The changeling child is always blamed on the fairies, the trolls, the supernatural. The pretty, wide-eyed, fussed over child becomes the monstrous covered in caul and sprawled in the cot. To take the sacred and replace it with the profane, to take the loved and replace it with the feared, to take the beatific and replace it with the demonic.
So goes the story.
Let’s talk about the reality.
The changeling child was conjured – not by the hands of the fairies – but by the hands of the white coat, not by the messy beyond but by the sterilised room. It was not created by the ritual and mythology of the troll, representatives of the uncontrollable, but the ritual and mythology of the needle – the controlled, precise mechanics of modern science. And it was not created by the supernatural but by the unnatural, not man’s inability to control the beyond but man’s hubris that he can tame the wild – bend it to his whims and syringes. Instead of the haphazard, the unknown, the temperamental swap, we have the conveyor belt of changeling children – an assembly line of those that scream.
In the uncontrollable world, parents warned of the changeling child. In the sterile world, the changeling child is unspeakable. Those who point to its existence are simply told not to be so superstitious. After all, there can be no such things as changelings.
Image source 1 / Image Source 2
I took my kids to see a movie tonight. I sat next to my 10 year old, who can’t sit still. He rocks back and forth and moves constantly. But he has improved a lot in recent years and can kind of control his vocalizations so isn’t making noise constantly. But I had this eerie feeling about him tonight, while I tried to help him through the movie - like he was a different race of being than my other kids. I don’t usually feel that way about autism.
It’s a strange place to be in, to know you placed your kids on a conveyor belt that snatched the peace and well being from some of them. Snatched the very light out of their eyes.
I don’t believe in self-flagellation. I do believe in atonement, though. And it may never be enough.
So many of us are changeling children. Very few realize that they lost their integrity, their wholeness, their potential to live a life true to their innate talents and brilliance due to toxic childhood vaccines.
I remember my mother telling me, when I was perhaps a teenager, or possibly older than that, "You were such a happy baby! You were always moving, active, vocalising, cooing, delighted to be alive and delightful to be with." I think she was as puzzled as I was as to what had happened to turn me into an unhappy, overly shy, difficult child. Now I know. What she said about my nature when I was a baby rang true when she said it, and it still rings true. I used to assume that bad parenting had ruined me, but I no longer believe that.
Your writing is very powerful.