Dear Well-Meaning Autism Mom Looking For A Surrogate Mom For Your Son, Please Don't Assume The Person You Approached Is A Girl Or Straight

Guest post by Elizabeth Rosenzweig. 

So I run an autism meetup. Parents of post-pubescent autistics are not invited. There’s a number of reasons why but one of them in particular has been making the blog rounds: well-meaning but misguided parents who, out of concern for their son’s (and it is always a son, isn’t it?) inability to fend for himself, look to set up a trust fund for him in the shape of a kindly woman savior who will cook and clean and pay his bills for him, forever and ever, amen. The guys themselves can be the problem, too; a person who should be a grown-ass man asks you out and is then shocked, SHOCKED, to discover that you’re just as shit at getting A Job, remembering to pay bills on time, and feeding/picking up after yourself as he is, if not worse. (I, uh, may or may not have very personal experience with that one.)

But I’ve already had two very smart friends I admire address that aspect in plenty of depth, so, well-meaning but misguided parent, let me address another one that you may not have considered.

That long-haired, girl-shaped, pretty, kind person you met, the one you think would look so cute on the arm of your precious manchild (or your precious self), might not actually be a girl. Or straight.

They could be asexual or aromantic - content and whole within themselves. They might be allosexual but gay. They might use she/her pronouns but feel utterly alienated from femininity as a concept. They might be a genderless android. They might be a trans man. You just don’t know!

It’s almost like that long-haired, girl-shaped, pretty, kind person is… hear me out for a second… a person. Not your personal insurance policy, or your uncompensated PCA, or your romantic-comedy-prize, or your glorified German Shepherd, but an entire human being unto themselves, with weaknesses and feelings and ambitions beyond saddling themselves to some cisgendered guy who wants things done just like his mom did them. *They* might be the one needing a PCA! They might maybe sometimes need someone to hold them while they cry hysterically because they foolishly expended all their energy for the day on folding three-quarters of the laundry. (I, uh, may or may not have very personal experience with that one too.)

How do I even address the sexual side of things with you? You, hypothetical mom, have almost certainly had experience with shutting up and taking it while a male partner got his rocks off inside you. Is that how you want your son treating his life companion? Is that how you would want to be treated? I’m certainly sick of it, or worse, being treated as deranged for exploding in frustration after having my own needs go unacknowledged and unmet for years at a time. I got so sick of it that I quit men and went monogamous with an assigned-female-at-birth genderless android. So far, so good. But how would you know that from looking, unless you saw me and my wife together? 

The point is, you don’t consider those things. You think about your own fears, which are visceral and immediate. What will become of my child after I’m gone? When will I have a chance to feel like a person and not a 24/7 PCA - won’t anyone please help me? And those questions resonate so loudly inside your own head that you don’t stop to ask yourself the ones I’ve posed here. That’s not my problem, though, nor is it the problem of any long-haired, girl-shaped, pretty, kind autistic. It’s not fair of you to put your anxieties on us, when we have so many of our own to contend with.

One of the side benefits of running an autism meetup is that you have the opportunity to meet a lot of people of all ages and genders and walks of life. I have quite a few lovely gentlemen who are regular attendees. Let me reassure you, dear, hypothetical mom, that almost all of them have turned out just fine, with the support of agents and agencies who are meant to do the work that you are looking for from that nice autistic at the meetup. It’s actually the ones whose parents have done the most coddling and interfering who are struggling the most.

So please. Stop putting your cissexist, heteronormative expectations on people you barely know, in the name of providing for your own offspring. You’ll start working on real solutions much faster once you do.

"Locker room talk", "vulgarity", and sexual assault.

Heads up that I'll be talking about sexual assault. Most of the thoughts I'm expressing are things I've heard elsewhere, but not necessarily combined in the way I'm doing and I unfortunately don't remember my sources. Also note that my position on the Trumpster fire, though not stated on this blog before now as far as I know, has been "As a queer disabled Jew descended from Holocaust survivors, I am concerned by these patterns" for some time. Also part of my position is: "Knocking down one figurehead of these patterns doesn't undo them, but letting one such figurehead become the most visible figure of a country makes the patterns get much worse, very quickly."


