Autism, trauma and remnants of Refridgerator Mother theory.
I recently got a comment on one of my blogs. It was from a staunch supporter of a psychoanalytic approach to autism, an approach which held that autism was caused by trauma in the womb or due to a difficult birth (and could be treated through ‘rebirthing‘ and the debunked 1970s autism treatment of ‘holding therapy‘. This ‘primal pain’ theory includes the idea that the autistic child has become autistic from things as vast as chemical assaults by smoking and substance abusing mothers, by mothers experiencing mental illness or abuse or other trauma during pregnancy or who feel negativity or indifference about the child they are carrying or were effected by mother’s suffering post natal depression. He wanted to raise with me the idea that I was actually a “broken normal”. This is our conversation: Tommi Olanne Says:
I still don’t understand why do you insist you’re not a broken normal. You don’t really know. You only think you know.
Donna Says:
Hi Tommi,
I understand your theories, the whole psychoanalysis and birth trauma idea, but every case of autism is different. Some people become diagnosed autistic after disintegrative disorder at age 2-3 before which development was usual. Some of these cases were encephalitis, so nothing to do with birth trauma.
There are also those with autism who have been recently found to be the offspring of first cousin marriages in which both strengths and genetic weakening were multiplied resulting in things like gut, immune, metabolic and co-morbid disorders which overwhelm development in the first years. Again, this is genetics and not birth trauma. My father’s mother was the offspring of first cousins who in turn were also the children of first cousins. Diabetes, Coeliac, ADHD, Bipolar, Dyslexia, Social Phobia, Asperger’s and Autism have all been diagnosed on my father’s mother’s side and more recently ASD has been found on his father’s side too. So he brought his own predispositions to the genetics table.
On my mother’s side there was substance abuse and she was certainly dealing with her own major traumas before and after my birth. It’s possible she may have had untreated post natal depression on top of her existing challenges. So your theory of a child being influenced by a mother’s severe chronic stress and what her own body goes through may well be true for half of my case and there are many children with fetal alcohol effect who have autistic traits and recent research has shown that children breathing second hand smoke have poorer language processing so who knows the developmental effect yet of being born to a mother who is also a heavy smoker. However, a strong inter-generational maternal history of familial substance abuse, suicides, agoraphobia and OCD also fail to indicate typical developmental patterns.
Added to this, I had jaundice at 6 months and chronic infections from 6 months, and was ultimately diagnosed with and treated for two primary immune deficiencies (coeliac and diabetes already ran on my father’s side and colitis on my mothers). Against that health background I was, like many children in the 60s, taken to catch measles and mumps when I was 2. But with no functioning immune system, I finally fought off the measles I’d been carrying after getting normal immune function at age 36. So 34 years of carrying measles is not good for the brain at all.
And I also then dealt with the loss of the welfare sister who’d cared for me from 6 months to 2 and a half, then the death and loss of my grandparents (who were my primary carers) at the age of 4. My view is that degree of loss has got to effect attachments, especially in a face blind, meaning deaf, immune compromised child who is already very developmentally compromised.
It may equally be a far more holistic picture in which a combination of things came together – genetic weakening including gut/immune/metabolic disorders, genetic damage which may have already effected three generations of alcoholic mothers and their children due to inter-generational substance abuse, Acquired Brain Injury from viral infection, and topped off with trauma relating to loss and abuse. So, we clearly can’t put all that down to a theory of primal pain and birth trauma.
So clearly my history is very layered, but as an autism consultant I’ve found many children diagnosed with autism with similarly layered histories none of which means those events alone caused their child’s autism.
For example it’s not unusual for me to meet a child who became progressively more ‘autistic’ after a big birthday party (that one surprised me), after a parent escaped a violent partner or the marriage broke down, after there was one of more house moves in succession, or a after younger sibling was born before they were 3. What we may well be seeing there is how things like learned helplessness, Selective Mutism, Separation Anxiety, PTSD, childhood depression, catatonic depression, progressive Exposure Anxiety are deemed part of ‘the autism’. And it might actually help us to look at things like 2nd hand stress, how a young child ‘catch’ their parents untreated depression or what the impact of a parent’s anxiety disorder is upon a child who has not yet developed their own independent identity and may still feel the mother’s feelings as their own. That doesn’t mean this would be so for all autistic children but nor can we sweepingly presume that just because someone is autistic it would not be possible for some.
