WE MUST CREATE CHANGE

9 January 2015 at 4:37 (Abuse, Accessibility, ADD/ADHD, Advocacy, Attribution Errors, Auditory Processing Disorder, Autism/Asperger's, College/University, Communication, Community, Deaf / Hard of Hearing, Developmental disabilities, Diversity, Epidemiology, Family, Inclusiveness, Injustice, Learning Disabilities, Love & Acceptance, Neurodiversity, Non-verbal communication, Social Justice, Teaching/Tutoring, Weather, Work / Employment)

I was going to call this my “Hope For 2015”, but that is so passive and useless. Anybody can – and lots of people do – post warm, fuzzy notes with Hopes for the New Year, and others click and share. Lovely.

But this is NOT all warm & fuzzy. It’s literally dead serious (with many murdered throughout the year), and quite often blunt, because I am blunt at times. It’s also a call to a change of perspective for some of you.

Deal. Think about it. I’m not a lone voice. Click and share.

MY CALL TO ACTION IS FOR YOU TO READ THIS THROUGH, THINK, AND SPEAK UP. ALL YEAR LONG.

And the next year and the next.

This isn’t about some stranger, or Those Other People, or “That Kind”.

Children with disabilities or other differences are not diseased or broken. The same is true for adults. Yes, those “poor, little disabled children” grow up into disabled adults. Gee, so where’s the concern now? It sure isn’t at work; in the U.S. general unemployment is at 5.3%, but for disabled adults it’s twice that at 10.8%.

Nor are autistic or ADHD children some kind of modern mystery; millions of such adults have been around for decades, just unrecognized for lack of diagnostics. Most of us are profoundly relieved to find out Why. We still have to deal with the details, but that’s easier when you know that not all your difficulties are from some kind of moral failing, or from a lack of trying (and trying, and trying).

WHAT, YOU NEVER HAD KIDS LIKE “THAT KIND” IN YOUR CLASSES? YOU KNOW WHY?

Some were kept at home, because until passage of the IDEA in 1975, US law did not require public schools to teach everyone.

Some were warehoused in institutions, badly treated, undiagnosed or misdiagnosed, and oft uneducated.

But many of us were there; how we struggled through school and life, without accommodations or understanding, and often the target of bullying by peers and even school officials.

Untold numbers of women and men just knew themselves inexplicably “a bit odd”, and did best they could; some succeeding, others not so well.

At worst are those who not only lacked resources, but were shunned by society’s classism, ableism, racism and sexism, and (if still alive) are found among the imprisoned, derelicts, addicts, abused and enslaved populations.

YOUR CHILDREN AND EVEN COLLEGE STUDENTS WILL LEARN DIFFERENTLY, SO YOU MUST ADJUST

We are neither inherently stupid nor incapable of learning. Learning differently means teaching differently. Find what works. Everyone has limits, but a consistent lack of success means you should use another method, as well as more time. Sometimes the learning is highly irregular in pace. Tie learning to interests to motivate your children and students.

Also, be aware that sometimes the “simple basics” may be entirely bypassed by some students who leap to master higher concepts, albeit often forever struggling with those seemingly “simple basics”. People are humans, not robots. Learning is not always linear.

COMMUNICATION IS NOT JUST SPEAKING

Never assume that just because someone is nonverbal they cannot communicate. If you’re not getting their messages, then *you* are doing something wrong. Nor should you assume that because someone is nonverbal that they cannot understand what people say (though the processing may sometimes be delayed). Nor assume that because someone has been nonverbal for years that they’ll never speak. And damn, will you get an earful.

INCONSISTENCY IN DAY-TO-DAY ABILITIES IS FRUSTRATING FOR ALL, AND NOT A CHOICE

Importantly, just because someone is able to speak or do a task one day, that does not guarantee consistent results. It’s the nature of disabilities — regardless whether considered mental or physical – all involve the brain. Brains are funny things, and many of us have a few buggy Beta-version programs in our wetware. It’s frustrating as hell for all involved.

But don’t assume the “could-then-can’t-now” is intentional. “Oh, he can hear me when he wants.” “Well, you could solve those equations just fine yesterday.” I can guarantee that after a lifetime of such, ridiculing people and punishing them for things they cannot help only increases performance stress.

While that stress might increase focus from sheer terror, it often squelches overall functioning. (Do you want me to listen to you, or try to recall yesterday’s process, or slowly figure it out on my own? I can only do one — if my stomach will stay down.)

TRAMPLE THE TROPES

Ignore the media tropes and centuries of religious hype: disabled people are neither inherently amoral, soulless and evil, nor are they infinitely happy, friendly and angelic. People are people. A few will be nasty bits, some will be profoundly good sorts, and the rest are just ordinary folks who get mad, sad and glad, who screw things up sometimes, and who will also serve others selflessly despite bearing more abuse than anyone should.

We are definitely not incomprehensible, incomplete, little autism-puzzle-pieces, unloving, unlovable, or uncaring.

We are whole people with all the same cares, needs and wants as all humans. Beware — disability happens to anyone at any time. We aren’t a Them, and YOU can be among the world’s 15% in just one day. We are all Us.

STOP “TEACHING TOLERANCE”

Because tolerance means putting up with something one doesn’t really like, or that doesn’t really belong. We want full-fledged ACCEPTANCE.

Nor should we only be acceptable if we can somehow “overcome” our differences enough to pass for Normal Real People. Trying to “pass” all the time is exhausting, and invariably breaks down, oft resulting in the [supposed] Normal Real People assuming that one is lazy, stupid, crazy, all the above, or worse.

Training children for hours a day how to artificially perform “acting normal” does not serve to help them learn how to function best in the world. Yes, of course teach good manners, social and work skills. But suppressing every twitch of one’s natural being adds to stress, making everything else yet more difficult. This is especially when performing like a “normal person” means not doing the harmless things that reduce stresses.

STOP THE BLAME

I must call out the terrifying, unaddressed assumption which underlies so much daily trauma: “The reason the disabled [children] are targeted by bullies is because they are perceived as being weird”. Despite the pervasiveness of this social theme in society, most people are functionally unaware of it, all the while instilling in their Normal People children the same message. Normal People children need to act normal, and not act like That Kind. After all, that’s how the Normal People know the others are That Kind, who’s Us and who’s Them.

But it’s the disabled and different who are taught, over-and-over-and-over that not only is it their fault for behaving or looking weird, BUT ALSO if they weren’t so weird, well then they wouldn’t be bullied. “Quit being so weird! Just say No! Just say Stop.”

Just say BULLSHIT. Because this is blaming the victim. The problem is not that everyone isn’t the same, the problem is that there are bullies.

Even worse, blaming the targets actually empowers the bullies, because the social story says it’s the victim is the one who is acting wrong, so it’s not really the bully who is to blame.

Let’s just top off all that existing anxiety and depression with the trauma of trying to seek justice, but being told again that, “Well it’s your fault, you know. Attracting attention by being weird, and bugging people. You need to quit making trouble now. You already take up too much of our time with all of your “special” needs. Quit whining and go deal with it. — But no fighting, because we’ll know it was you who started it.”

By the way, it’s not “just a kids at school” thing that everyone will “grown out of”. It continues on through college, and happens at work, too.

YOU CAN’T WALK IN THE LITTLE BOY’S SHOES;

THEY’RE FLOATING DOWN-RIVER

It is NEVER acceptable to murder disabled children. Nor should these repeated, horrifying events be considered “understandable” or “excusable”, with the murderers being pardoned just because their son or daughter had a disability.

Increasingly more prevalent in social media, the crime becomes insidiously deemed more and more acceptable. Murderers re-cast themselves as martyrs, acquiring champions to their cause. Throughout repeated blog posts and news stories, they bemoan how taking care of disabled children is just too unbearable, they had to take care of them every day of the week, there was never any relief or help. (Even though there was.) Cue the groupies’ hand-wringing and protests upon the villains’ behalf: “Oh but won’t you walk in their shoes, how they’ve given up their lives, this wasn’t at all what they wanted.”

For in true sociopathic fashion, the poor, long-suffering parents revel in the attention, announcing to the world – sometimes ahead of time — what they have done, and all the while describing themselves as the victims. The dead children (young or adult) are unwanted, and deemed unwantable, less than human just because they couldn’t speak, or needed medical treatments, or used a power chair, or didn’t play with their toys the “right way”, or wore adult diapers … No one would want to live like that; the thing’s better off dead. And what of the groupies? Well, where do you think people get such terrible ideas that it’s okay to kill one’s own children?

ENOUGH WITH THE “DISABILITY INSPIRATION PORN”.

Quit using those heart-tugging videos, walk-a-thons, telethons, and other grand-society functions to win your supposed Cosmic Brownie Points for giving us your pity. Please stop dumping upon us the largesse of your unwanted rags (so Victorian, so passé), or creating useless functions requiring us to serve as targets of unwanted helpful-helper-helpiness for your ego-boo.

Get disabled people out of “sheltered workshops”. Yes, people need work they are suited to. But the segregation and token sweatshop “wages” are an embarrassment and humiliation to all.

YES, CHILDREN GROW UP.

YEP, STILL DISABLED, BUT NOW ADULTS

Do not assume your children will remain permanently childish and incapable — they mature on their own timelines. Allow adults to be adults. Support their needs and interests, but neither dress them like children, nor expect them to live their lives in naïve pre-puberty stasis, without adult desires for socializing with adult peers, life-long learning, mastering skills for some kind of job (even if that job is “just socially productive work” rather than traditional work), and yes, having a love life, however that may be expressed.

YES, PEOPLE ALSO NEED ACCOMMODATIONS;

THAT DOESN’T MEAN “CURE”

Most disabled or different people are not looking for cures to magically change them into someone else, some kind of fantasy Normal Real person that their families wanted instead. Our differences may result from physical events, by random mutation, and / or genetics. Your genetics. We are family. I’m Me, and I like being Me. If you somehow changed all the differences in my brain, I wouldn’t be Me anymore, with all my quirks and abilities.

Of course it will be great to find a means for preventing migraines, epilepsy, fatal medical conditions, et cetera. But it’s also a sad fact that some people have been so convinced of their undesirability as disabled human beings that they can only see “cure” as a means to being an acceptable Normal Real Person. (Worst of all, some people commit suicide because they’ve been taught to hate themselves, as useless and unwanted.)