I've seen quite a few articles floating around that talk about the Trumpster fire's latest comments as "vulgar," rather than as "bragging about sexual assault." Let's start off with thing the first: he's bragging about sexual assault. I've also heard about it getting defended as locker room talk, and typical of men. (Also something men will sometimes try to include queer women in, because apparently the fact that someone likes women means that they would go in for their objectification and the glorification of their assault?)

And I am, in fact, well aware that not all men would commit any sort of sexual assault. (I'm also aware that quite a few will admit to having done so as long as you only describe the act and don't call it what it is.) Want to know who doesn't realize that? The men who assault think that all men actually do so, and just avoid getting caught/in trouble for it. So when someone tells me that these sorts of statements are normal locker room talk, I have to come to one of two conclusions:

1. They're one of the ones who would (or has) assaulted.
2. They can't tell the difference between speaking about consensual acts in a vulgar way and speaking about assault in a vulgar way.
1. Or they don't care about that difference? That's not better though.

Similarly, when someone tells me that all men are like this in private, that all men will "take advantage" if they get you alone, or anything similar ... if it's not about the vulgarity, option 2 (or 2.1) isn't really there. I have to conclude that they have, or would, assault. They're telling me something about themselves -- if you claim every member of a group does X, and you're a member of that group, you claim to do X. That logic doesn't depend on what X is.

And if someone tells me this is normal, that all men speak like this in private, they don't get to turn around and claim that not all men are like this should I take precautions. They also get to cope if I take those precautions specifically about and around them -- see the logic in the last paragraph.

On another note, I've heard the idea that groping is "less serious," "not really assault," or "not a big deal." I can't speak personally to less vs. more serious, because groping is the only kind of assault I've experienced, and only once. ("Lucky" me. And the fact that this really is lucky is seriously messed up.) From a more general perspective, though, I'm fairly sure it's a bad idea to compare which kinds of assault are more or less traumatizing. It definitely is really assault. Our judicial system is similarly terrible about caring, and similarly tends to blame the victim if a report even happens, and it's really assault. It's a person touching or grabbing you in a sexual way, without consent. (I never reported mine. The study abroad program I was on at the time had been attempting to have me sent home related to my disability, and I sure as heck wasn't about to give them a safety issue as ammunition.) 

And then there's "not a big deal." It is, or it should be, but sometimes it doesn't get to be. People who've been through a lot of trauma sometimes ... adjust ... their ideas of what counts, or of how bad the things they've been through really are. It's not usually conscious, or intentional, but it's a thing that happens. I think it's part of our tendency to "norm" on our own experiences. (Another example of this sort of norming would be my reaction to being unable to speak. I pretty much don't care, it's just another day ending in -y. This is apparently unusual.) Growing accustomed to something in this way doesn't make it OK, if it's something that wasn't OK before. But it definitely means that things which are, in fact, a big deal don't always get to register as such. 

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#Pokémon Go and #Autism

Like most games that get super popular, Pokémon Go has a lot of autistic people interested and playing. We play games, you know. And enjoy having fun.

Like most activities that have autistic participants, Pokémon is getting attention from autism "experts" and professionals. They want to know why we play (uh, it's fun... why do neurotypical people play?) They want to know what it "helps with", since apparently everything autistic people do (everything we're allowed to do by our all-knowing and compassionate caretakers?) must "help with" (reduce) some aspect of our autism.

I am, of course, less than thrilled about the assumptions involved here. There are plenty of things I do for reasons that differ from why neurotypical people do them, but that's not so much in the area of games. It's more in the area of "I said words because I meant those words, but apparently neurotypical people say those words as code for something else and what do I do if what I actually mean is those words, why do you neurotypical folk need to ruin useful statements with your codes???"

So, why do I play Pokémon Go?

Well, it's fun.

Also, it gets neurotypical people socializing in more autistic ways, which makes it a heck of a lot easier for me to understand them and interact with them. Let's turn the usual social skills paradigm where we assume it's the autistic person socializing "wrong" on its head and make a super popular game that encourages people to socialize autistically, thanks.

