Trigger Warning: Discussions of abuse/murder of autistic people
I don't automatically hate you. Really. I don't think many of us do (the ones who do, however, have had enough done to them by parents that they have the right to it.) Mistrust, on the other hand, is extremely common. If you were in our positions, you probably wouldn't trust parents either. See, good parents exist, and bad parents exist, and downright dangerous parents exist. Whatever you might think of how bad an idea regarding autism is, we have probably dealt with parents who thought it was great, then used it as evidence that we could not possibly understand and our disagreement as evidence that we did not even understand ourselves. It sucks to be in that position, by the way. It also sucks to be told that we don't understand your position. Chances are, we do. We just have bigger things to worry about.
See, we care more about your child's safety than we do about anyone's feelings, same as you hopefully do. We have, however, learned from experience that we can't trust parents to do the same, not with an autistic child. There is this tendency to mistake normal for happy and abnormal for distressed, which isn't accurate. There is the tendency to think that society not accepting you means you're broken, as opposed to society being broken. And . . . believing oneself broken leads to all kinds of problems, including depression and sometimes suicide attempts. So that kind of thing really can be an issue of physical safety in addition to emotional safety. Would you blame anyone for rating safety higher then feelings, as long as you recognize that's what's going on and that the person whose safety is being prioritized is fully human? If the answer is yes, that's a problem. If the answer is no, it's time to shut up about how autistic adults don't trust you, be trustworthy, and call out parents who aren't trustworthy. Because as it stands now, mistrusting parents is justified. After all, it is parents who killed George Hodgins and Daniel Korby and others like them. And it is parents who refuse to condemn these things, instead talking about how difficult it is to raise autistic child. Would you trust a group that had a tendency to react to murders of people like you with sympathy for the murderers because people like you are so hard to deal with? If the answer is yes, you are much too trusting. If the answer is no, try for some empathy. That tendency is a big part of why we don't trust you.
I don't automatically hate you. Really. I don't think many of us do (the ones who do, however, have had enough done to them by parents that they have the right to it.) Mistrust, on the other hand, is extremely common. If you were in our positions, you probably wouldn't trust parents either. See, good parents exist, and bad parents exist, and downright dangerous parents exist. Whatever you might think of how bad an idea regarding autism is, we have probably dealt with parents who thought it was great, then used it as evidence that we could not possibly understand and our disagreement as evidence that we did not even understand ourselves. It sucks to be in that position, by the way. It also sucks to be told that we don't understand your position. Chances are, we do. We just have bigger things to worry about.
See, we care more about your child's safety than we do about anyone's feelings, same as you hopefully do. We have, however, learned from experience that we can't trust parents to do the same, not with an autistic child. There is this tendency to mistake normal for happy and abnormal for distressed, which isn't accurate. There is the tendency to think that society not accepting you means you're broken, as opposed to society being broken. And . . . believing oneself broken leads to all kinds of problems, including depression and sometimes suicide attempts. So that kind of thing really can be an issue of physical safety in addition to emotional safety. Would you blame anyone for rating safety higher then feelings, as long as you recognize that's what's going on and that the person whose safety is being prioritized is fully human? If the answer is yes, that's a problem. If the answer is no, it's time to shut up about how autistic adults don't trust you, be trustworthy, and call out parents who aren't trustworthy. Because as it stands now, mistrusting parents is justified. After all, it is parents who killed George Hodgins and Daniel Korby and others like them. And it is parents who refuse to condemn these things, instead talking about how difficult it is to raise autistic child. Would you trust a group that had a tendency to react to murders of people like you with sympathy for the murderers because people like you are so hard to deal with? If the answer is yes, you are much too trusting. If the answer is no, try for some empathy. That tendency is a big part of why we don't trust you.
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