Bad Mom
Was it the screen, or the inflammation? Or both?
“If doctors had to test every time a parent asked, we’d bankrupt the medical system.”
— a pediatrician
But this is wrong. Ignoring mothers doesn’t save money. It delays diagnosis. It deepens injury. It multiplies suffering. And eventually, the cost—human and financial—rises far higher.
This is what MOTHERS: Voices from a Silent Epidemic is about. Not just what we saw. But how we were told not to trust our own eyes. And what happened when we did anyway.
Bad Mom
It felt like the other kids were thriving, and Sally was just slipping away.
The neurotypical ones—chattering, sharing, wandering in the blossoms of spring in our country garden. Picture-perfect, everywhere they went. But I didn’t take out the camera much anymore. How could I celebrate a world so beautiful when mine was breaking?
Sally was withdrawn. In her room. Addicted to a screen. Unable to tolerate sunlight. I pictured the kind of family scene I once had—her curled up reading with me, the beehive lamp glowing in the corner. But that wasn’t us anymore. That wasn’t Sally. My mere presence made her flare.
I worried quietly that I had parasites. Or strep. That I was poisoning her with my own presence.
She was melting down over screen limits. Nine hours a day. Screaming at two.
“You’re not a mom who notices your child! You are a bad mom!” she shouted, flailing on the floor for more time.
The words hit like hail. Sharp and cold. I tried to reason with her. I tried to explain the safety limits. But my words couldn’t land—and I knew it. She didn’t want explanations. She didn’t want excuses. She wanted to stop her pain, and all I was doing was getting in the way.
It wasn’t supposed to be this hard.
My friend Sam invited me to her mothers' group. Her office was located on a farm, overlooking a serene mountain.
The mountain was grounding, a counterbalance to the chaos inside us. Sam set out tea, nuts, chocolate—the food medicine of women transforming. From young to middle-aged to crone. From premenstrual to post-trauma. From the bowels of motherhood. Some of us pulled blankets tight around our shoulders. We were burnt out.
Every mother in that room had a PDA kid—or more than one. Each woman was working hard to create a better world in between the agonizing moments of the day.
I talked about Sally, and they nodded. The emotional lability, the anxiety, the rage—they knew it too. They knew it as PDA: Pathological Demand Avoidance. A behavioral profile marked by extreme anxiety and resistance to demands. Like OCD and ADHD, it falls on the spectrum.
For these moms, PDA meant letting go of what society thought of us and forging new roads entirely. PDA called for radical acceptance, low demands, child-led inquiry.
Sally had PDA markers, but not autism ones—until the last year or so. She never had the classic symptoms: deficits in social-emotional reciprocity, deficits in nonverbal communicative behaviors, and deficits in developing and maintaining relationships. The three traits required for an autism diagnosis. According to the DSM-5, those traits must be present early in development.
Sally had never shown them.
Not until PANDAS. Not until strep.
Sally had always been sparky and bright. Curious and funny. Now tantrums were the norm. Chaos came around the smallest things.
She couldn’t tolerate bright light or cold. Her hair was a mess of dreadlocks I couldn’t touch. She hadn't been able to go to school. She couldn’t handle small groups either. Kids would look at her. Kids would make fun of her.
It felt like there was nowhere to turn.
When I brought this up with the group, Sam told me about brain pruning—that sometimes autism doesn't show until later. That maybe it had always been there, lurking, and was just now unfolding. Maybe a diagnosis would help us. Like any test, it would be out of pocket, but potentially invaluable.
Despite the logic, my instinct still said PANS. The money spent on diagnosis could go to clean air. It could go to testing Lyme. They understood. They knew about mold, and Lyme too.
"You're the mother," Sam finally said. "You're right."
It was relieving and validating to hear Sam say the one thing I’d never heard from a doctor.
But truthfully? I’d never been more uncertain.
Was Sally’s OCD inflammation… or was it autism?
Back at home, the screen was the only thing that gave us peace. But it also swallowed her whole.
In the online groups, the mothers chanted: "Heal the gut. Heal the brain." Others whispered: "Get out of mold. Treat underlying infections."
I had a route, but it was a precarious one. I’d already tried many natural protocols. Tinctures and vitamins. But Sally quickly tired of playing patient. Getting a little magnesium and melatonin in her was a task.
Sometimes I wondered—Was I going mad?
Late at night, I’d ask myself:
Was it the chocolate, or the inflammation?
Was it the screen, or the trauma?
Was I a bad mom?
If you’ve ever felt blamed instead of heard—this space is for you.
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