Anxious stories
walking the street while mothering an autistic teenager
That day we walked to the store to get magazines for V.
It was a 1 km walk
accross different dissemination areas.
Dissemination areas are the smallest standard geographic areas for which all Canadian census data are published.
Although very close to one another, dissemination areas along our walk present vastly different socio-economic regimes.
For example, the areas close to my house are very densely populated.
(You can click on each area to see population density.)
They also have the highest rates of low-income along our walk.
According to the 2021 Canadian Census, the three areas in orange had between 25% to 32% of households considered low-income, based on Statistics Canada Low-income measure, after tax .
These numbers are artificially low because Census data were collected in 2020-2021, when many individuals benefited from increased governmental support, such as the Canada Emergency Response Benefit. Although these measures temporarily relieved many households, their effects on poverty rates will probably not last.
As it happens, the % of households considered low income in 2016 the orange areas ranged between 33% and 35%.
Housing price can be very high in the neighbourhood, which exacerbates the experience of poverty for low-income households.
According to the 2021 Canadian Census he area in purple has 28,3% of its households spending more than 30% of their income on rent.
(Again, this number is temporarily low because of punctual government help. It was 56,5% in 2016.)
Housing prices in the neighbourhood are mitigated by the relative abundance of housing coops (in green), developped and kept alive in part through the efforts of a vibrant neighbourhood community group, the Comité populaire Saint-Jean Baptiste.
Housing prices are also kept high by the increasing proliferation of Airbnb rentals.
Here the black dots represent Airbnb listing on Sept 10th, 2022. They were compiled and are openly shared by the activists of Inside Airbnb
The bigger dots represent more expensive listings.
The neighbourhood is bordered by the boulevard Honoré Mercier
Boulevard Honoré Mercier
The wide traffic lanes and the large and tall buildings flanking the boulevard exceed human scale.
They create a break in lived spatial regimes.
On the other side of the break is the antechamber of the touristic neighbhourhood, the Old Québec.
Barely anyone lives in the dissemination area in purple (the population density is 816/km2). This area also presents a 0% low income rate.
Our walk
We first crossed Parc Berthelot at the bottom of my housing coop.
A favorite - and inescapble - meeting ground for coop neighbours
That day Q was very stressed.
Q deals with stress by repeating words or sentences, out of context, over and over.
This behavious is called echolalia. It is very common with people with autism.
When Q gets stressed, I think his relationships with the world, and his position within it, become unstable and unfathomable (see Davidson 2010).
I think of echolalia as a fundamentally spatial practice : creating back and forth movements of sound waves that help place his body and surrounding objects in space.
The more stressed Q is, the louder his echolalia gets.
I live with generalized anxiety disorder
I am frequently anxious
I was very anxious that day
Anxiety involves an invasion
"Anxiety becomes attached to particular objects, which come to life not as the cause of anxiety but as an effect of its travels. In anxiety, one’s thoughts often move quickly between different objects, a movement that works to intensify the sense of anxiety. One thinks of more and more ‘things’ to be anxious about; the detachment from one given object allows anxiety to accumulate. In other words, anxiety tends to stick to objects."
(Ahmed 2004, 215)
My anxiety sediments on particular things.
Anxiety-sedimented things become thicker, bigger, and invasive
Anxiety-sedimented things press against otherwise vague and fluid contours of my thoughts, compressing them into a tight straitjacket that keeps shrinking and pushing inwards
Living with generalized anxiety means that at their center my thoughts are always susceptible to a cave in.
Cave ins happen in particularly in times of strain.
My thoughts get engulfed in hollowness, and there is nothing left other than void or blind rage.
The cavity at the center of my thoughts has been dug through accumulated stories of durative endurance and exhaustion (after Povinelli 2011).
Around the cavity, protective parapets defend the remaining possibilities of thoughts.
These parapets are strengthen by lived stories that have given me, and still give, me power.
They include relationships of love and support, subsidized housing, and a fridge that has never been empty.
They also include taken-for-granted stories of my own privileges, that are so powerful that they become mostly invisible.
Walking on
We made our way to rue Saint-Jean
Rue St-Jean is the main street of my neighbourhood.
When I was a teenager and living in the suburb, rue Saint-Jean seemed to me the epitome of a wild and exciting downtown.
On the street we now find big blocks of rental units with rapid turnouts of visitors (the purple stars).
Rent is very high, so businesses tend to come and go.
Those that stick around longest tend to be bars and restaurants (in blue)
and clothing stores (in yellow).
On rue St-Jean I frequently meet people I know.
But as we walk away from my house, we meet mostly people I do not know.
The shops on the street cater to their needs rather than to mine.
The anonymity can feel very nice
But it also undermines possible spatial regimes of recognition and solidarity
Anonymity in consumerist space of the street increases the experience of stigma.
