O que dizem as mães de crianças autistas?

Abstract

A child's diagnosis of autism triggers a profound emotional impact and a complex reorganization in family dynamics. The literature shows that this impact falls mainly on mothers, who assume a central role as caregivers. This process is often marked by feelings of mourning for the loss of the idealized child, anxiety, emotional and financial overload, in addition to the need to deal with social prejudice. This context of deconstruction of standards defines what has become popular as 'atypical motherhood'. Objective: the present research aims to analyze the reports of mothers of autistic children, posted on the TikTok platform, to propose a way of welcoming their suffering. Method: exploratory investigation, structured in two stages: a) a literature review for the survey of questionnaires that assess the stress level of parents of autistic children. The analysis concluded that such instruments, due to their format, limit the parents' statements and fail to capture the ambivalence and nuances of suffering; b) the second stage of the research consisted of the analysis of the sayings of mothers of autistic children, posted on the TikTok platform. 15 videos were selected, taking as a starting point for the interpretation of the words, the conceptual distinction between hearing and listening. The videos were grouped based on thematic content. Five subjective categories were constructed: I am an atypical mother; I love my son, but I hate autism; Many leave their careers...; How many times do we pray to tell God; Mothers want to hear: I am with you. Results: the analysis of the mothers' sayings revealed speeches of suffering and resistance, with the presence of crystallized significants that mark a fracture in the illusion of similarity and defining an identity forged in pain; the significant autism as the embodiment of grief and pain; social and economic renunciation, justifying TikTok not only as a place of speech, but as a place of work and survival; the explicit demand for acceptance and non-judgment, criticizing the failure of the social other and demanding pragmatic as well as affective support; the search for an absolute other when the social other fails, in a significant game that oscillates between the search for meaning and the fracture caused by suffering. The research concludes that the words of mothers on social networks are an eloquent symptom of the failure of listening in social clinical spaces. The speech therapist, due to the proximity and continuity of the follow-up, is in a privileged position to offer this reception. A listening clinic is proposed that deals with a change in the subjective position of the clinician. This change implies: 1) shifting the mother from the position of informant to that of subject, listening to her anguish as a symptom; 2) sustaining the position of not knowing, allowing the mother's speech to come without admonition or judgment; 3) treat listening as an act that validates the demands for support. By listening to the mother in her subjectivity, the speech therapist treats the matrix of meaning where the child is immersed, enabling a displacement of subjective position that is extended to the whole family