But what’s really alarming is all the fund-raising, talk, research, and work going on today to eliminate entire kinds of peoples. I’m talking about the thousands of selfish individuals and sociopaths who believe that anyone with neurological or morphological differences should not exist at all, because That Kind takes up too much time, money, and resources.

That’s not “looking for a cure” – that’s eugenics and euthanasia, the same ideas that led to the Nazi Aktion T4 program and other horrors. (In my youth, the state hospital was still in the regular habit of sterilizing people. Had I been institutionalized, I might well not have had my lovely children and grandchildren.)

Yes, we want assistance, we want things that help us achieve what we want in life. Getting the things one needs to learn effectively, to move about, attend to their own needs, to work, to play, to be a part of the community, to have lovers or families. These things should not be seen as extraordinary, special, absurd, or a waste of money, just because they aren’t the same kinds of things used by other people. 15% of the people in the world have disabilities. That is a lot of humanity, and many are uneducated, abused, neglected, avoided, or shut away, depriving the world of incredible amounts of untapped abilities and talents.

CALL OUT BULLSHIT. REQUIRE ACCOMMODATIONS. DEMAND ACCEPTANCE.

MAKE IT SO.

4 Comments

Re-tailored

2 March 2010 at 4:01 (Abuse, Injustice, Invisible disabilities, Sleep, Work / Employment)

Golly, it’s been some time since I’ve written a post. It’s not for a lack of thoughts, but rather energy.  My sleep has been disturbed by nightmares for, well, months, and the cumulative effect wears me down in the evenings.

This I had posted over years back.  As the saying describes, Friends come and go, but enemies hang around. I thought I had laid to rest some of those old demons, and perhaps I had, but now they reappear, previous horrors conflated with the memories of new experiences.

TAILOR-MADE

Tailor-made, I was.
Though all my clothes hung on me
And I was awkward as hell
Shoelaces usually tripped undone
And my hair ties came loose.

Tailor-made for being the victim
Geeky, younger, smaller, four-eyed,
Clumsy, studious, totally clueless
Socially awkward, unpopular
And best of all, face-blind.

I never knew who it was that poked me with pins
Stole my purse, squashed my lunch
Took my street clothes while in gym
Groped barely-developing breasts
Slammed me against the lockers.

Smeared clay on my chair like shit
Marked on my books, tore my assignments
Called me names, oh so many names
Or briefly pretended to befriend me
To make me the butt of a joke.

Not that I didn’t protest repeatedly
I reported the abuses properly
Told many official, protective people
Friends, family, teachers, administrators
But their responses were unilateral

“Boys will be boys,” said dad.
“You’re just being whiney,” said mom.
“If you can’t tell us who these people are,
that you ‘think’ are doing things to you,
then we can’t do anything,” said the officials.

Perhaps the real problem
Was not in what I said,
But that I was speaking up.
When I asserted myself
They redefined my reality.

Saying that what I perceived did not exist
That I was crazy, hallucinating, or on drugs
That I was just trying to attract attention
That I was making things up
When I wasn’t.

The perfect victim is someone
Who can’t identify the people that did things
Who tries to be good and please people
Who misses danger cues
Who is easy to silence.

The anger and frustration at being disbelieved
Turns into confusion and self-doubt
Maybe it’s just me
I must be wrong
Everyone says so.

Depression sinks in
I must be crazy
I keep perceiving this as reality
When everyone says it isn’t so
Isn’t that the logical conclusion?

You must trust people to help you
They are important people
They are the ones in charge
They know what’s best for you
They keep asserting you’re wrong.

When the reality is given to you by others
And they keep changing the story
It’s hard to keep your facts straight.
This is of course is only further proof
That you are crazy, and making things up.

Trust is earned, not demanded.
Funny how trust erodes
When reality is allowed to reassert itself
And I re-assert myself
Even though they re-assert:

I’m just acting out and making up stories.


2 Comments

The Catch

24 October 2009 at 22:52 (Injustice, Invisible disabilities, Migraine, OMG, Stress, Teaching/Tutoring, Tinnitus, Work / Employment)

I’ve been having intermittent bouts of vertigo (some severe), along with worsening tinnitus and resulting difficulty understanding what people are saying. My GP said I got poor results on the tympanogram, and is sending me to an ENT, whom I see next week.  I’m no longer driving on the highway, and take extra care if I’m carrying my grandson.

Meanwhile, someone at school told the principal that I was “doing the wall thing”, meaning touching the wall to steady myself as I passed down a hallway.  This resulted in being called up for a Official Meeting.  By the time I left, I was feeling queasy and light-headed for entirely different reasons:

  • Being a couple hours late to phone in my absences due to migraine and due to a Emergency Room visit for vertigo, had previously earned me a stern warning for procedural lapses.
  • Going to or staying at work if feeling dizzy is prohibited because an educator with vertigo is a liability.
  • Leaving work 30 minutes early for a doctor’s appointment must be taken as sick time.
  • No “flex time” is allowed for appointments (i.e. leaving a bit early and making up that time by staying later another day).
  • Thirty minutes, half a day or a whole day all count equally as an incident of using a sick day.
  • Taking 19 sick-day events by October due to viruses, migraines, vertigo or doctor appointments is excessive, and any further such absences can result in termination of employment.
  • Which specific number is unmentioned, but up to the Powers That Be in the Human Resources department.
  • Any employee who is feverish with a virus must stay home.

Alas, this is all legal, and there seems to be a large limbo of being disabled by irregularly re-occuring conditions without actually being Disabled enough for some kind of accommodation.

Even if I somehow negotiated with H.R., the interpersonal climate with the school admin is too prickly to stay.  This is a shame, because I have a great relationship with my classroom staff/faculty.

I’m looking for a different job, hopefully something full-time that also pays well enough so I can have just ONE job in my life.  But everything I’ve seen pays fast-food wages, or else is so technically specific that my skills profile is a mis-match.

The free-floating anxiety is just HELL.

9 Comments

Dark, stormy days

13 September 2008 at 3:38 (Abuse, Advocacy, Critical Thinking, Hate groups, Injustice, Teaching/Tutoring, Uncategorized, Work / Employment)
Tags:

It’s not just the weather.

Christschool’s recent post, “Fleeting Innocence, Captured Before It’s Gone” got me thinking and connecting distant points, much in the manner of the orb-weaver spider that connects a broadening spiral of nodes across our back door each night.

We slide further into a scarier world.  It is not just a world where there is less freedom and diversity plus more violence and hate-crime, but rather a world that not only publicly accepts and condones, but even demands the necessity of violence.

It’s there in the realm of education, where the requirements for instruction and inclusion have created new opportunities for some spiteful people to create long-lasting terror for those forcibly obliged to attend.  When children are harassed and bullied and tormented in school to the point they finally react, their persecutors (and those who allow such events to continue) strike back and complain, “We must be allowed to forcibly control and harm those misbehaving children so we can ‘protect’ everyone.”

It’s there in the realm of employment, where the openness of accommodations and efforts of ordinary people to use them for work, shopping and leisure has provided some people with new bases for the discrimination and harassment of their coworkers, employees, and customers.  “They shouldn’t be there if they don’t want to deal with the problems they’re going to create by existing in the public sphere.  It’s too much money or trouble, or uses up resources that Real People need.  They should just stay at home or be gotten rid of.”

It’s there in the realm of national security, where anyone who is suspected of activity can be detained for years without legal process, and tortured as well.  Even ordinary, law-abiding citizens cannot expect to have the same safeguards for rights and liberties that they used to.  “Freedom isn’t free.”

Whereas violence was previously ignored, or dismissed as unimportant, or officially diminished (downgraded) as being less severe than it was, now we have an increasing number of situations where violence is seen as not only inevitable, but also as excusable, desirable, beneficial and even necessary.

Freedom and safety are obverse and reverse of the same coin; when we seek to increase one, we lose more of the other.

Sadly, as economic and political times get more anxious, groups of people withdraw back to their tribal units in paranoia.  The backward, rigid end of conservatism or tribalism reacts to uncertainty and fear by enforcing greater controls.  To some, eliminating tolerance for the Other and superstitiously making sacrifices to appease divine forces seems to be the only way to ward off Bad Things from happening.  Somebody has to pay.  It must be Somebody’s fault.  If Somebody who isn’t behaving exactly as the codes specify is punished, then divine pleasure might be gained.  If Somebody can be blamed for causing our problems, then swift and great revenge is appropriate and balance will be restored.

But scapegoating and harming the few of the outgroup does nothing to ensure that all are safe.  Hardly anyone in the larger public will even listen, and most don’t even want to hear what’s really happening.  We are sinking in insidious evil that is frosted-over in colourful “truthiness” sugar-coating, and is obscured by galas of newslessness about celebrity foibles and the nonsense over manufactroversies.  The bits that do get reported are so shouted-over with “spin” that great chunks of the public can’t even hear them, much less realise the cognitive dissonance.  Such platitudes are just the 21st-century version of Orwellian Newspeak, where we are being sold the terrifying message that

“PAIN IS SAFETY”

Don’t you believe it.  Be careful when there seems to be a break in the clouds; sometimes it’s just the eye of the hurricane.

5 Comments

Going Mobile

9 September 2008 at 4:42 (Accessibility, Advocacy, Community, Injustice)

Here, grab a cuppa and settle down, and I’m going to tell you a story … oh, pass me those scissors; I’m going to work on this quilt, too.

Once Upon A Time,

a long, long time ago (well, 25 years ago, but that’s before some of you were born), there was a bunch of disabled people who were tired of waiting around for some Fairy Godmother to grant them wishes, because you know, like that’s gonna happen! Nowadays we might call them folks, “uppity crips”, and boy howdy were they “uppity”! Why, they wanted crazy stuff, like being able to ride public transit. Yesiree!

So.  This is the story: Those folks got together and started PROTESTING, using civil disobedience.  (You have to admit, it’s pretty dang clever using sit-ins and such, especially for some folks who come with their own chairs!  NO, they didn’t all use chairs all the time; accessibility is about lots of things, not just parking spaces and curb cuts.)  Anyway, these folks created ADAPT, which stood for American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit.

(Moment’s pause to re-thread needle.)