Stigma is "the marginalization of a group of individuals based on specific trait that is used to distinguish and separate the group from wider society." (Bain and Peake 2017, 454)
Q's echolalia and movements (flapping hands) clash with unspoken rules governing behaviour in adult normative public space.
Disruption of normative rules of behaviour, especially from youths, is most often associated with "soft criminality" (Cloke and Jones 2005), rather than neurodiversity (and vulnerability).
Stigma materializes in parts through people's responses to the perceived inappropriateness of Q's behaviour and to the lack of outward signs of the condition (Ryan 2010).
Responses from strangers often include rigid forms of informal control such as stares, glares, and comments.
As Q's mother, I am on the receiving end of these responses.
Such policing of my son, and of myself as a mother, leads to a strong sense of embarassement, an emotion that is "of fundamental social and moral significance and is closely related to shame" (Ryan 2010, 869, see also Ahmed 2004).
At that point of our walk, V insisted on holding my hand
The pull on my arm accentuated the lingering pain in my shoulder and neck, itself an effect of the omnipresent muscular tension associated with generalized anxiety
Her hand wrapping mine crowded the very little remaining space and possibilities of movement for my thoughts
Yet I could not not hold her hand.
I live in a social context where dominant stories of motherhood tell me that my child requires consistent nurture, that caring for her is emotionally engrossing and fulfilling, and that as her mother I am the best person for the job (intensive mothering ideology, as first stressed by Hays 1998).
Refusing to hold her hand would have felt like I was failing her
And on
We crossed blvd Honoré Mercier unto Carré d'Youville
Carré d'Youville is an enclave
It is bordered by government buildings (in purple)
and by luxurious venues infused with symbolic values that evoke an institutionally celebrated version of Québec City's identity :
the Diamant and the Capitole (in blue)
Le Diamant
Le Capitole
And the Palais Montcalm
Palais Montcalm
On the other side is the old city wall, the unofficial gate towards the touristic heart of the city (in green).
Porte Saint-Jean
25 years ago, when I was a young teenager, the carré presented an open public space in which it was possible to idle at the heart of downtown.
In popular discourse it was a place of youth freedom, of marginality, and of criminality.
Since then municipal policies and projects have aimed to shape Québec City into a neoliberal festive city (see Parazelli 2009).
These projects and policies have boosted place d'Youville as a vibrant site of spectacles, including music, comedy, arts, and magic.
Most festive activities in carré d'Youville are still free, partially to alleviate popular discontent in the face of increasing economic exclusion from other festive places across Québec downtown, as costly festivals are succeeding one another and taking up public space at accelerating pace.
Nonetheless, institutional festive space in carré d'Youville is strictly policed and leaves little possibility for the vernacular idle spatial practices of my youth, nor for my current every practices.
Institutionalized festive uses of space in carré d'Youville, although always punctual, undermine much possibilities of continuous everyday spatial appropriation by local residents.
That day, as we walk through carré d'Youville, the space felt fragmented between the parceled lifeworlds of transiting individuals or groups of individuals (tourists, passer bys, etc).
This fragmentation exacerbated my sense of being stigmatized, as it seemed to reduce the possibilities of recognition and solidarity, and thus of care (see Tronto 1993).
Fragmentation also brought a welcomed increase in anonymity, which seemed to lift my obligation to notice and respond to stigma.
My use of detachment as a strategy to control noise and stigma-induced anxiety was undermined by my growing awareness of my partner.
I could feel his concern and sense of guilt for what he frequently perceives as his unhelpful behaviour of not doing enough.
My partner worries about my mental (un-)wellness.
As the mother of an autistic child, and as a person performing care (female) labour in a loving heteronormative relationship, I frequently feel the double burden of managing my own emotions, that is of working to changing their degree or quality, and of managing the emotions of my partner (emotional work, after Hoschild 1979).
At that point I became conscious of my throat
It had been closing for a while, I was not sure how long.
It was getting worse.
I was probably dying, so I thought I should go to the hospital.
But if I went I would ruin everyone's day.
It would be a logistical nightmare.
My fingers were growing numb
We made it to the store
Magazine store
We got the magazines for V.
From the start the magazines had stood in as happy objects.
Happiness involves a specific kind of intentionality, which we can describe as ‘end orientated’ [...]
Happiness is directed towards certain objects, which function as a means to what is not yet present. If objects provide a ‘means’ for making us happy, then in directing ourselves towards this or that object, we are aiming somewhere else: towards a happiness that is presumed to follow [...]
Happiness does not reside in objects; it is promised through proximity to certain objects.
(Ahmed 2010)
The magazines would tell a story of my good mothering, through which I am attentive to my daughter's educational and creative aspirations.
They could also tell the story of how I facilitate my son's participation in our social environment, all that while making sure both children got fresh air and exercise.