Sometimes we have to dare to see more holistically, more 3D. It may well be that once we dissect out all the contributing causes which contributed to ‘autistic presentation’ and autistic patterns of development, there is nothing called ‘autism’ left except personality.
Sometimes I dont think people think before they post? Sure it is good to have theories on things, but honestly this one I do find upsetting. A mother or a parent in general feels guilty enough when finding out their child has a disability or in my case having 2 sons with autism. You start to go through every stage of pregnacy and threat over things that you may have done wrong to make this happen. You are constantly blaming yourself. You think the world is against you and all you really want is for a happy and healthy child.
For my first pregnancy I was the happiest and healthiest I had been in years. I loved every moment of it. Although the idea of having a baby so young scared me, i soon adapted and never looked back. There was never any trauma or ill feelings towards the baby to be, and I never regretted my decision to have him.
My second pregnancy was very different from the first, but again I was healthy. Loved the idea of having another baby. I couldnt wait to meet him or her for the first time.
I am surprised there are still people out there that strongly believe the refridgerator Mum theory. It is sad. Honestly some people need a life. Dont always assume you know someone elses case without even knowing them.
Hi Alex,
in fact I DO NOT support the refrigerator mother theory at all. The article is a RESPONSE to someone who sent me stuff about psychoanalytic theory and HIS presumption that autism was due to birth trauma etc. What I’m replying is in fact debunking his theory whilst being open minded that in MY OWN case SOME loss, neglect, trauma and exposure to toxins before birth as well as being born to someone unable to manage (who may have had her own fruit salad) may have contributed to some perceptual, cognitive, immune system issues and immature nervous system associated with emotional dysregulation.
I have ALSO told him that most of the ‘autism related fruit salad’ I was effected by ran on my father’s side and may have been complicated by being an immune deficient child who caught measles and mumps at age 2. So I have not assumed I know everyone else’s case, for all fruit salads and all family histories and environments and personality factors are different. I have stated my own case in RESPONSE to the person writing in support of HIS theory that birth trauma causes autism.
ah, yes, I have written of cases where children diagnosed with autism appeared to have symptoms of learned helplessness, separation anxiety, selective mutism, catatonic depression and developmental regression onset or become much more severe following significant family disruption. I’m sure there’s cases where no such events contributed but it would be biased of me not to acknowledge those cases where the family themselves had recognised such events were pivotal.
And I think that’s humanising. To say that kids are immune to all that or that learned helplessness, anxiety disorders, depression, selective mutism etc can’t contribute to the autistic presentation of SOME children is to be too attached to a one size fits all portrayal of autism.
And recognising that traumatising events have impacted is not the same as saying these are sole causes. It may well be that some cases of autism require several events to compound before a predisposition to autism manifests overtly.
Hi Donna
I hope you didn’t think I was responding to you. I knew you didnt agree with this persons theory. I just hate how people on the outside world looking in can quickly judge and tell you how and why things happen when really they have no idea.
totally agree with you.
Wasn’t it Betleheim(sorry I don’t know the correct spelling) who came up wih this awful theory of refrigerator mothers? As I recall he has since been exposed as a fraud . So why does anyone continue to give this the time of day? Why even bother debate this pile of steaming poo!? I am so sick and tired of everyone blaming it on the mother. I get it that you don’t support it but why even debate with these people?
Also my pregnancies were fine- I didn’t even drink coffee and I had natural births and both my children are autistic and both had very different onsets. However when I look into my family history I can see definite strong traits of autism.