Well, that took a few years, but it worked so well, they weren’t going to stop there! Read the rest of this entry »

2 Comments

You Don’t Say

10 May 2008 at 1:39 (Abuse, Communication, Injustice, Parenting, Uncategorized, Work / Employment)
Tags:

“How can you not tell me when you are flunking English?!”
“Can’t you ever do anything right?”
“Do you really want to fail 8th-grade math and take it over again?!”

There is no answer that is going to be acceptable to anyone. I mean, would you go up to your parents and say, “I really want to fail beginning algebra so I can sit through units on order of operations and inequalities all over again”?

Of course not! What makes these so hard to answer is that they really aren’t questions at all. They’re accusations: You are flunking a class and didn’t care to tell me about it. (Given that my mom was angry and yelling and all but shaking me in an arm-bruising grip, it’s not surprising that I did not care to divulge the news.)

Because these are not questions, they are not really spoken to elicit answers. Woe to the literal-minded aspie child who tries to make up for the transgressions by actually attempting to answer, “I’m trying—”

“You certainly are! You’re a very trying child.”

What is being demanded is a promise that somehow everything will be made better. You wish that were so, too, and feel even more powerless to change the situation. Beyond feeling inadequate to the task at hand, you also know that attempts to communicate problems will also be met with anger, hostility, contradictory messages, and impossible demands. No matter what you do, you won’t be able to succeed.

How do you answer questions like that?

The answer is that you can’t. These are Read the rest of this entry »

7 Comments

Potpourri

2 May 2008 at 22:17 (Advocacy, Autism/Asperger's, Epidemiology, Injustice, Politics, Uncategorized, Vaccines)
Tags:

Updates on several stories:

In a post from almost a year ago (“That Kind“), I discussed three cases of discrimination against autistics. Cindy Earnshaw was an animal control officer and has Asperger’s, and is now filing a suit against her former employer, the city of Overland Park.

Another old post (the wheels of law grind v e r y slowly, indeed) was about “Waiting For GINA”, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act.  The bill passed the House of Representatives last year, and has just been passed (unanimously!) by the Senate, and awaits signing by Dubya.  Keep your digits crossed or whatever …

More good news:  just in case you were flying ’round the dark side of the moon and somehow missed the news, Kathleen Seidel has won her Motion to Quash the absurd SLAPP-type subpoena against her, which also required information related to dozens of bloggers from her of the Neurodiversity.com Weblob blogroll, including myself. w00t!

An update to a recent post, “A shot in the arm, A slight kick in the butt” about vaccine hysteria and rising rates of highly-infectious and dangerous diseases.  A couple years ago we had mumps breaking out in several states, and now there is largest outbreak of measles since 2001, with at least 72 people in 10 different states around the country reported as having been infected (mind you, that’s just the rate of officially diagnosed and reported, which may be less than the actual prevalence), and of those people, 14 are so ill they had to be hospitalized.  The article states,

Before a vaccine was introduced in 1963, more than half a million people got measles in the United States and 500 died annually. Thanks to the vaccination program, measles is no longer endemic in the United States, and ongoing transmission of the virus was declared eliminated in 2000.

Of all the infectious diseases that can be prevented by vaccine, measles was and still is the most deadly, and is the cause of half of the one million deaths that could be prevented. The World Health Organization says that,

Children usually do not die directly of measles, but from its complications. Complications are more common in children under the age of five or adults over the age of 20.

The most serious complications include blindness, encephalitis (a dangerous infection of the brain causing inflammation), severe diarrhoea (possibly leading to dehydration), ear infections and severe respiratory infections such as pneumonia, which is the most common cause of death associated with measles. Encephalitis is estimated to occur in one out of 1000 cases, while otitis media (middle ear infection) is reported in 5-15% of cases and pneumonia in 5-10% of cases. The case fatality rate in developing countries is generally in the range of 1 to 5%, but may be as high as 25% in populations with high levels of malnutrition and poor access to health care.

I’ve also previously described the various fallacies around the conspiracy theories related to vaccines in my post, “Epidemics of bad science, vs Epidemics and bad science”. There have been studies done in four countries showing no causality between vaccines and increased rates of diagnoses of autism spectrum disorders.

Well, off to deal with the crisis du jour … more later.

Comments Off on Potpourri

One in the crowd

9 April 2008 at 6:00 (Autism/Asperger's, Community, Injustice)

Look at all those honeybees, buzzing around the hive! One of them is named Kathleen. (Can you tell them apart? I sure can’t — they’re all sisters.) So where’s Kathleen? “Yoo-hoo! Which one of you is Kathleen?”

“I am Kathleen!”

“I am Kathleen!”

“I am Kathleen!”

“I am Kathleen!”

Expect to see a lot of blogging bees styling themselves as Kathleen, a la “I am Spartacus.” (Or check out the LOLcat by DKMNOW.)

Due to scholastic issues, I am late making this post. If you’ve not already heard, a blogger, Kathleen Seidel of the Neurodiversity.com weblog, was recently served with a subpoena by a lawyer in a current case. Kathleen has long blogged about the lack of scientific credibility of the vaccines-cause-autism idea, and the court case deals with such. As a citizen-journalist, Kathleen has commented upon this case and others like it, and her posts are copiously annotated with the supporting references from public domain documents. Other bloggers with legal backgrounds have commented that this kind of legal action seems to fall into the category of a “SLAPP”, Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation:

This form of litigation is frequently filed by organizations or individuals to intimidate and silence critics or opponents by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense so that they abandon their criticism or opposition.

Walter Olson of the Overlawyered blog calls the subpoena a “fishing expedition” and “intimidation”. Not only are the demands in the document incredibly broad and laboriously demanding, they are simply irrelevant to the case. Kathleen asserts that she is not involved in the case, and she does not have any special information relevant to the case.

As she stated in her reply (a “motion to quash”),

9. The subpoena commands production of “all documents pertaining to the setup, financing, running, research, maintaining the website http://www.neurodiversity.com” – including but not limited to material mentioning the plaintiffs – and the names of all persons “helping, paying or facilitating in any fashion” my endeavors. The subpoena demands bank statements, cancelled checks, donation records, tax returns, Freedom of Information Act requests, LexisNexis® and PACER usage records. The subpoena demands copies of all of my communications concerning any issue which is included on my website, including communications with representatives of the federal government, the pharmaceutical industry, advocacy groups, non-governmental organizations, political action groups, profit or non-profit entities, journals, editorial boards, scientific boards, academic boards, medical licensing boards, any “religious groups (Muslim or otherwise), or individuals with religious affiliations,” and any other “concerned individuals.”…

15 … Plaintiffs and their counsel seek not only to rummage through records that they suspect pertain to themselves, but also through my family’s bank records, tax returns, autism-related medical and educational records, and every communication concerning all of the issues to which I have devoted my attention and energy in recent years.

This is an incredible amount of documentation. Who would even keep all of these kinds of records? Many sorts of library searches do not give you “receipts”. And, as originally cited in the subpoena, what sort of search engine is “Lexus Nexus”, an automotive dealership? They probably mean LexisNexis(R), as Kathleen properly refers to it. (Spelling error or Freudian Slip?) And what’s with the “religious groups (Muslim or otherwise)”? Her religious affiliations (or lack thereof) have no bearing on the lawsuit.

The subpoena itself lists in those requested documents, “written or verbal communications” between her and a very, very long list of people or groups, which reading through is quite quickly apparent simply her blogroll, meaning all the 100+ blogs that she has links to on her sidebar. Mine is one of that large number, probably because my blog is listed in the Autism Hub feed. Mind you, I have never even mentioned anything about this particular court case on my blog.

So, disclosures: I have no special information about this court case, and I don’t even know any of the people involved. I don’t even know Kathleen personally, and have never met her. I do not work for her or for Neurodiversity.com, and have never even been to New Hampshire. I’ve probably made a few comments on her blog, as I’ve made comments on all sorts of blogs across the World Wide Web, but her blog is not listed on my blogroll. I do have a family member diagnosed with an ASD. I work in school settings with students who have various educational needs, including ASDs. I do not work for a law company, for a pharmaceutical company, or for a medical company.

Asking Kathleen for the least crumb of communication between herself and the numbers of people mentioned simply because they are on her blogroll is absolutly nutz. Can you imagine how many endless pages of paper all those requested documents would be? (What if you printed out every e-mail you had ever sent or received? Do you keep every e-mail you have ever sent or received? Neither do I.)

The responses to this action in the blogosphere have been incredible; big names like Pharyngula, Orac, and Steven Novella have taken time to comment upon action. Liz from I Speak of Dreams is keeping a running list. I too think the legal action is absurd.

One bee from the hive stops to turn over. Instead of being able to look at the viewer, she is displaying her underside, and we have a great shot of a bee’s ventral abdomen, essentially her rear end. Yeah, check out THAT waggle dance, folks.

8 Comments

Buzz Off!

5 April 2008 at 6:50 (Attribution Errors, Behaviour management, Hyperacussis, Injustice, Rants)

No, “buzz off” does not mean that I am being grumpy and telling everyone to Go Away. There are apparently a lot of other people out there who are grumpy about Mosquitos, but not the insect kind. The story (like most) gets complex very fast.

So. There are some young people who hang out in front of shops or public areas and are annoying, even to the point of committing misdemeanors. This is hardly a new problem of urban settings; doubtless ancient Greek and Roman shopkeepers complained about much the same thing. In addition to the primary problems of what the yobbos / chavs / hooligans (pick your fave term) may engage in, there’s the secondary problem of their presence intimidating customers and driving away trade.

Of course, not all young people act like this. In fact, very, very few do. And young people, like people of other age groups, like to get together with their pals and socialise. Of course, when you’re young you don’t have your own place, and not everyone wants to hang around the living room where dad’s watching Top Gear or yet another history programme about some war or another. So kids hang around in parks, on sidewalks, in malls, and other public areas. And then people complain because shockingly, there are kids hanging around. Well, duh; few can afford to spend lots of cash at movie theatres or pool halls or video game parlors, and if you’re not spending, they don’t want you there.

Back in 2005, Howard Stapleton realised that he could use teens’ better hearing against them. In theory, young people can hear up to 20 kHz (20,000 Hertz), but as people age they lose this ability due to presbycusis. Although most older adults can pass a basic hearing exam with flying colors, such exams only test up to 8,000 Hz, because audiologists are concerned with how well people perceive common speech and environmental sounds. (This concept also assumes that those targeted have not had any hearing loss due to listening to loud music in vehicles, headphones, and / or concerts.) Thus, the Mosquito device was born.

