Thread by @KaiaSonderby

Chapter Ten (I think?) is called 40 Hours and I know I said I wasn't going to engage with #HellMother 's quotes anymore, but I kind of need to.

"Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal." - Albert Camus

I am infuriated by her use of such a

quote. Look, I never had ABA. I was diagnosed too late (at age nine) and was considered "high-functioning" (*shudder*). (#HellMother)

Yet one could make the argument that I went through a sort of ABA of society. In being called "high-functioning", I became convinced that this

meant I HAD to do better, to appear more "normal", to be able to make friends and look people in the eye and do all those other things. Surely, I thought, if I'm high-functioning this means I should expect more from myself. (#HellMother)

But I could not succeed. I was still too

different. I strained, I exhausted myself trying to be like everyone else, to kill or hide my autistic behaviors. (#HellMother)

I hated myself--and sometimes punished myself--for my failures. I wanted to be normal, to not struggle so much, to not constantly exhausted myself in

the attempt to appear neurotypical. It was not until I first found myself among other autistics on Tumblr that I learned how much damage my high-functioning label and my efforts to be normal had done.

#HellMother

I spent so much energy on this that now, as an adult,

I have less ability to cope, not more. Crowds terrify me. I frequently can't go out alone, and when I do, I MUST have my iPod. I suffer selective mutism in certain situations. I can't answer or make phone calls. So many things.

So no, #HellMother, you cannot have that quote.

You have no real idea what it is to fight to be normal.

#HellMother

Ahem. Sorry, I didn't mean to get so personal. It's just...I couldn't let that stand.

#HellMother Now this is interesting. She mentions taking Zack to an indoor playground at a local mall. While Zack plays alone, ignoring the other children, he does not have one of those meltdowns that occur further down the line.

It's almost as if those 40 hours a week of

exhausting compliance training did far more harm than good.

#HellMother

The therapist didn't show up, so #HellMother has taken it upon herself to do the therapy, because missing even a few minutes would apparently be a disaster on the order of the K-Pg extinction.

Zack keeps refusing and screaming "No Mommy" and I wonder if perhaps in some way he

was scared that if she was doing the therapy, she would become an unsafe person.

Which she immediately does by getting aggressive, handling him physically and aggressively until he utterly breaks. #HellMother

"Zack just smacked me incredibly hard. ... This is not recalcitrance but desperation. Only way to make his voice heard is by physical delivery to Mommy--his one true love egregiously violating his boundaries. My force is a betrayal."

She KNOWS. #HellMother KNOWS that what she's

doing is wrong, that it's destructive to her child, that he's lashing out because he can't figure out how to get her to understand. SHE FUCKING KNOWS.

Abusive cow.

#HellMother

She's showing some doubts about ABA and actually recognizing the harm it's doing, but I don't trust her, as I already know she put him through years of this.

#HellMother

I really give no fucks about the state she's in by the end of this chapter. She chooses to keep putting her son through this. As far as I'm concerned, she deserved every miserable moment.

#HellMother