this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2026
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The Behind the Bastards episode on autism was fascinating.
I'm not going to do it justice but the tl;dr is that parents felt like it couldn't have been their fault or their genes that made their kid this way. That it must have been vaccines or trans frogs or whatever the fuck they can blame. Because blaming something else made them feel better. And it gave them an excuse to not deal with their kid that has real difficulty.
And, to a certain extent...I get it. I don't agree with them but having a child with a disability was not what they expected.
But you raise the child you have and not the one you wish you had.
My mother grew up in a time where it was considered something a mother 'did' to cause it.
Which is why she denies and denies we're autistic.
I mean, everyone who meets the two of us together go "yeah you both are" soooooo.
It probably doesn't help that they may have an outdated image of autism. Their child does not have high support needs, so it can't be that. The doctor must be mistaken.
That was the one about the "compression clinic" or whatever they were called, right? Where they put kids in hypobaric chambers? Sick fucks
I think so. It's been a while since I listened to it.
The sad thing about it is that like many conspiracy theories, they started from a well-meaning place. But the brain rot algorithm pushed them towards fringe theories because it would make people feel better.
Trans frogs is hilarious first of all. Secondly I thing even the most unhinged nutjobs only ever used trans frogs as a symptom not a cause. Trans frogs causing autism is the equivalent of such a deranged reversal of cause and effect as to be comparable to Covid causing 5G.
Anyways, I agree. I think parents want a scapegoat for why they find their kid to be “cringey” when speaking to their peers and Autism (effect) and vaccine (cause) provide pseudo medical rationales.
So what did they think it was? Because autism is linked to genetics so...