According to a distributor’s description, these speakers broadcast a 17.5-18.5 kHz tone at 75 decibels. Although not damaging, the whine becomes very annoying after a couple of minutes, and those who can hear it usually leave after a few minutes, although the unit runs for 20 minutes before shutting off. It can be heard 15 meters / 50 feet away, with stronger models audible as far as 90 meters / 300 feet away.

The Mosquito device proved popular with a number of shopkeepers and other business owners; some 3500 units have been installed around the UK, to prevent young people from congregating outside of stores, rail stations, car parks, industrial areas, city parks, and even school grounds (used after hours). Now it’s being sold in the U.S. and Canada as well.

Naturally, there were protests about the use of the devices. The prototype was banned in its place of inception, Newport, South Wales. Although legal elsewhere, other groups have taken up complaint, and not just young people:

Scotland’s Commissioner for Children and Young People, Children in Scotland, and the Scottish Youth Parliament fully support the campaign launched today in England against the use of the Mosquito device.

So too is Liberty, the National Youth Agency, the Children’s Commissioner for England, which is spearheading the Buzz Off campaign.

Frankly, I find the whole idea of using sonic deterrents as weapons (attack devices) against young people to be abhorrent. These things target and punish all young people present for the actions of a few. You get what you give, so how is being deliberately obnoxious supposed to encourage better social behavior in others? We don’t like it when people go around playing their music too loud, so why is it okay to broadcast high-pitched whines that are meant to get on people’s nerves?

Furthermore, the manufacturers and users assume that only young people can hear these sounds, and that simply isn’t true. I’m 47 and I can hear such frequencies (despite the tinnitus), and a 75 kHz noise is also pretty damn loud, even if it’s not technically at the damaging threshold. If I came across a shop that was using this sonic attack, the shopkeeper would certainly get an earful from me! There’s too much noise as it is, without adding gratuitous noise.

It’s not that I don’t sympathise with business owners and other citizens who are dealing with the effects of antisocial or criminal behavior. But this kind of antisocial retaliation hurts everyone, and is blatant discrimination.

10 Comments

Things that make you say, “Hmn…”

19 January 2008 at 0:11 (Injustice, Judge Rotenberg Center)

Fresh news story about the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center from the Associated Press:

The security camera videotapes of recent incidents at the JRC were destroyed, despite direct orders for them to be saved. The incidents involved two students who were wrongly given numerous electrical shocks by staff members, as a result of prank phone calls.

One student was shocked 77 times and the other 29 times after a prank caller posing as a supervisor ordered the treatments at a Judge Rotenberg Educational Center group home in August. The boys are 16 and 19 years old and one was treated for first-degree burns.

The Disabled Persons Protection Commission planned to release the report Tuesday concluding that one of the teenagers was severely physically and emotionally abused by the treatments. The commission has referred the case to the Norfolk district attorney’s office.

One of the Commission’s investigators had requested copies of the tapes because they were needed to complete a report.

But school officials declined, saying they “did not want any possibility of the images getting into the media.” The investigator told the school to preserve a copy so state police could use it in their criminal investigation. A trooper later told the investigator the tapes had been destroyed.

Amazing how often tapes of alarming or incriminating events get erased (Watergate) or destroyed (waterboarding).

State Sen. Brian Joyce, who has long sought to ban shock therapy from the school, said Israel and his staff should be investigated for obstruction of justice.

“I believe the tape was intentionally destroyed because it was incriminating,” said Joyce, a Democrat. “I intend to ask the attorney general to investigate.”

13 Comments

“Superstition ain’t the way”

29 December 2007 at 0:09 (Abuse, Autism/Asperger's, Injustice, Medical Quackery, Physical impairments, Rants, Vaccines)

Very superstitious, writing’s on the wall.
Very superstitious, ladder’s ’bout to fall.
Thirteen-month-old baby broke the looking glass.
Seven years of bad luck, the good things in your past.
When you believe in things that you don’t understand, then you suffer.
Superstition ain’t the way.

(Part of the lyrics to “Superstition” by Stevie Wonder)

I recently heard on BBC Radio 4 news a story about an effort by the AfriKids organisation located in Ghana. From the AfriKids Web site, they explain:

… a child born with deformities or defining characteristics in the area was considered a ‘spirit child‘ who must therefore not be allowed to live with humans, for fear they will bring bad luck into the lives of the family. Such children, the paper gathered, were subjected to various forms of inhumane treatment aimed at terminating their lives.

To prove their innocence, the deformed infants are given deadly locally prepared concoctions, which the people believe can only kill ‘spirit children’.The practice has been with the people for ages. Until the interventions of some NGOs including Afrikids, the people in the area generally accepted the practice as a traditional norm, which should be conserved and continued.

There are a number of reasons why a child may be born with various deformities, including random genetic chance, maternal malnutrition, and diseases such as polio or rubella. Of course, polio and rubella can be prevented by vaccination. Other news in recent years included Nigeria, where polio vaccines were strongly resisted by local authorities (this article from New Scientist, 18 November 2003):

Laboratory tests by Nigerian scientists have dismissed accusations that the polio vaccine given in a mass immunisation campaign in the country is contaminated with anti-fertility hormones and HIV.

The World Health Organization (WHO) drive to rid the world of polio hit a major obstacle in October when immunisations were suspended in three regions in northern Nigeria due to rumours that the vaccine was laced with the HIV virus and hormones to render women infertile.

Some Islamic clerics suggested the vaccine is part of a Western plot to depopulate Africa. However, test results from experts recruited by the Supreme Council for Sharia in Nigeria gave the all-clear on Tuesday.

“The vaccine is free of any anti-fertility agents or dangerous disease like HIV,” said Abdulmumini Rafindadi, at the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital in Zaria, according to the Nigerian newspaper The Guardian.

But before you start getting cocky from your ethnocentric place in some Westernised, “first-world” country, stop and remember: superstition isn’t just for the illiterate third-world masses. Cloaked in modern pseudo-science or religious devotion, it’s enabling our neighbors to abuse and kill children.

Consider Amy Burney, a five-year old girl from the Bronx (New York City) who was poisoned in April 1997:

Convinced that the child was possessed by demons, Angelee Burney and Ms. Downing forced her to drink a toxic brew of ammonia, pepper, vinegar and olive oil, the police said. The women wrapped her body in a floral sheet and tossed it in the garbage bin outside their apartment building in the Kingsbridge section, the police said.

Consider Terrance Cottrell, an eight-year old autistic boy from Milwaukee who was suffocated during an exorcism.

When Junior arrived at the Faith Temple Church he was asked by the minister to lie on the floor. The boy’s trainers were removed to lesson the blows of his kicks. Sheets were also wrapped around him to stop him scratching. During the “prayer” service, Hemphill reportedly used one hand to hold Junior’s head to the floor and one knee to press down on to the boy’s chest. Cooper, meanwhile, held one of Junior’s feet while Tolefree held the other. Another woman, Monica Carver, was lying across the boy’s chest. All the while, Hemphill whispered into Junior’s ear, ordering the demons to leave him. Junior apparently struggled throughout, with Cooper and Tolefree occasionally losing grip of the boy’s feet and the 157lb Hemphill having to bring Junior forcefully under control.

It was only after two hours, however, that the adults noticed Junior was blue in the face, soaked in his own urine and not breathing. When Hemphill heaved himself up, both he and the boy were drenched with sweat. But the boy’s body was lifeless.

Or an un-named 14-year old autistic boy who was severely beaten during an eleven-hour exorcism during August of this year.

Police say the exorcism turned violent and that Uyesugi, under the guise of ‘God’s work’, battered and beat the boy.

“Sticking fingers into the boy’s mouth while he was restrained on the bed, causing him to vomit. And this happened several times. Family said that Mr. Uyesugi told them this was to cast the demons out,” said Detective Swain.

Police say Uyesugi also punched the autistic teen in the face during the ritualistic beating that lasted for eleven hours.

And of course, there are plenty of well-intentioned but misguided parents in the US and UK who refuse to get their children vaccinated for fear they might “catch autistic”, thus allowing the recent outbreaks of measles and mumps, and the resulting disabilities and deaths as described in this previous post.

Oh sure, we’re all intelligent, well-educated peoples. No one does horrible things here like they do in other parts of the world.

Don’t you believe it.

When you believe in things that you don’t understand, then you suffer.
Superstition ain’t the way.

4 Comments

Liberation by Disability: the paradox of Competency and Inclusion

26 November 2007 at 4:11 (Advocacy, Cognitive biases, Communication, Community, Inclusiveness, Injustice, Paradigms)

“Because there is no way for good people to admit just how bloody uncomfortable they are with us, they distance themselves from their fears by devising new ways to erase us from the human landscape, all the while deluding themselves that it is for our benefit.”
~Cheryl Marie Wade

Disability is usually defined by what a person cannot do. But outside of the normative social realm, disability is really about how a person does things differently.

Within the cultural status quo, the onus of being “acceptable” for consideration to being included by others, is placed upon the person in question, rather than by those who are creating the standards and are choosing to accept or not. Frequently, inclusion must be “earned” by first Read the rest of this entry »

5 Comments

A very painful problem

25 September 2007 at 4:24 (Abuse, Aversives, Behaviour management, Coping strategies, Injustice, Judge Rotenberg Center, Learning Disabilities, Punishment and rewards, Special Education)

When you are looking at a particular problem behaviour in a child (student), the big question is, “Is it really a problem?” “Problem” does not mean it’s unusual, or that some people are uncomfortable because it’s a “stereotypical autistic thing”. “Problem” means someone is getting hurt, or in danger, or poses a considerable social issue. Rocking is not a problem, head-banging is. Lining toys up is not a problem, biting people is.

A great many of people’s responses can be categorised as trying to get something or to get away from something. If you’re trying to get rid of a problem behaviour, then you need to figure out what’s going on. If you can figure out what the stressor is, then you can avoid or reduce it. If you can figure out what the behaviour provides to the person, then you can figure out a more suitable replacement behavior that will provide a benefit, without the problematic issues also associated with it.

