

Rather than voice what the real problem is, the Facebook accuser constructs an image of me that utilizes widely known facts to sound credible and then fabricates a great deal of events and hearsay to rouse disgust and anger in her tagged audience. She even evokes struggles in mental health to appeal to one side of the extended family.

David and I step back and go over all the details-- seven years worth of them-- and realize, we have established boundaries, we have voiced our needs, we have let others know when we reached our threshold-- only, our communication hadn't been acknowledged or respected.

...

Some aspects of the Facebook post, like the subject of my marriage, was especially hurtful. David and I had been engaged for over a year before our Rabbi finally agreed to officiate at our wedding. We wanted to marry sooner, you know, elope, but we considered the potential ill-feelings of family and, at that time, the importance of the rituals of Judaism. We felt obligated to share our special moment with extended family. The pressure to make it a traditional, Orthodox wedding was there as well. Because of this, we couldn't invite our Queer, Gay, and Trans friends and family, and we couldn't acknowledge my Queerness and gender fluidity in our ceremony. The wedding turned out to be traumatizing, the details of which worked themselves out between David and I during our near 3 months living on the road out of a Camry and tent, alternating some nights stay in strangers' digs, while waiting to move to Israel at the end of the summer (we were married at the end of March, just to give you an idea of time frame), because staying with his parents for that long was unacceptable to us. So, to have the externals of my wedding brought up as the fulfillment of my dream (and it actually was theirs, not ours), caused a shifting of the tectonic plates in my psyche, rousing the form of a trauma much too large to deal with from the depths of my suppressed consciousness.

Throughout the years of our marriage in his family, David and I put on the costumes that hurt us, and we aimed to please. We tried to appease increasingly impossible expectations. And when we started building our own family, we tried to be the image of neurotypical parents to the image of neurotypical children that would bring pride to narcissistic relatives, if not to just get them off our backs.

Our wedding and initiation into parenthood was more about the wants of abusive family members securing their dominance and narcissistic supply, than it was celebrating our love for and commitment to one another, and simply living life our own way.

So, David did post his response to set the record straight, and passed it along to my dad:

My dad had been aware of the increasingly distressing situation prior to this public smear. And although he didn't say it, as he usually does not put upon his children, I knew he was deeply hurt by the mention of his deceased wife in such a way by the in-law, an accusation which asserted that I preferred David's mother to my own-- twisting the words of a stupid joke I made back in 2006 that his mother was the "Jewish mother" I never had, which was an undeniable fact because, at that point in time, I didn't have the halakhic (legal) proof that my mother was Jewish, as that seemed to be a point of concern for my future in-laws and one trivial reason singled out of the many important reasons why I needlessly converted to Judaism in the first place.

Of course, David's father, who regularly phoned my dad to "check up" on him, would not speak up on our behalf, even though he knew that his step-daughter was spreading damaging misinformation; he supported this libel through inaction and silence. This support of ridiculous, discriminatory behavior came as a shock to us, especially since he's a professor of Special Education at a public university and regularly works with ID/DD students, helping them to achieve their academic goals in a society that is largely discriminatory. In other words, the guy is supposed to "get it."

To show how creepy the interplay and strategy of these mind-bending messages can get, below is a private one the first-mentioned, internet stalking half-sister in Israel sent about a month after the above Facebook post. She's intentionally stirring up trauma from my first birth in Israel (which took place in her basement) with unsolicited advice using the same sort of visualization language from the time that both she and the midwife had violated me. How could a truly caring person choose to send this just five days before my forced induction date? She knew about my C-PTSD. She knew about my fragile health and the impact that added psychological stress would have on my pregnancy. The pattern of abuse established in 2008 was continued into subsequent pregnancies, even with no contact.

"Wow", huh?

Well, we've stopped saying wow, because by now, we're desensitized to all of it, which is what we hoped would happen given the large span of time and lots of distance.

David and I are obviously living in significantly better times that we can write about our past suffering in a constructive way. This blog post has taken us three years to complete, our stamina and emotional fuel coming from all the art we've created during this process of reckoning. And ultimately that's what this whole website is supposed to be about-- paths to healing.

Some additional information concerning Autism:

If you need to have a better understanding of Autism (from the inside), I HIGHLY recommend watching this video from one of my favorite, influential self-advocacy mentors, Noah Britton. The talk has to do with the autistic experience, relationships, and how autism is addressed.

Terms, definitions, and articles having to do with abuse below:

* "Effective gaslighting can be accomplished in several different ways. Sometimes, a person can assert something with such an apparent intensity of conviction that the other person begins to doubt their own perspective. Other times, vigorous and unwavering denial coupled with a display of righteous indignation can accomplish the same task. Bringing up historical facts that seem largely accurate but contain minute, hard-to-prove distortions and using them to “prove” the correctness of one’s position is another method. Gaslighting is particularly effective when coupled with other tactics such as shaming and guilting. Anything that aids in getting another person to doubt their judgment and back down will work."

by Dr George Simon, PhD

* "Another form of gaslighting is the denial of your right to be upset. In this case the Narcissist might accept that the situation happened, but will invalidate you by vehemently denying that there was anything untoward about it, or any valid reason to get upset. “It was just a joke! God you’re so over-sensitive. Being with you is like walking on eggshells. You take everything the wrong way. You’re always looking for reasons to be upset.”

* "The most common means of communication in narcissistic families is triangulation. Information is not direct. It is told through one party about another in hopes it will get back to the other party. Family members talk about each other to other members of the family, but don't confront each other directly. This creates passive-aggressive behavior, tension, and mistrust. When communication is direct, it is often in the form of anger or rage."


Recent Posts
Follow Me
  • Twitter Classic
  • Google Classic
bottom of page