As a parent I work harder and do morefor my children than most parents of neurotyypical children. Im not looking for a medal- its just a fact of life- thats the way it has to be, Often I am abused by the public as being a lousy mother with undisciplined children. It seems just the easy way out to blame it on the mother. Funny that- not the father just the mother. Even now the way government funding is set up for intervention it is about educating the parents to work with their child(replacing actually structured therapy)and the parents using funding to find the therapy themselves. Its just a just copout for the many hours of therapies and big $$$ needed. Put it back on the parents, which really means for most of us the mothers.
And for the record I don’t have the time for learned helplessness with my kids. They are expected to do it for themselves. Dont be be too hard on the parents Donna most are doing the best they can. Sadly you will find dysfuncional families in all walks of life with all kinds of children.
Yep, I see all you are saying, I see the ignorant pratts in the supermarkets blaming mothers for things they know nothing about, my mother got that stuff constantly and she was agoraphobic and I wouldn’t be surprised if being judged by public contributed.
I also don’t think I’m hard on the parents. I see their humanness, their humanity, their foibles and the ways they rise above what would make others crumble in the first 30 mins.
I also meet those who do and those who don’t promote learned helplessness and I meet families who don’t then teachers who do!!!
and you are right about the big buck therapies. So much of what’s useful costs nothing but nobody rubber stamps it, reinforces it. gestural signing, a few mirrors, some colored light bulbs, a mattress to jump on doing rhythm games, an indirectly confrontational approach, rough and tumble, home made obstacle courses, the list goes on and on, but nobody studies these individualised approaches so they never get rubber stamped so everyone lines up like sheep for the next fad and, yes, they are guilted into getting onto that production line and guilted out of getting off.
totally right dysfunctional families have all kinds of children.
Hi Donna,
I actually do agree with the Refrigerator Mother as a possible theory to explain Aspergers and Autism. I have been diagnosed with Aspergers myself. Both of my parents were extremely cold towards me as a child and I learned to adapt what later became Autistic behaviours in order to protect myself from them. Whilst I appear to be AS, I strongly believe that had I had good parents, I would have turned out relatively normal. There is no history of AS/Autism in either of my parents families. All of my cousins (whom were raised by loving, caring parents) are NOT AS.
Given the effect my upbringing has had on my life development, I firmly believe that ANY parent (mother or father) who shows signs of refrigerator syndrome towards their children should have their children removed from them. I certainly wish i had been removed from my parents. As life stands now, I have little confidence in myself, limited social skills, no friends, I have never had a girlfriend and I have never had any form of intimate relationships with a woman. I suspect i never will. I firmly believe I have my refridgerator parents to blame for this.
There may be other AS people out there who didn’t have refridgerator parents, but I certainly did.
Hi Robert,
AS is easily confused with Schizoid Personality Disorder and with Avoidant Personality Disorder, both of which could lead to great social isolation and inability to form relationships. Personality disorders can develop in otherwise normal children as a result of ongoing abuse or neglect but its also true that they can develop in people who haven’t been abused or neglected or occur alongside an autism spectrum condition.
It is also true that some parents are very disappointed to have a child with AS or autism and this can mean sometimes the parents don’t bond well with the child they see as ‘broken’ or are waiting for the child to ‘get better’ so they can feel fully satisfied as parents and love the child for who and what they are.
This does not, however, mean that this causes the autism but it might complicate it.
Those with AS who also have Schizoid and/or Avoidant personality disorder may have percentages of each and it may be that in your case the personality disorder side was the bigger percentage and largely confused with AS simply because a percentage of AS was also present.
I also wonder if your parents may have some undiagnosed AS themselves and if they rejected this in themselves this might be part of why they struggled to easily warm to you.
remember that ASCs can jump generations.
My grandmother was highly eccentric, possibly meaning deaf and context blind and I think she’d today fit an autism diagnosis. I feel my father would have fitted ADHD, bipolar, dyslexia. He had a brother who I think would fit AS and perhaps also Alexithymia and a sister who would have fitted Social Phobia and Exposure Anxiety who had a daughter who had Selective Mutism and School Phobia and may have fitted AS or autism.