Here's what I mean when I say that it encourages autistic socialization:

1. This isn't random small talk. "Hi, there's an Eevee over here!" makes a perfectly acceptable introduction to a fellow Pokémon Go player. Or when you meet one at a gym, "What team?" Straight to the point.
1. It's centered around a single shared interest. That interest is Pokémon (Go).
   
2. Eye contact is not an expected thing on any side. This is centered around a game played on our phones or tablets, so it's completely expected and accepted that we are looking at our phones or tablets, not at the people we're talking too. Great!
   
3. Pokémon was created by an autistic guy. He likes bugs. Why did you think "bug" was a type in Pokémon?

So let's turn that question around: Why do neurotypical people play Pokémon Go? What does it help them with? I welcome input from parents, professionals, and of course, those with neurotypicality themselves. But only when they are self-narrating zoo exhibits. I don't really think those with neurotypicality can speak to the general neurotypical experience :p

(And yes, that's what you sound like when you add a note about autistic contributors at the end of your calls for contributions.)

Alyssa Reads Uniquely Human: Part 7

I'm still reading Uniquely Human. I am getting very tired of running into the Exact. Same. Problems. every chapter. Can I just at this point write, "Assume every description and anecdote is written in a behaviorizing way, or at best partially behaviorizing," have y'all take it as a given criticism, and write that fewer times already? Please? And since I've linked that same Disability in Kidlit article for the last several parts, can we take it as background material y'all reading this post have also read?

Anyways, the preceding part of my review is here, and the series begins here.

I take the usual issue with the anecdotes.

The comparison of learning social rules and learning to read body language to learning a second language in adulthood is actually quite apt. I've heard quite a few autistic adults compare body language to a foreign language, and not a particularly logical foreign language. (I think by logical vs. not logical in a language, the metric is how many exceptions there are to the "rules" of the language? English, for example, is not that logical because the exceptions have exceptions and we rifled through the pockets of other languages for spare grammar.)

Another side of the "foreign" language bit is that, well, autistic body language and neurotypical body language are different, even within the same macro culture. Neurotypical people usually can't read my body language very well, and often can't read it at all, because they aren't used to interpreting autistic body language through learning what things mean and tend to simulate what would it mean if they were using that body language. It doesn't work well, because they are very different from me. Autistic people tend to be better at reading me, and I'm better at reading other autistic people, but since most people are not autistic, it looks like the non-autistic folks can read (general) body language and autistic folks can't.

Dr. Prizant notes that one problem we run into is that we learn the rules and the exceptions, but it's another (and again unwritten ugh) rule that "generally people don't talk about the rules, they just follow them." (115). Which I'm going to point out is something in neuronormative culture that, yes, it's useful for us to know, but it's also something where changing that expectation is a required part of meeting us anywhere but the 97-3 split y'all like to pretend is halfway.  He doesn't point that out, by the way. I think he's still about helping us fit into a version of the mainstream where some people are a little more understanding while teaching us how to fit, rather than realizing that the mainstream is going to need to change big time.

Some more anecdotes follow with the usual problem. Blech.

One good point here: a problem with getting an assignment done could result from the assignment not making sense to the student. (Been there, done that, didn't get the T-shirt because the paperwork involved made no sense to me and no one believed me enough to help me with the paperwork...) Which is actually sufficient explanation on its own before shoving in the extra assumption that we don't realize it's a good idea to do class assignments and please the teacher. (Hint: I know full well that not doing an assignment is a bad idea. I'm still not going to push myself into a meltdown trying to do stuff I can't do, unless I know for a fact that letting the teacher see that result will get them to stop pushing me to try the thing I can't do. Self-preservation, not lack of social awareness. You can get a decent idea of my internal panic around the language utilization reports for my study abroad here, here, and here. The eventual resolution was "your residence adviser will help you" followed by "after her report from the attempt, we're not making you do those anymore." )

Also I feel like this tweet from real social skills is relevant here, since accessibility of assignments is getting discussed, even if it's not really getting framed that way:

Treating an accessibility problem as a behavior problem ends poorly whether or not you use punishment to address it.

