The Parents Who Give Their Children Bleach Enemas to 'Cure' Them of Autism (Pt 4)

As a childless outsider I have gained a tinsy weensy, virtual glimpse into the world of what being a parent of an autistic child entails; the joys and the hardship. One of the difficulties and concerns I have with Rivera’s approach is echoed in many comments to various narratives I have read concerning MMS.  It is expressed quite well by Dr Michael Fitzpatrick, author of Defeating Autism in a 2009 interview:

‘Parents are fighting the wrong battles against the wrong people at the wrong time', Dr Fitzpatrick told me when we met in a café in Hackney, London, near his GP surgery. He believes parents are held back from doing what is best for their own children by the false promises of biomedical campaigners, whose ‘rage' is ‘a divisive and destructive force'.
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,,,the continual drive to ‘defeat autism' prevents parents from coming to terms with their children's condition, and can cause them to have a rather negative view of their own children.

‘The unresolved grief of parents of children with autism is a particular problem', writes Fitzpatrick in his book, ‘because they still have a child though perhaps not the child they anticipated'.
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Facing up to the fact that your child may never develop normally or lead an independent life is very hard for any parent, and will inevitably take time. But at some stage acceptance is necessary, not just for the parents' own peace of mind, but also for the good of their children. Otherwise, as Fitzpatrick asks, ‘what happens to the child, the human being, who is seen only as a "burden"?' Of course, raising a child with severe learning difficulties is difficult, but it is a lot more difficult in the absence of acceptance.

Parents of children with autism who are bombarded with all kinds of promises of wonder treatments are prevented from working through their grief and reaching the stage of acceptance. All of the emphasis on ‘windows of opportunity' and the importance of ‘early intervention' puts an immense amount of pressure on parents of children with autism and other learning difficulties, who often end up running around desperately seeking a ‘cure'.