Carol Holiday is autistic (probably)
I’ve seen this headcanon/reading of her before, but, I haven’t seen any posts doing an analysis of that. So, I’ve decided to do that myself. For this post, I’m going to talk about symptoms of autism mentioned in diagnostic criteria and how Carol fits into it. Long post ahead.
Persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction across multiple contexts.
Carol struggles a lot socially. One of her workers describes her as quite literally having “negative charisma.”
Carol comes off as rude or cold, and from this dialogue we can tell that this isn’t something that just happens with the characters we’ve seen interact with her. Carol seems also to struggle with empathizing with others— she can’t place herself in the shoes of Noelle, and because of this, her assumptions of what is the best for her is often inaccurate. (Yes, being autistic can cause you to have low empathy— it can also cause high empathy. It’s a spectrum. Low empathy doesn’t make you a bad person and it’s not demonizing to talk about unpalatable autism symptoms.)
Autism can also effect general abilities to healthily manage relationships- and we see how strained her relationship with almost everyone around her. This includes her toxic behavior towards her daughters. Carol being autistic would not excuse abusive behavior— nor does being autistic inherently cause that, but, it can play into that. I believe she also has some sort of strained relationship with Rudy. She wasn’t sleeping in the same bed with Rudy before he went to the hospital.
Restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities.
Carol has a lot of insistence on sameness and heavily dislikes change— which is a way this symptom can present. She bronzes the snowflakes that Noelle & Dess makes, for example, as a way to perserve them.
Carol’s interest in Christmas is also massive to the point of where it seems obsessive. She insists on having the entire house Christmas themed to an extent, and has the people in her family behave in line with the Christmas theme. All of the doors in the house have the same christmas garland on top.
I also feel like Carol’s design indicates her being very restrictive. Carol stands in a way that’s extremely stiff and restrictive feeling. Her entire design is sharp edges.
Hyper - or hyporeactivity to sensory input or unusual interests in sensory aspects of the environment.
Carol keeps the house cold at all times and she herself is physically cold— this ties into her special interest in Christmas, but also, shows she may have a sensory fixation on cold things. It may cause sensory issues for her to not be cold.
Carol also uses a katana for cutting instead of normal knives because she thinks that normal knives aren’t sharp enough. I’m autistic myself and, I experience something similar. I can’t use “normal” pencils unless I’m constantly sharpening them because if they aren’t sharp enough, it gives me sensory issues. So I only use mechanical pencils or pens.
I also think that Carol’s collection of the Santa dolls and heart shaped objects can be a way her autism presents. How autism effects sensory inputs can sometimes cause people to have an intense fixation on a certain kind of object, if they like the sensory input they get from it. The santa dolls all make the same noise, stop making sound the same way, etc. The santa dolls would also tie into her Christmas special interest. With the heart shaped objects, they could give her a sensory input that she enjoys in some way which leads her to collecting it obsessively. This symptom of hers relates to the repetitive behaviors I just talked about as well.
General thoughts on how Carol as an autistic woman is important to her character
I think this helps contextualize her character in a way that’s interesting. Given how obvious a lot of symptoms of hers are to me, yet her being very conformist in mindset, I think that maybe her workaholic attitude could be a way that she tries to make up for her autism. When characters talk about why they like Carol as a mayor, they’ll often talk about Carol having a poor demeanor and finding her sensory needs to be strange or an issue— but they excuse this because she “works hard.” I think Carol defines a lot of her worth based on her work as a way to “fit back in,” even when it doesn’t seem to make her very happy.
I also think it’s why she generally gets angry at characters who break the norm at all. She’s been forcing herself into boxes for a while now, and if it was good or safe for people to break out of it, then what did she hurt herself for? Carol can’t let it of been for nothing. She tries to make her daughters conform, because she knows that “weird” (aka anything indicative of autism) behaviors will potentially have them shunned. Carol thinks it’s protecting them to restrict them because she restricts herself. It’s all she’s ever known, really.
