Raising a child with autism spectrum disorder often leaves mothers carrying the heaviest load at home, in public and in their own inner lives. In Butuan City, where specialist services are limited and stigma remains common, seven mothers who have been primary carers for at least five years described how diagnosis, daily care and community attitudes reshape their emotional health and their conversations with God.
The accounts come from a qualitative phenomenological study published in Research in Autism. Interviews took place from February to July 2025 at two local therapy centres. The women, aged between 30 and 50 and all full-time carers, had children aged 6–15 whose autism ranged from mild to severe. Most were Catholic; one belonged to another Protestant church and one to Iglesia ni Cristo. Husbands typically supplied income while mothers handled care and household work.
Family life provided practical help more readily than emotional conversation. Shared housing and a working partner could cover therapy fees, yet several mothers still felt they managed nights, behaviour and decisions largely alone. Some partners left after the diagnosis or offered little day-to-day involvement, intensifying the sense that the mother was the only person who truly understood the child.
The path to diagnosis was frequently solitary. Mothers noticed speech delay, poor eye contact or sensory distress and pursued assessments and intervention programmes themselves. Formal confirmation sometimes arrived late, and official papers were needed before certain public help became available. Once the diagnosis was accepted, many turned to structured routines. They followed therapist guidance on toilet training, limited sugar to reduce restlessness, and kept weekly sessions even when progress was slow. These steps restored a measure of agency.
Isolation cut deeper than tiredness. Public misunderstanding of a child’s energetic or withdrawn behaviour led some families to skip gatherings and church. Night-time wakefulness left mothers exhausted for the next day’s therapy. Constant watchfulness also crowded out the quiet needed for prayer, so faith became a series of urgent requests for strength rather than restful worship.
Spirituality stayed central yet uneasy. Mothers asked God why autism had come to their child and whether they themselves had done something wrong. A few stopped attending services because managing behaviour in a crowded church felt impossible and shameful. At the same time they kept praying, treating faith as the reason they could continue when they felt abandoned by people and, at moments, by God.
Therapy centres produced visible gains in eye contact and speech, but cost and the need for an official diagnosis created barriers. Mothers wanted government-funded sessions so that families without steady income would not lose treatment. The study therefore outlines a Supportive Care Communication Framework linking open family talk, clearer clinician-parent exchange, autism-aware churches, community education and better coordination between diagnosis services, therapy providers and public agencies.
The findings matter in any setting where mothers remain the default carers for children with autism spectrum disorder and where faith communities and health systems have not yet learned to speak to one another. Empathy, practical information and affordable ongoing therapy would ease both the visible load and the quieter spiritual strain these women described.