Let’s say you have a student (client, child) who is hurting themself. Read the rest of this entry »

9 Comments

Mitigating measures

23 August 2007 at 3:24 (Accessibility, ADD/ADHD, Advocacy, Autism/Asperger's, Injustice, Invisible disabilities, Migraine, Work / Employment)

“Ms Andrea, please explain to the Court how being homosexual substantially limits one or more major life activities.”

“What?”

“Your case to the Court is a discrimination case, claiming the defendant made homophobic remarks. Please describe to the court how homosexual you are.”

“I … what, no. I never said I’m a lesbian, or bisexual, or even heterosexual. I’ve never made any kind of formal statement about my sexual orientation. This isn’t about whether or not I’m gay. This is about the slurs, threats, and homophobic remarks at school. It’s about sexual harassment.”

“Ms Andrea, do not waste the Court’s time. You cannot make a case for discrimination unless you can prove that you are a member of a group that has been discriminated against. Now please explain to the court how being homosexual substantially limits one or more major life activities.”

This is satire, of the dark sort. I have never really filed a court complaint. My actual time in a court process is limited to paying a minor speeding ticket (lesson learned: cruise control is a good thing).

I have been at that ugly social place (repeatedly so) where complaining about homophobic remarks simply sets one up for further sexual harassment, because everyone assumes that complaining about such means that you are gay, and that because you’re gay you “deserve” whatever abuse happens.

The point to this bit of theatre of the absurd is that a person need not be a particular sort of person to have been harassed or discriminated against. Read the rest of this entry »

9 Comments

More than an uncomfortable trend

30 July 2007 at 15:21 (Community, Critical Thinking, Injustice, Politics, Rants, Teaching/Tutoring)

I shouldn’t read the news before breakfast — it’s bad for the happy digestion of my food. These Acts, Bills and Executive Orders keep piling up. It reminds me of the scene in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix when Professor Dolores Umbridge took over as Head Master, and the walls of Hogwarts were being smothered in edicts. The latest item is just one in many, which creates a more than uncomfortable trend. It’s now a disturbing reality. Let’s see, now we have: Read the rest of this entry »

3 Comments

Odds Are …

24 June 2007 at 20:42 (Abuse, Advocacy, Injustice)

Life, they say, is a crap shoot; you never know what you’re going to get, and eventually you’ll lose and your life will be over. A little grim sounding, but not necessarily fatalistic, not like the whole concept of predestination. I’ll take free will any day. But that’s free will guided by inner moral responsibility, not by fear of hellfire and damnation. Though not explicit, there’s still that undercurrent of hellfire and damnation in the various flavours of xenophobia being flung about. (“Xenophobia” means fear of the Other, not fear of Xena, Warrior Princess.)

Sometimes it’s the covert version that seeps through schools in a fog of viscous cliques targeting whatever groups are considered to be outsiders, such as gays or geeks. What most people didn’t seem to realise or acknowledge was that you didn’t actually have to be gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered to be slammed as a “fag”, “homo” or “fairy”. Anyone could be a target for verbal and/or physical violence just because Read the rest of this entry »

1 Comment

Greed Speaks: Fundraising for Nonprofits, Megachurch-Style

10 June 2007 at 4:48 (Advocacy, Autism/Asperger's, Injustice, Rants, Vaccines)

While reading Ginger’s rundown of the Autism Speaks annual IRS (US federal tax) Form 990, it occurred to me that this organisation conducts its financial operations in many of the same ways as do some of the less-savoury megachurches. (I’m not against religion in general or any particular religion, but recognise that churches are run by humans with typically human failings, and that big-scale churches and big egos can result in big-scale failings.) That probably seems like a really odd analogy, but there are a number of parallels, all of which are disquieting. (As another parallel, in the US both churches and nonprofit organisations are exempt from paying federal income taxes.)

Here’s the pathological model of the megachurch fundraising style: Read the rest of this entry »

2 Comments

The Glass Box

28 April 2007 at 16:17 (ADD/ADHD, Auditory Processing Disorder, Communication, Inclusiveness, Injustice, Teaching/Tutoring)

It’s a strange hollow, invisible kind of feeling. As though I could fade away just sitting there, because my own personal reality has so little bearing on what happens.

There it is again in the after-school period. Read the rest of this entry »

11 Comments

International ^DISABLED Women’s Day

9 March 2007 at 2:34 (Abuse, Accessibility, Advocacy, Counseling, Deaf / Hard of Hearing, Epidemiology, Injustice, Work / Employment)

Today is International Women’s Day. This year’s theme is: “Ending Impunity for Violence against Women and Girls”

People with disabilities have a variety of difficulties across their lives, not just from the intrinsic problems associated with the disability, but also the handicaps they face socially. Disabled people are much less likely to finish secondary school, even less likely to go on to further education in university, have more difficulties acquiring jobs compared to their equally qualified non-disabled peers, and therefore generally earn less. Around the world, women in general also are much less likely to finish secondary school, even less likely to go on to further education in university, have more difficulties acquiring jobs compared to their equally qualified non-disabled peers, and therefore generally earn even less.

Not surprisingly disabled women fare worse than disabled men. But hey, you don’t have to take my word for it. According to a report by the Independent Living Institute, disabled women:

  • Data referring to the E.U. shows that percentage of employment in men without disability is 76% versus 36% in disabled men. Regarding women, the percentages vary from 55% in non-disabled to 25% in disabled women.
  • Studies done on specific groups (autistic, for example) show that they are more inclined to remain in institutions for longer periods of time than men.
  • There are a lot of barriers that make access to birth control and family planning very difficult, such as physical barriers, communication barriers etc.
  • In hospitals disabled women are used as models for trainee doctors, without previously asking them for their permission. Videos and slides are taken of disabled women to be used as teaching aids without any control over their use.
  • There are permanent debates on the role women are supposed to play, and that assigned to disabled persons. As a result, while women in general are pressured by society to motherhood, disabled women are forced into not having children, and this many times leads to unauthorised sterilisation, or denial of adoption on the basis of the “incapacity of the mother” to take care of them adequately.

In theme with this year’s International Women’s Day, there’s also the issue of violence against women. Again, women who are disabled fare worse off than those who are not. Furthermore, it is even more difficult for women with disabilities to recognise, prevent or stop such problems.

The report goes on to describe the various kinds of violence that happen to women with disabilities. These are described as Active Violence (physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, economic abuse) and Passive Violence (physical neglect, emotional neglect). These can be manifested in the following ways:

Physical abuse:
Any direct or indirect action that can damage the life, welfare or health of disabled women, provoking pain, unnecessary suffering or health deficiency.
Manifestations:
* Aggressions in different parts of the body
* Unjustified administration of drugs.
* Restrictions of mobility.
Alert Signs:
* To be found in sedative or nervous conditions.
* Motor dysfunction not due to their disability.
* Signs of physical violence: marks in wrists and ankles, fractures, bites, internal damages, burns, etc.
* Detriment in their remains of physical capacity.

Emotional abuse:
Behaviour model that results from damage to the welfare and emotional balance of a disabled woman.
Manifestations:
* Isolation, prohibiting or limiting the access to means of communication (phone, mail..), to information and to keep in contact with other relatives and neighbours.
* Oral cruelty, by means of insults, constant criticism, making fun of their body, punishments in the presence of others.
* Over protection.
* Speaking, deciding or giving opinions in her name.
* Intimidation, and /or emotional blackmail.
Alert Signs:
* Depression.
* Communication and interrelation difficulties.
* Insecurity, and low self-esteem.

Sexual abuse:
Actions that are a sexual aggression towards disabled women, and can produce physical or emotional harm.
Manifestations:
* Rape.
* Sexual vexation or humiliation.
Alert Signs:
* Marks or/and injuries in genitals.
* Fear to relate with certain people.
* Undesired pregnancies.
* Venereal diseases.

Economical abuse:
Actions that pursue the loss of control and rights on properties, money or family shared inheritances. The use of the image of a disabled woman against her will, to gain money for third persons, is also considered economic abuse.
Manifestations:
* The use of disabled girls or women in mendacity.
* Employing disabled women in poorly paid jobs usually linked to clandestine employment.
* Limiting the access to information and management of personal economy.
* The use of money as a sanction.
* The family denies the access to external economic resources (jobs, grants..).
Alert Signs:
* Depending too much on others.
* Little expectations regarding herself and her personal or professional projection.

Physical neglect:
It is understood as such, the denial or privation of the basic aspects to keep the body in good shape, in relation with health, hygiene and image.
Manifestations:
* Negligence in feeding.
* Personal carelessness.
* Neglecting hygienic measures.
* Lack of supervision.
Alert Signs:
* Malnutrition.
* Frequent illnesses not caused by disability.
* Inadequate cloths regarding sex, climate, and the persons’ handicaps.
* Dirty clothes.
* Long periods of time without supervision.
* Physical problems worsen due to lack of treatment.

Emotional neglect:

Those actions that deny or deprive attention, consideration and respect towards disabled women.
Manifestations:
* Ignoring their existence.
* Giving no value to their opinion.
* Feeling ashamed about them.
Alert Signs:
* Lack of interaction.
* No motivation concerning their personal development.
* Scarce or no participation in family or social activities.

The study came up with the following conclusions:

  • Many disabled women see themselves as subjects of maltreatment and abuse, while society ignores the problem.
  • Many disabled women do not see themselves subjects of violence, because they consider these situations habitual in their lives and associated with disability.
  • Disability is a risk factor when suffering abuse and maltreatment situations, which added to the fact of being a woman, increases the risk to higher rates than those of the violence suffered by women in general.
  • Women with sensorial, learning, and communication problems, are more likely to suffer abuse and violence.
  • Not having the traditional female roles assigned contributes to lower self-esteem and increases vulnerability, elements that favour becoming an object of violence.
  • Violence against disabled women shares common characteristics with the female collective, but has specific characteristics as well.
  • Most professionals in charge of counselling and interventions in maltreatment to women ignore that many disabled women are in the same situation. Either because information does not reach them, or because they do not typify as violent acts those they believe associated to disability.
  • Depending on others to cope in daily life increases the risk of being objects of violent actions. This risk is believed lower when personal assistance is given with former professional training and psychological aptitude.
  • Violence against disabled women has more to do with the fact it is considered an extenuating circumstance that these actions are perpetrated against “a faulty being”, than on using a woman’s body as a demonstration of power and control.