But further generations back was apparently a great uncle my father went to visit as a child who was in a lunatic asylum and didn’t have speech and just rocked and may have had autism and in 1904 was a great aunt institutionalised in a lunatic asylum at age 40 (probably found wandering after her parents died) who was labelled as a ‘hopeless imbecile’ who appeared deaf, had incomprehensible speech and ‘stereotypies’ who may well have been autistic.
So, there can be all kinds of hidden relatives with various forms of autism who you may not know of.
Logically there must be a reason that autism and sensory integration problems go together. Wouldn’t sensory integration problems put a child at a greater risk of experiencing a negative sensory experience as a child, perhaps unknown to the parents, even birth? It is not clear that the genetics for autism cause first the social skills deficit. The social skills deficit could arise as a result of the interaction of other autistic symptoms with the environment. In fact the “regression” of developmental skills seen in autism would be consistent with this. You can’t just “unlearn” something, but adult trauma victims will often withdraw and stop doing things, it makes sense that autism is a similar reaction in infants. Children who grow up with sensory issues but no autism could have the same genes as autistics but lucked out and didn’t run into a traumatic experience.
As for other forms such as Asperger’s? This could be a whole different creature. Maybe not even a disorder, simply a strong propensity for daydreaming long about subjects of interest that results in limited social contact and consequently limited understanding of social skills as the child ages. Alternatively this could be a reaction to trauma suffered at a later age. Even either one depending on the individual?
These are theories of course but there must be an answer to the question why do social skills deficits, preference for sameness and routine, and sensory defensiveness go together so often? Why do we see no socially impaired undersensitive novelty-cravers?
I had my useless parents on the phone the other day. Apparently they saw my entry from 2009 and they are concerned. Yeah right – concerned that people will find out what shit parents they were. The concede they may a “few mistakes” That is like saying Adolf Hitler was a little bit evil. basically my parents’ upbringing fucked up my life completely. Now they expect that we are all going to sit down and have a nice little chat and reconcile things. No way – they only want to do that so THEY can feel better. They never gave two shits about me when I was a kid and it showed in how they treated me. Now that I am a psychologically fucked up adult, I am the living legacy of their cruelty and malice towards their one and only child.
I hate my parents. I wish they would just die. I hope when they do die they rot in the deepest pits of Hell. No one deserves to go through life with psychological shit I have had to endure very day of my life. No one deserves to live a life that is completely unfulfilling. No one deserves to be brought up to believe they are worthless and will never be as good as anyone else. Yet, that is what my parents did to me. Every day I was a child, I have memories of being constantly belittled, ridiculed and shamed by my parents. I am sorry if I appear to have unrealistic expectations of life but I always thought parents were supposed to love their children and raise them to be confident and competent adults. That never happened for me.
Because my parents taught me I was unlovable and unworthy, this has carried over to my adult life. I have never been able to develop any meaningful connection to another person – primarily because my refrigerator parents drilled the message into me that I would never be good enough for anyone else. I have tried to commit suicide twice but (unfortunately) I am still here, suffering every day. I hate life. I hate my life. I hate everyone. I hate my parents. I wish it would all end. Every night I go to bed and wish I won’t wake up in the morning.