— RealSocialSkills (@rsocialskills) June 10, 2016

Good idea pointing out that labeling pictures with emotions is different from understanding emotions or recognizing our own. (Did you know that we can't actually see our own faces to see if we look like w're smiling without the aid of a mirror?)

Soooo Lovaas got mentioned, but the apparently problem is that he insisted incorrectly that the ability to make eye contact when asked was needed in order to learn other skills. And that is a problem. But that as sole cited problem is really icky. (This is the guy who thought electric shocks were a good idea. This is the guy with the "you've got to build the person" idea. Very ew. Talking about him as an autism specialist and not as a horrible human being who didn't think we were human? Thanks, but no thanks.)

I have to wonder how much of what he's interpreting as not having the instinct to communicate what's bothering us is actually:

1. Compliance training having explicitly taught us not to communicate what is bothering us.
2. Difficulty initiating communication, which is right in DSM-IV and therefore shouldn't be a surprise to a clinician. 
3. #1 making #2 even more of a thing.

Continue to part 8 here.

Representation, Freedom of Speech, and Patterns

Warning: suicide (mostly in fiction but with discussion of real life effects)

The example of the moment is Me Before You. It's yet another example of a movie where the disabled person is cured, dies, or is sent away (often institutionalized, see Rain Man) and this is part of a "happy" ending. In this case, we've got suicide because the quadriplegic guy doesn't want to be a burden on his girlfriend, and this is noble of him somehow.

(Seriously why is it noble for a disabled person to kill themself, but nondisabled people have so much to live for?)

I say example of the moment because there are a lot of movies where the disabled person dies and this is apparently a good thing, because they aren't suffering anymore. And the people around them? Despite any insistence they may have given at the time that the disabled person wasn't a burden... they are now free to do all kinds of things they would never have done before and apparently the person totally is being shown as having been a burden.

As in, story arcs of this type are a pattern.

When we point this out, we get told how this is "just a movie." (False, by the way: it's one movie in a pattern of fiction killing off its disabled characters. Not isolated.) We get told that the directors are free to make movies about whatever they want. (True. By the same token, we're free to tell the world that this type of arc is overdone, and that it reveals some problems when suicide is a happy ending...)

These are also patterns.

The free speech pattern applies to a whole lot of things. A person says something that is punching down. It gets pointed out. "But freedom of speech!" Yes. Freedom of speech. As Randall Munroe shared (but did not come up with -- he's not sure who did,) citing free speech is conceding that your best defense of what you just said is that it's not literally illegal to say it. Plus freedom of speech also means we can share our opinion that your speech was pretty bad.

People generally don't like having it pointed out that criticism is an expression of free speech. Again, patterns.

And here's the thing: the prevalence of fictional arcs of this type, where the disabled character dies (and ones where the character is cured, and the ones where the character is sent away) are super common. If disabled activists were actually censoring this sort of story, don't you think there'd be fewer of them around?

And yes, folks responding to "so this really common trope is pretty terrible" with cries of censorship, even though the prevalence of the trope suggests that it is clearly not being censored, is also a pattern.

Presenting

Apparently my presentation at Autcom is the part that I'm able to write about. For the ways things were done wrong (and were they ever done very, very wrong) you can read Neurodivergent K's post, Turtle is a Verb's post, Mitchell's post on a blog I think he might have created just to be able to write this mess up, Beth Ryan's post, Expectedly's post, or the ASAN New York statement.

Let's just say that Neurodivergent K was my roommate and one of my co-presenters, and that Beth Ryan was our other co-presenter. And by "our other co-presenter" I might mean the one who got the panel organized? I'm not sure beyond "it wasn't me."

Because of what happened the Friday afternoon and early Saturday morning of the conference (see the posts I linked at the start,) my ability to speak was cutting in and out most of Saturday morning. I know from experience as a math teacher at my university that so long as I have speech when I go "onstage," I will retain speech until I go "offstage." I put the onstage/offstage in quotes because it's not exactly about a stage, at least not a literal one, though it is about a sort of performance.