The report goes on to describe specific details from several countries. Near the end, the authors describe some of the difficulties that disabled women face when trying to extricate themselves from abusive situations:

It is extremely difficult for any abused woman to leave a situation of abuse. A woman is hit by a husband or a partner an average of 35 times before she calls the police. Battering undermines self-esteem and can make a woman feel she is somehow responsible for her own abuse. For a woman with a disability, this situation is even more difficult. She may be dependent on her abuser for affection, communication and financial, physical and medical support. If she reports the abuse, she may risk poverty and loss of housing and support. She may fear she will not be heard or believed is she speaks out. She may face further violence, institutionalisation, or loss of her children if she seeks help. She may not have access to information about existing support services for victims of violence. Even if she has this information, many sources of support may not be accessible. She may not be able to contact the police or women’s shelters because they do not have communication devices as telecommunication devices for the deaf. She may not be able to physically leave her situation because of a lack of accessible transportation. Her lack of options may leave her feeling so powerless and despairing that suicide seems the only viable choice. And if she seeks help in dealing with suicidal thoughts or attempts, she is unlikely to find counselling which takes account of her own reality. And so she is left isolated and possibly suicidal.

Just as the problems are multifaceted, so are the solutions. The report recommends:

  • Abusive behaviour needs to be acknowledged as a serious social and in some cases criminal problem, rather than being considered a private matter.
  • Protocols need to be developed for institutions to screen potential employees and volunteers.
  • Protocols need to be developed to address the abuse that occurs in institutional settings.
  • Community living alternatives need to be made available for women with disabilities.
  • Courses need to be made accessible and available to women with disabilities (in self-defence, assertiveness training, and sex education).
  • Appropriate suicide consoling which meets the special needs of women with disabilities needs to be made available.
  • Transition houses and other existing support services need to be made accessible, and frontline workers in shelter facilities need to be sensitised to the needs of women with disabilities.
  • Women with disabilities need to be hired to provide this training and to work in these centres and
  • Women in all communities need to work together develop a co-ordinated approach to dealing with the abuse of all women.

7 Comments

Random Thoughts From the Tub

8 March 2007 at 4:09 (Injustice, Love & Acceptance, Personal change)

“If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.”
~Albert Camus

Random thoughts from the tub (life, the universe, and everything):

Life ain’t fair.
No generation has ever created the world it grew up in.
Every generation has been bequeathed a screwed-up world.
Complaining about that is just so much spitting into the wind.

It’s not what you get,
but what you do with it, that matters.
Some of our limitations are real and physical.
Some of our limitations are imposed by what others say we “can” or “ought to” be able to do,
and therefore are what we think we “can” or “ought to” be able to do.
Some people are born with riches of financial comfort or talent, and squander them.
Others are born with absolutely shitty circumstances,
but make more out of themselves than anyone could rightly expect them to.
People are amazing.

Life is hard.
We accept that there are those things that we cannot change.
We also take responsibility for our own actions.
We are blessed and cursed with the freedom,
for all that we choose to do in life.
If you refuse to accept responsibility for what you do,
you are lying to yourself.
If you refuse to see your freedom,
you are lying to yourself.
Being stuck and “not making decisions”
is really a kind of decision in itself.
Amazingly, being sad and afraid is not giving up.
In truth, it is a position of potential power,
once you cease the lies to yourself.
Life is glorious.

Living creates hope.
Regrets gnaw away that hope.
Life is too short for regrets, for might-have-been’s.
Examine experience, learn from it, choose new actions.
You are responsible for what you do.
You cannot make others happy,
Cannot make everyone believe you,
Cannot make everyone accept you,
Cannot make everyone like you.
Never could, never will.
Move on in life.

Happiness is something you make.
It does not come from what others do.
No one else is responsible for the way you feel.
Your feelings arise from your opinions and positions on events.
This is why different people can have different reactions to the same events.
If you change those opinions and positions,
You can change the feelings that result from events.
We cannot change the past,
but we can change how we react to it.
History is not destiny.

Love is like happiness.
It comes from inside you.
We love people for who they are,
not for who we want them to be.
We accept them for who they are;
this is the love.
One must have love to give love.
One must accept their self for who they are, to have that love.
People with healthy hearts are attracted to others with healthy hearts.
The love between them gives space within their togetherness,
and room for aloneness without loneliness.
To love one person does not diminish the love for another.
Love is expansive.
Love is a resource that is too little seen,
but is actually in infinite supply.
People are amazing.
Life is glorious.

2 Comments

Centenary Retrospective

11 February 2007 at 21:04 (ADD/ADHD, Advocacy, Auditory Processing Disorder, Autism/Asperger's, College/University, Communication, Coping strategies, Epidemiology, Eye contact, Humor/ Fun Stuff, Inclusiveness, inertia, Injustice, Learning Disabilities, Learning styles, Medical Quackery, Migraine, Paradigms, Parenting, Personal change, Prosopagnosia, Pseudoscience, Retrospective, Special Education, Stress, Teaching/Tutoring)

“This process of the good life is not, I am convinced, a life for the faint-hearted. It involves the stretching and growing of becoming more and more of one’s potentialities. It involves the courage to be. It means launching oneself fully into the stream of life.”
~ Carl Rogers

Wow. The other day I was looking at my blog stats, and it said that I had 22,000 hits. I have also recently written my 100th post since June; that’s close to thrice a week, for the mathematically disinclined. So I thought I would take a step back and review what has gone by, to see what kinds of topical trends emerge, and pull up some of what I think are the better posts, for those of you who are newer visitors.

Bloggers are usually loquacious and opinionated, a description I do not fail to meet. But why do I blog? Some bloggers just natter about their lives, others blog as an outlet for kvetching, some are pushing a specific agenda, and still others like to analyse what they see. I do a little of all the above, but mostly I like to analyse. I am less concerned about persuading you than I am about giving you something to think about. After all, if we all believed the same things, the dialogues would get pretty dull!

Now that there is data from which to draw a pattern, what kinds of things do I blog about? In a way it is hard to sort posts into single categories, because topically there is an n-dimensional hypervolume of intersecting sets. But as an approach, I like to explore themes from personal experience or news events, and also from philosophical perspectives. I feel that philosophy loses some of its significance without grounding it in the phenomenal fields of people’s lives. And telling stories of lives without examining the what and wherefore of those events falls short of the ultimate value of storytelling: revealing the patterns in human relations, and learning from them.

Some of the greater categories revolve around education, from both student and instructor perspectives, and they revolve around the politics of disability and advocacy. In contrast, there are some themes that connect those categories. One of the most important themes is taking the traditional understandings of how social systems work, and taking those apart to reveal very different perspectives on what is happening.

These systems include how we communicate, such as when the language of “choice” is really just a distractor, or doublespeak meant to transfer the apparent (symbolic) power to the one person who in actuality has little power over the situation. These systems also include power paradigms, including how we “help” people, how people miss the mark when trying to create “inclusiveness”, and why pity is such a evil force because it creates distance between people. (There is no need to congratulate me for having “bravely overcome” the insults and artificial obstacles that people put in my way.)

I also look at how the assumptions we make determine how we define groups of people, from the way that we create diagnostic labels, to the sometimes-absurdities of “person-first language”, and concepts of “tolerance”.

In the end, we don’t need better ways of “beating” the system, because we are all part of the system, and the beatings must stop. (They haven’t improved morale yet.) What we need are ways of overhauling the system by sidestepping these terrible games and introducing different ways of working together.

Our perceptions of the world influence how we act, including how we view and understand others. Sometimes people mistake better identification or newer kinds of identification with “epidemics” of autism, AD/HD et cetera. But I bet if we’d had these kinds of identifiers decades ago, a lot more of us would have been better understood. Hyperactive kids are kind of hard to miss, even those who otherwise do not misbehave. (You wouldn’t believe how many ways there are to sit inappropriately!) More boys than girls are diagnosed, but I have to wonder if that isn’t due more to diagnostic criteria than actual prevalence rate. Why didn’t we see kids with these kinds of “needs” in previous decades? Partly because some of those kids didn’t even go to regular schools — they were kept at home or in institutions. Those who did go to regular schools just had to struggle along. They rarely had IEPs and such because their parents didn’t – couldn’t – ask for services that simply did not exist.

When we make these changes in understanding systems and in our perceptions, they can be outwardly expressed by seeking to become a better advocates. Being able to create a new rôle for one’s self includes being able to learn about the various rôles that others have played. (But just try to find sources on disability studies at the local bookstore!) Advocacy requires overcoming inertia and moving into commitment, and moving into commitment and inclusiveness. We also have to be able to recognise our own sources of ability and power, especially if we’ve been convinced otherwise.

Advocacy is complex, and the concerns of parents for the futures of their disabled children is an important part of that. Unfortunately, people whine about how hard it is to have an autistic child, or any kind of exceptional child. All too often there are terrible news reports about parents who have killed their handicapped or autistic children because they were such a horrid burden. Even more horrifying is when the press perspective or quotes are full of sympathy for the murderer because killing your own child is “understandable” because a person can’t help but be insanely stressed from dealing with the child’s abnormality.

It’s hardly not a new trend. But this millennia-old attitude does a terrible disservice to disabled people everywhere to be cast as either devils or angels. It is dehumanizing, and removes us from our humanity, and thus our basic human rights. In light of the fact that many things have a genetic basis, then hating disabilities in our children involves a curious kind of denial and self-loathing.

Distraught parents also need to understand that there is a difference between getting cured and being healed. The unresolved grief leaves parents susceptible to errors of judgment, and these well-intended but scientifically ignorant people who buy into these things are being duped by charlatans, sometimes with loss of life as well as with great monetary expense. Then the problem is propagated because those well-intended but scientifically ignorant people become meme agents, earnestly spreading the false gospel. Meanwhile, the rest of us are left to weed out the “Astroturf” of faux grass-roots efforts.

Advocacy efforts include those in our schools, and involve administrators, educators, parents, and the students themselves. Sometimes teachers and parents worry about school accommodations because they fear it will leave the students unready for when they have to venture into the “real world”. Or, by misunderstanding the differences between equity, equality and need, teachers fear that giving accommodations “wouldn’t be fair” to the other students.

Parenting our students with learning difficulties is not easy – the traditional methods do not work, which is often why the students end up in “special” education. In turn, the students also get frustrated, and attempts to deal with the unmotivated student can sometimes create further problems. We also have to be careful to distinguish between challenging our students, and just making things more difficult for them. Distinguishing between cause and effect in misbehaviour is important – we need to address the causes to resolve problems.