Hi Robert, fact is we all have feelings, its a live and let live world. It is also true we can vent but that we need to be aware where we cross the line to things like slander and libel. So public shaming isn’t going to help you feel better about yourself, even if the entire world knew what happened, was on your side and hated them, it wouldn’t change what did happen, wouldn’t change that you’re now caught in a depression/self hatred/resentment loop. Fact is also there are certain actions/neglect that is so over the top and emotionally, mentally, physically abusive they can never be forgiven. And there are certain perpetrators, particularly psychopaths, but add to that those with mixtures of psychopathy, sociopathy, narcissistic and sadistic personality disorders and addiction, and other than recognising their disorders as disabilities there is no healthy reason to connect up with such people, sit in the same room, appease their social image needs and psychodramas. Anyone who lived with such people and was damaged by them has a right to move on, move forward, let them go and get their own counseling if they so wish. But general public can be messed up, self indulgent, opinionated, insecure, shallow, posturing etc etc and some of them are parents. And sometimes, when the people they messed with and messed up are adults these people get older and have second thoughts about their stuff… especially in an internet era… and they may actually have changed, truly feel bad about who they had been, or want to change, make amends. And as the children they messed up, guess what, well that’s THEIR shit. It’s not our responsibility to help them in their healing, we’ve hopefully moved on and depending on the degree of damage they caused sometimes the healthiest thing they can do is respect that. But I can say this Robert, it is never too late to learn to PARENT YOURSELF and this means challenging depression, self hatred, the negative programming, the whole lot. We can gain these skills even if we grew up with psychopaths, sociopaths, narcissists, sadists, addicts or just idiots incapable of healthily bringing up their children. I hope you get yourself a qualified counselor, someone you can trust, and step by step learn to parent yourself as they never did, and you’ll be rewarded with the triumph of that achievement. Gon’t wait for them or anyone to say you’re worth it… you’ve got nothing to lose, everything to gain by being more than a ball of resentment, depression and hopelessness. Here’s some ideas on how to started http://blog.donnawilliams.net/2011/01/14/antidepressants-and-their-alternatives/
Hi Donna,
Thanks for your reply. Your post does make a bit of sense to me. I am glad you agree I am not obliged to put up with my parents efforts at reconciliation. Quite honesty, I have been upset ever since the contacted me the other day. Obviously I am not going to get anything out of seeing them again but dredging up old memories. At any rate, my parents are narcistic that they will just be wanting to ensure themselves what wonderful parents they were. They never cared less about me or what I thought when I was a kid so why should they start now? To this end, should the contact me again (and they will, I will simply say no once and for all).
Unfortunately, my anger has gotten me in legal problems recently. I basically lost it when a woman rejected me (like I don’t have a perfect 100% record for rejection) and threatened her. I now have a restraining order against me and I am likely to be facing criminal charges. People just cannot imagine what it is live to a life without love – I am so angry about this. I know the problem is with me but I don’t know how to build relationships with other people. I have never felt loved and for this reason, am probably unable to love. Whilst I am aware that most people take the love of significant others in their lives for granted, I have never had this luxury. I have always believed that love (familial, sexual or whatever) is one of the basic requirements of life. For me, this is a fantasy I cannot imagine myself being worthy of. Strangely enough, I don’t really care what the outcome of my legal issues is. If it looks like I am facing jail time then I will get the conviction to simply end myself once and for all. I have no idea what happens after death, but it cannot be any worse than what I am going through now.
My lawyer has suggested I should see a psychiatrist. I intend to do this but I don’t know how much I can be helped. I have nearly 45 years of negativity, neglect and anger inside me and I know this has twisted my psychology badly. I guess a lot of my problem is that I have never had anyone believe in me so why should I believe in myself.
The scary thing is that I know I was born with lot of good qualities. I remember being a good child who was respectful and kind to others. I used to like other people, too. I think I used to like myself as well. It was my parents who taught me to be so nagative about myself and everything about me. Of course, this affected all my interactions with other people and it was a downward spiral from there. I have no doubt that had I been brought up by caring, loving parents, I would be so much better off today.
Anyway, thank you for your reply. It has given me some food for thought.
Hi Robert, there’s a saying ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained’… and another ‘the greatest risk in life is taking no risks at all’… and another…. ‘that you can’t healthily love others until you learn/teach yourself to healthily love yourself…. so you might as well try all the things in the list about depression and see if slowly, step by step you can give up the addiction to your life long victim mindset. The psychiatrist would be a great start, or psychologist, or a social worker with awareness of mental health/personality disorders… someone who won’t pathologise you, who’ll help you do THE JOURNEY to become a good parent to yourself… some people become born again Christians… I’m an atheist
… some people believe that at 30, 40, 50, 60 they are worth giving themselves the 2nd chance at becoming the person they wished they’d been… the best version of themselves they could be.. not just as a means to an end… to gain someone else… but to gain something far more valueable… a self they can be glad to wake up to, respect and care about. Go in search of self. Find your journey.