However, what I did not know was what would happen if speech was already gone when I went "onstage." Since I put in some effort towards making sure speech is still around when I start teaching math classes at my university, and since that effort had always worked (it's not that hard to avoid things that'd cause speech to go kaput on me for the first 3 hours of the day when I have a single room and am just working on lesson plans and/or grading,) I had no reason to know.

Now I know. Thanks Autcom. (That's sarcasm, by the way. I am not actually grateful for this knowledge.)

If speech is already gone when I go "onstage," it doesn't necessarily come back. It didn't for my presentation.

I had brought my laptop with me for the slides, so I'd already been planning to hook my laptop up to the projector. This was good, since I was then able to open up Open Office on my laptop, make the font bigger, and present by typing into a text document. I switched the screen back and forth between the text document I used to write to the audience and the slides my co-presenters and I were using, as relevant. If I had something to say, I had the document up, and if my co-presenters were talking about something to match a slide, I had the slides up.

Before presenting, but after I had hooked up the laptop, I was working on a piece for The Autistic Exchange, which is a fanfiction exchange by and for Autistic people. I won't claim it was my best work, but the people who were in the audience waiting for my panel got a bit of a preview. If you want to read it, the authors for the collection have been revealed so I can tell you which one it was. Here it is!

The presentation went well, and we tied some examples from the Autcom mess into what we were talking about on the panel, which was how partnerships between parents of autistic people (who may be autistic themselves) and autistic adults (who may also be parents) can work. The Autcom examples were not the positive ones.

I also cracked jokes while presenting. I told people about how I got a teacher to tell me to "be quiet!" when I wasn't actually able to talk. Without context, this seems like it'd likely be bad, but with context, I was amused and I think the teacher was too, considering that he was laughing while telling me to be quiet. I was correcting every single board typo and that the teacher would have been treating my writing to communicate differently from other student's speech had he not told me to shush. He was just imprecise with his terminology, in a math class where he talks about how important precision is. Therefore, I found him telling me to be quiet most amusing.

Post panel, Neurodivergent K and I were kind of cornered together by this Sandi person. I wound up typing to her about stuff that would have been an OK conversation if it weren't for the part that she was totally trying to pretend everything was cool without actually doing things to fix the things. That made it a very stressful conversation instead.

After the panel and cornering were both over, I found out that I "inspired" someone. Before you do the spit-take and wonder who is about to get verbally eviscerated, the answer is no-one. This was one of the few examples of "inspired" where I totally agree with the word choice. I apparently inspired another Autistic adult who would benefit from using augmentative and alternative communication part time to do so, and more openly. I'm cool with serving as that sort of inspiration.

Late for Blogging Against Disableism Day

Disableism/ableism seem to be pretty much the same thing, so far as I can tell, in case anyone is familiar with one or the other. I think it might be a regional thing? Both are about all the kinds of discrimination and stereotyping and barriers that disabled people have to deal with.

I think what I want to talk about today is related to passing (or not passing) and outing myself and what happens after, when people say "I would never have known!" or "You don't need to tell me that!" or "I'm so sorry!"

Because... there is ableism there, and it's the most recent example that's coming to mind. That's a big improvement over last year, when I was struggling with a school that was pretty actively trying to block things I was doing and made attempts at preventing me from coming and then later at having me sent home because I'm autistic. That was really blatant and nasty, and I'm glad to be out, and in comparison what I'm dealing with now- well, let's just say I'm in no hurry to go back to last years situation. Here is good. Now is good. Not perfect, hence still having something to talk about, but pretty good.

So.

Because this is for Blogging Against Disableism Day, or BADD, I figure there might be some folks reading this who haven't read anything else. I'm Autistic, I usually can and do speak at least some, but not always. When speech is either non-existent or not doing everything I need communication for, I write and I use text to speech. I'm also a graduate student in math and a teaching assistant in math, so I work as a math tutor and teach a section of precalculus.