The teaching end of things can also be rife with issues, and college professors can sometimes fall prey to pedagogical myths. Equally absurd is how learning difficulties are often not recognized until the student has been failing or near-failing for a while, thus allowing the student to get further behind and more entrenched in negative mind-sets. On the flip side, we identify exceptionality by contrasting it to what’s common for the group, or by how well a person functions. But what if our sampling group is far from average, or if the environment is less disabling?

Tutoring and teaching is another means of engaging in advocacy, and one of the best means I have is to share with my students the tools for how they can solve new kinds of problems in the future, for themselves and by themselves. It also gives me the opportunity to constantly learn from my students. During this co-educational process, we often need to figure out where in the learning process they are getting stuck, then come up with different ways of helping them learn new information, and different methods for studying. Sometimes the educational changes we make can be as simple as the way a test is typed up, making it more accessible to all the students. The way the audio-visual equipment is set up also makes a significant difference, including the kinds of computer monitors and lighting used. As a tool for engaging your students’ attention, novelty can be a big help. It can also backfire in unexpected ways…

On the more personal scale, I’m always seeking better ways of dealing with my own challenges of “Executive Functioning”, like dealing with all the stuff, stuff, stuff that piles up, losing something in the Dreaded Safe Place, coping with the inertia of task paralysis, or just getting “stuck” when the Plan B falls apart or I unexpectedly get engrossed in something. In worse cases, this means pulling myself out of an awful case of the Betweens, which condition you won’t find listed in any manual, but one that any ADD or autistic person will surely recognise. Regardless, it still helps to remember that strategies for compensating are just that – and that when there’s too much load on the system, those strategies won’t all succeed. That makes it difficult for me, but sometimes others’ lack of understanding is the greater problem.

When I sat and contemplated my place in the grand scheme of things, I found myself wondering just how it was that I could be “doing things the wrong way” and yet still be producing the right results. Were the processes really as important as the results? Doing things “normally” is very important to the general public. People with a wide variety of differences go to extreme effort trying to “pass for normal”, but this can be perilous. Some parents spend great effort to ensure their autistic children learn how to do “good eye contact”, but this may be a poor goal for some unexpected reasons. People can get hung up on developmental timetables, or they worry and wonder why their child likes to spend lots of time lining things up (it’s a good thing, really).

Adults can come up with some pretty off-the-wall assumptions about what is, or is not, going on in a child’s head; we cannot always assign mental processes to the results we see. Then there’s the situations that an earnest-yet-clueless ADHD or Aspie kid can find themselves in, such as failing to cheat. The really scary part is how these children who have difficulties socialising with their peers will fall prey to bullying and abuse, and general depression. Then we grow up into adults, and there’s the whole sticky territory of trying to make Small Talk, and the repercussions of just having a different sense of humor.

On the lighter end, a few posts are just for fun; about once a month there’s a “Recess”. Recess means we take a break and play – it’s important to do that once in a while. During dinner our family discusses why “resistance is fruitile”, and how to be “underly pedantic”. Meanwhile, I have fun with repeating words, and enjoy taking photographs of improbable things.

My thanks to you for stopping by, and please to leave comments!

andrea

3 Comments

No Congratulations Needed

22 January 2007 at 6:33 (Abuse, Advocacy, Attribution Errors, Injustice)

When I was assaulted, robbed, grossly insulted,
Framed for infractions I didn’t do,
And then went to the authorities
They called me a liar.

When I ignored pretentious fashions
Avoided parties of catty gossip
And shunned drinking and drugs
I was denounced as rebelling the wrong way.

When decided that I needed job skills
Concensus dictated I should take courses
That took advantage of my weakest abilities
Thus guaranteeing my employers’ disdain.

When I had the temerity
To suggest following a dream
That used my natural aptitudes
It was dismissed as pie in the sky.

When I was ill, and put off surgery
To struggle through the semester
They said I wasn’t a good student
And that I didn’t belong in school.

When my spirit broke down
And I could barely teach on weekends
Or write my monthly column
I was deemed not a contributing member of society.

Disability doesn’t mean much
When I’m off in my own little world
I function quite well
Working in my own way.

I work around my weaknesses
And do what I do best
Just as everyone else does
Even if not the same way everyone else does.

I become handicapped
When shoved into situations
That exploit what I cannot do well
And don’t acknowledge my skills.

There’s no need to congratulate me
For having “bravely overcome”
The insults and artificial obstacles
That people put in my way.

5 Comments

Devils and Angels

12 January 2007 at 5:43 (Abuse, Advocacy, Deaf / Hard of Hearing, Developmental disabilities, Inclusiveness, Injustice, Physical impairments)

Reading the morning news is dreadful for the happy digestion of my breakfast. Everywhere I look there are devils and angels, pantheons and freak shows, all in the name of disability.

It’s hardly not a new trend. But this millennia-old attitude does a terrible disservice to disabled people everywhere to be cast as either devils or angels. It is dehumanizing, and removes us from our humanity, and thus our basic human rights.

Being disabled is seen as a condition so horrid that no one could imagine living a happy, (otherwise) healthy, productive life. Not despite the disability, and not especially with the disability or even because of the disability. Being disabled is a fate worse than death. It turns a person into a “toxic train wreck” or it’s “worse than cancer” (because a person with autism, unlike a person with cancer, has a normal lifespan). So horribly unimaginable is being disabled that euthanasia is often deemed acceptable and even an appropriate “solution” to disability.

It has been not very long since people with various disabilities (and other differences) were routinely institutionalized (unfit for being in human society), and often sterilized. A person could be subjected to forcible surgery for such eugenic reasons as being blind, deaf, epileptic, poor, of a native (aboriginal) race, of mixed races, alcoholic, having a physical deformity, cognitive disability or perceived mental illness. Had I been institutionalized as a teenager, my children might not exist.

Being disabled is also seen as a condition where a family is divinely blessed to have been given such a special child who is looked after by angels. I’m not slamming those parents who feel that their children are blessings, but rather saying that all children are such – having a disabled child in the family does not earn a person extra cosmic “brownie points”.

The angelic disabled person is not-quite-human, a tragic but romanticized virgin on a pedestal of virtue. Certainly not an everyday sexual adult; a female person should never do anything as inconvenient as menstruate. Like 19th-century women, the disabled are sometimes cast as cherubic, above the base animal instincts of men, and held in divine favor. In medieval times, the town’s fools were excepted from normal citizenship, either as unclean or sometimes soothsayers, if given to (epileptic or other) fits.

In current news there is the case of the “Ashley Treatment” where a young disabled girl’s parents have elected to have her undergo several surgical treatments plus œstrogen therapy to keep their “pillow angel” a small, manageable size and to remove her breast buds and uterus to prevent her natural sexual development. Removing breast-buds to prevent cancer is a specious argument. I don’t know if the history of cancer is from the maternal and/or paternal side(s) of the family, but it’s pretty telling that we don’t hear of mom and/or dad also having mastectomies to prevent cancer. After all, cancer is more commonly found in older people. Likewise it’s another specious argument that making her infertile will prevent the potential for sexual abuse from caregivers – children are just as easily targets of molestation (it simply makes any abuse more difficult to discover because she won’t unexpectedly come up pregnant). Were she male, would the child have similar surgeries?

At that rate, one could simply hobble a child so they never ran away. Or one could mute a child so they wouldn’t scream loudly when upset. Or one could remove all of a child’s teeth so they couldn’t bite anyone when scared – oh wait, people have already done that …

I have to sympathiese with her parents; caring for someone on a daily basis is difficult. But trying to prevent sexual abuse or care difficulties by surgically removing body parts is working at the wrong end of a major social problem. It’s completely backwards! The problem is not that disabled people exist, but rather that there are not suitable social support networks for disabled people and their family members.

Many handicaps are socially created — it’s not the person who has the problem, it’s the way society is set up.

No longer is the disabled person a sick lurid spectacle to be hidden away. They are once again on parade, the freak show turned into infobites. An insidious side effect of freakifying the disabled as devils and angels is that it not only creates the disabled as Other, but it also does a great disservice to those who view themselves as nondisabled: it makes a person glad to be normal, and content to be average. It perpetuates the divisions and reinforces the dualities. With such positions, we can never create inclusivity.

What could be worse than being cast as devil or angel? Being totally discounted as a non-person. Being neglected and dying a slow, painful death like Sarah Crider or Tiffany Pinckney.

The human race has a lot to answer for.

7 Comments

Our Hidden Power

26 November 2006 at 18:03 (Advocacy, Injustice, Paradigms, Personal change)

Much of the pain we find in situations is what we bring from our own suffering, and we keep re-projecting that suffering into the situations. We carry with us the compilations of confusions like luggage, and masses of delusion like garb that fill the luggage. These weigh us down and weary us. Yet we are convinced that we must have some luggage, and that the luggage we have is supposed to be good luggage, or luggage that we are supposed to improve or trade for better luggage. We feel “eternally cheated” because we aren’t carrying the kind of luggage that we thought we wanted, or that were told was the best kind of luggage. But the luggage and everything in it is the actual problem, not the kind of confusion-suitcases we have, nor the kind of delusion-garb in the suitcases.

The reason we are dragging all this luggage is because it is meant to distract from our own power. Surprisingly, because autistics and other people who are atypical already work outside the social paradigms, they have a certain access to power. It is for this that there is so much fear of the differences – the ability to see the artificiality of the social norms and to work outside of the normalizing influences. But as long as we are unaware of this, we will be stuck where we are.

~//~

“When I dare to be powerful – to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important, whether I am afraid.”
~ Audre Lorde

“Power” has many meanings. I consider power to be ability, strength, and creativity. Power as ability allows you to do things to take care of your needs (or the needs of those whom you are responsible for, such as children). Power is also strength, not in the sense of force, but as potential and endurance. The potential comes from the ability to avoid being “for” or “against” existing ideas (and expending great energy either way), but from simply stepping outside them and transforming energy. Companion to (but not opposite to) strength is gentleness, an acceptance of energy. Creativity is the experience of personal power when forming or transforming new understandings/ visions/ feelings, and often shaping those into a transmissible or translatable form to share and change others’ experiences. Personal power comes from the eternal change of the person. Like love, power is inexhaustible. Power can be shared, rather than just given/taken.

