Betrayed Trust: Who Are Autism Moms Supposed to Believe?
A Dizzying Rollercoaster Ride Resulting From Reinforcement of Recklessness
Autism moms aren’t gullible. They’re strapped into a ride that never slows down, a rollercoaster of uncertainty and distrust where the track twists beneath them. First the experts say one thing, then the opposite. The media fact-checks loudly, then reveals its own bias. Science flashes warning lights but admits it doesn’t yet know the answers. And when all human credibility is burned through, the algorithms step in — not to steady the ride but to jerk it harder.
The Clown Car Parade
Trump and RFK Jr. offer absolute certainty. Their message is clear, simple, dangerous and flat-out wrong: Tylenol causes autism, they insist, delivering soundbites built for fear. The media responds with fact-check fury, headlines stacked in unison: no evidence, no link. Yet the media’s own track record of bias makes those corrections feel less like clarity and more like score-settling. It's (finally!) trying to be objective, but has burned through its credibility. Healthcare voices try to claim the high ground, waving the banner of science. But for parents who’ve watched healthcare practitioners and researchers push ABA, minimize side effects, profit off prescriptions or making a living from autism research that frames us as almost entirely defective, those banners look tattered. Every one of these institutional clown cars pulls into view, each claiming authority, none offering trust.
The Algorithm as Ringmaster
Just when the circus seems unbearable, another outrageous act enters the center ring — unseen but decisive. The algorithms decide which claim a mom sees first, which explainer gets boosted, which anecdote catches fire in her feed. The logic isn’t truth. It’s engagement. Whichever post sparks the most fear or outrage wins. The result is not a quiet vacuum but a ride engineered to maximize whiplash. One moment it’s a viral Substack claiming autism epidemics, the next it’s a Reuters correction, then a TikTok hack promising miracle diets. The mom isn’t gullible — she’s outgunned, strapped into a system that profits from her disorientation.
The Impossible Burden
No parent should need a graduate degree in statistics to decide whether to give a child Tylenol. Yet that’s the absurd burden placed on autism moms. The system forces parents to play scientist, fact-checker and ethicist while riding an algorithm-driven rollercoaster. When trust collapses, moms are set up to fail by design.
The Harm That Follows
The real harm isn’t that moms believe bad information. It’s that they’re trapped in a no-win situation in which every choice is unstable. Trust the experts, and you risk repeating past coercion. Trust the media, and you risk being mocked for taking the wrong side. Trust the outsiders, and you risk swallowing fear disguised as truth. Or trust the algorithms, which means you’ve ceded the ride to machines trained to exploit your anxiety. Each path is a loop that ends where it began — with more uncertainty, more doubt, more betrayal. And more guilt.
The Missing Voices
There’s a silence in all this noise: autistic voices themselves. While politicians, reporters, doctors and algorithms wrestle for control of the track, the people living the outcomes are sidelined. Autism moms are forced to navigate clown cars and rollercoasters without ever hearing steady narration from autistic people who know these debates from the inside. Instead of asking who should moms believe, the sharper question is why aren’t autistic voices leading the story? Credibility doesn’t come from shouting the loudest but from living the reality being debated.
Toward Steadier Ground
The ride doesn’t have to stay this way. Stability could come, but not from another round of headlines or outsider soundbites but from centering the voices institutions have long ignored. Autistic people can offer a different kind of authority — not perfect, not omniscient, but grounded in lived experience and less vulnerable to the manipulations of fear, profit or clicks. For moms, that would mean less whiplash and more human ground to stand on.
The Real Scandal
The scandal isn’t gullibility. It’s betrayal. Media, healthcare and political institutions have all squandered trust. Algorithms turned this volatility into a business model. Parents have been forced into a ride they never asked to be on, one with no brakes and no exits. Until autistic people are given the mic, autism moms will be left holding the harness while the clown cars collide. The rollercoaster won’t stop until the narration shifts — from dizzying authority claims and algorithmic feeds to the clarity of autistic voices that were missing all along, finally letting autism moms step off the ride and breathe.