Power is an understanding that every organism must by necessity, be self-centered and care for itself, without the assignment of value judgements that self-care is “selfishness”. One must self-care before being able to care for others, literally or in the positive emotional sense. “Poverty” results from powerlessness, when you (for whatever reason) do not have the options in life that allow you to meet your needs.

Popular conceptions of power (such as one finds in dictionaries or history stories) include an authority (in the sense of both the judging-deciding and the expert-wisdom source), that is able to control-command what others do, and is able to control-command what others can have, by influence and/or force. Power is often considered to be a “right”, meaning the accepted covenant that gives collective individuals powers to a person or position. The word “right” in itself has a messy complexitude of meanings, including privilege, propriety, and correctness.

You can see there is an essential difference here. The popular conception of power usually include assumptions about top-down regulation as an inherent, unavoidable, required and necessary form of power, with the assumptions about the inevitability of that process, the necessity of power-by-a-few, and the inherent correctness of that situation. Power is seen as an inevitable form of giving and taking, with inherent weakness on the part of the individuals. It assumes that there is a scarcity of power, and that everyone selfishly competes for power. Political systems are officially designed to structure those interactions, and implicitly to maintain a status quo of the power paradigms. Government and education (and education about what government “is”) are not the only sources of power regulation; there are also strong nets of inter-related cultural memes that actively work to enforce the status quo.

This concept of power seeks to prevent change; it wants things to “be” a certain way, and thus like a bridge trestle in the middle of a river, is always working against the flow. It takes great energy to work at resisting change, and that energy is drawn from the multitudes of individuals. They must be convinced to give away part of their own power to this futile effort.

Within that conceptual framework, personal power is seen as personal ability (usually requiring competency that is assigned by authority) and strength (force of will or body – an ability to resist something). Personal power is rarely understood as ability from the ease of self-authority, strength from potential and endurance, and the experiential transformation of creation. Therefore, most people are quite unaware of the powers that they naturally have. Many of the power paradigms work to maintain that lack of awareness, by limiting people’s understandings of how power works, and by meting out the “punishment of reward” to those who are willing to (or unwittingly) perpetuate more of the same system.

Power can only be given, not taken. Many people do not realize that they have any inherent power or that they can create power. Instead, they are taught to think rather that power is given to them. (Two-year old children are an exception; because they are still in the process of being “socialized”, they are fully aware of their own power when they demonstrate that well-known response, “NO!”)

The transfer or giving up of power requires that one accepts or believes that others’ purposes/ goals/ methods are more important that one’s own. Doing this diminishes and defers one’s own needs (our needs are “selfish”), and also devalues or denies one’s own sense of wisdom that is one’s perceptual forms and understandings of the world. Institutions of many sorts teach these assumptions to guarantee their own persistence.

When we ignore these givens, we become agents in the system that are untouched by the cultural covenants. When we express our abilities that rise from ease of self-authority, we create puddles of null-effect in the power paradigms. The “aberrant” individuals fail to comply by deferring their time and efforts to “selfish” works, instead giving their energy to others.

Focus is a power, and one that is rarely considered as such. Focus is the ability to maintain the strength of one’s drive. Part of the power of strength is endurance, the ability to follow the unique concepts by perseverating upon them. Many autistics naturally do this, and a system that seeks to Normalise everything is therefore threatened. This is because focus creates “hot spots” of power in a system that seeks homeostasis by minimising the power apportionment to individuals.

Disregard for Normalising influences (e.g., peer pressure) is a power. The power game only works if we play it; ‘nuf said. Those who recognize their personal power ignore the requirements for requesting recognition of expertise. They follow their own strengths and wisdom. Indeed, what else can a person really do? How one perceives and understands the world is unique.

The person whose perceptions and interactions with the world are skewed from the norm will never be able to completely fit within the accepted parameters. We have seen that trying to fit into some of those required perceptions repeatedly ends in failures, and censure. Trying instead to assert our different perceptions can result in others’ denial that things could possibly that way, or results in others’ assertions that these things are done “wrong”. Being expected to “know” what is correct and then demonstrating that in social interactions, without necessarily having the ability to discern those messages or those rules is the illogical “catch-22” that makes us insane or depressed.

Wisdom is impossible to gain if so much energy is expended trying to reconcile what we know intuitively to be true from our perceptions of the world, with what others (stuck in their dichotomous view of the universe) insist is the only correct understanding. Instead, we regain personal power when we can realize that we need neither accept nor deny these social constructs, but rather to ignore them and instead work with our personal strengths. Strength creates potential, the ability to not be constrained by customary thought.

This is not to say that we cannot suffer consequences from refusal to play the social games. This is due to the fact that a variety of people will be made very uncomfortable by those who “ought” to know what the rules are, but don’t follow them. They try to “fix” those who disregard this paradigm, for a variety of reasons. A variety of reasons are assigned to all this fixing: helpful, caring, altruistic, or corrective (sometimes punitively so). But frequently those care-giving reasons are nothing more than covert expressions of the need to maintain the power paradigm.

Bullies do not work within the power system(s), but with it; they recognize how it really works, and how manipulate it to their own ends. Those who are outside the power system but do not realize it, are then targets for bullies because the bullies can often make the rules selectively work for them. Those who are outside the power system and DO realize it confuse the hell out of bullies, sometimes resulting in the antagonistic fear-from-ignorance reaction. The problem of course is that many autistics are in the former, rather than the latter group.

~//~

Once we quit dragging around this luggage and everything in it, we can finally stand aright and see the joy that is the real world. But when we’re dragging luggage, all we can see is a world that is an endless luggage-carousel of pain.

We have neither succeeded because of the system, nor despite it. When we have succeeded, it is because we have found ways by learning paths that worked for each of us. How can we help others until we can find our own healing? This is not a problem, but an opportunity.

Our strengths are our assets.
Used properly, our weaknesses are our assets as well.

Too many people assume that to have any power, they have to have the ability to force others to do what they want to do. This is a grossly distorted vision, and one that is perpetuated by the system that relies on keeping people ignorant about their own generative and coöperative powers by convincing them that force is the only system.

In truth, divisiveness and scarcity and differences are artificial constructs meant to confuse the issues. People who continue to believe in such are letting themselves be kept “in their place”. It is when we realise our abilities and commonalities, and can show others that they share those as well, that we are able to do what we need to do to help each other.

“If you think you are too small to be effective, you have never been in bed with a mosquito.” ~Betty Reese

2 Comments

“Who the hell are you to complain?”

24 November 2006 at 2:04 (Abuse, Communication, Injustice, Paradigms, Personal change, Special Education)

While washing dishes I started off thinking about the things I was thankful for (the usual census: family, health, good weather, employment and so on), and then by the drying stage my thoughts had wandered off (as they are wont to do), and I realised that I had some things that were more on the Relief side of the bookkeeping, such as “I’m so relieved that my life isn’t full of bitter, angry, crazy-making people.” That wasn’t a very cheerful sort of relief, because it meant that my life used to be. There is also a sort of spiritual weariness that comes from being thankful for the bad things that aren’t happening to you.

Trying to figure out, “How does one get into those kinds of situations?” isn’t hard, because unfortunately, the world is chock-full of them. The blogoshere is rife with weary stories about people’s struggles. But later on while soaking in the philosophical font that is the bathtub, I realised once again that so many of these struggles revolve around the same faulty premises.

There is a pervasive myth of scarcity in our society. I’m not talking about physical resources, even though some of those truly are physically scarce, and many are actually badly shared. Rather, I’m talking about the myth of social scarcity. The fabric of the story line has these warp threads running through it, and given how obnoxious they are, we might call them Warped Threads:

There’s not enough caring to go around — if you get what you need, then I can’t get what I need.

Everyone is being judged, and if I can “prove” that my problems are “worse” than yours, then I win and will get the caring I need, and you lose and won’t get it.

If I don’t get the caring I need, then I can’t be held responsible for being upset, and acting out my frustrations by punishing others.

If I feel slighted because others won the contest, then I’m justified in doing what I feel I “have to” to get substitute needs met.

These lines are getting very childish sounding, aren’t they? And yet they form the foundation to a tremendous amount of infighting for resources or services, and blaming others for creating problems so they can be charged for restitution, and excusing abusive or murderous actions against innocent people.

Wow. There is in fact a deep level of social immaturity, selfishness, lack of empathy and pettiness to the whole scenario. I would call this a cultural immaturity, but it is hardly limited to one culture.

Indeed, these scenarios are widespread and are seen in every bureaucratic, legal, scholastic, and economic system. At these broad levels of pervasiveness, we don’t even notice the underlying errors so that they seem to be the natural order of things.

Underlying all of them is the wholly artificial concept of scarcity: There’s not enough to go around — it’s you or me.

This perceived scarcity even extends to assisting others. A strange virtue is sometimes seen in “guarding” the services-as-scarce-resources from people who would use them.

You’re not fit to judge what services you need, or whether or not you need the services.

We can’t give you these services because other people need them.

You’re not the worst off, so you don’t need them badly enough to get them.

You’re so badly off that you wouldn’t be able to really make good use of them, so they would be wasted on you.

You’re just being greedy, going around asking for services.

If you’re not failing, you’re obviously getting by okay.

Anyone who fails like that is just being lazy or noncompliant. We’re not giving you any services until we can see you putting forth enough effort.

(Bang head here.)

But it doesn’t do any good to whine and complain about how “unfair” things are, and how you “deserve” better. I’m not saying that you don’t deserve better, but rather that we all deserve better. The sad fact is that the people who are doing these things also deserve better. They perpetuate the problem because they don’t recognise the causes of it, and because they lack the tools to build something else.

Most importantly, we don’t want to punish people for having problems. This screwed-up social paradigm is certainly a great problem that besets us all. Instead of antagonism, we need to help each other. We need to quit staking out lines between Us and Them. We need to help by teaching each other how we can help each other. After all, the reason that humans are social animals is because we can work together to create solutions for problems that we cannot solve as individuals. We are all dependent upon each other for a multitude of things.

We don’t need better ways of “beating” the system, because we are all part of the system, and the beatings must stop. (They haven’t improved morale yet.) What we need are ways of overhauling the system by sidestepping these terrible games and introducing different ways of working together.

“The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never allow us to bring about genuine change.” ~ Audre Lorde

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