Last Thursday (bit over a week ago) I had two exams in a row, and then two more classes and work. By the end of the exams, speech was not working, which for me is not even a little bit of a surprise. I went to my next class, graph theory, and I mostly didn't need to talk. I wrote a little bit to my classmate who sits next to me, but mostly language wasn't needed. In between that class and the last one of the day, functional analysis/operator theory, I was in the classroom (both classes were in the same room) and one of the engineering students in operator theory came in. He tried to talk to me beyond what I could handle with gestures, so I went to the whiteboard with one of my markers and explained that I couldn't actually talk with my mouth right now and that it was related to my being autistic.

"I'm so sorry."

Um.
Why are you sorry? What is there to be sorry about? In that situation, I can't think of a reason for him to be sorry that doesn't involve ableism.

The assumption that disability is something to be sorry about, something to feel sorry for, is ableist. (Someone not being a fan of their own disability, or being angry about the barriers they face, is very different from someone assuming that we must feel a certain way about our own disabilities.)

When I tell someone I'm Autistic, I don't want the first thing I hear in response to be that they are sorry. I really, really don't want to know how they think I should feel about my autism. I'm not sorry. Why should they be?

Having Bad Days

For some reason, I have trouble with the concept that I am allowed to have bad days, that I am allowed to mess up, that I'm allowed, essentially, to be human. It's a problem. Neurodivergent K talks about it too, and yes, I did, in fact, manage to internalize this really toxic message while still being passed off as "just" gifted.

With my getting sick this weekend, I'm seeing (at least for the moment) just how illogical and potentially bad this is. Warning for potentially TMI discussions of sickness beyond this point.

Nonfiction writing quality by gender? Yeah, no.

This is an answer I made on Quora. The question was incredibly sexist in my opinion, but someone other than the asker requested I answer and it caught my interest for rebutting. 

The question was:

Do you agree that nonfiction written by women is typically less interesting than nonfiction written by men?

The reasons given were that women tended to write with more attention to emotion and character, while men tended to write with more attention to taut arguments and scientific methods, which led to women's writing being superficial while men's writing was idea-rich. I am not sure if I can find a portion of the reasoning which actually holds up under examination. Anyways, next paragraph begins what I said.

The prioritization of quantitative stuff that's easy to measure over qualitative stuff where emotions make sense as richer is part of the problem here: each focus has its use, and devaluing the one that's associated with femininity is part of sexism, especially since women are taught that they need to be in touch with  emotions and then punished for being so.

Additionally, many serious nonfiction topics involve human factors. When human actions are involved, analysis of thought processes is necessary to properly address the topic. Despite the extent to which many of us wish to believe otherwise, humans are generally driven more by emotion and instinct than by rationality: we are rationalizers, not rational creatures. With this knowledge in mind, the idea that bringing emotional factors into the analysis makes it less idea-rich is shown patently false for many topics.

Next, there is an implicit assumption that these areas of focus are contradictory. Taut argumentation can still be used when discussing emotional responses, and scientific methods can be applied whenever causes and effects are observable. This is true even if the effects are qualitative rather than quantitative. 

Finally, confirmation bias is a known factor: once such an opinion is formed, a reader is more likely to notice examples that confirm this opinion and categorize exceptions as "the exception that proves the rule" or something similar.

Growing up into an Autistic adult

This is in the Down Wit Dat August 2014 Blog Hop, BTW. The theme is about how disabilities and such are a natural part of life. 

Well, at this point I'm 21, almost 22, so I'm definitely already an adult. I've been working part-time in math education since I was 17, almost 18, and I've done some other kinds of work (research, information technology, physics lab TA.) Also I just read Mel Bagg's What Not Changing Us Means.

When we say we don’t want to change, we’re incorporating all four dimensions in life already. We’re incorporating growth through time into our concept of the thing we don’t want changed. We’re saying “We don’t want to be changed” in the same way that a cat, faced with becoming a dog, would say “I don’t want to be changed.” The cat isn’t denying the important passage from kittenhood to adulthood. The cat is saying I want to grow as a cat, not a dog.

Basically this. (I mean a lot of other things, too, I really do suggest that you read sier post in addition to mine, or even that you read sier post first since a lot of what I'm doing here is responding or building or putting on some of the specifics as it applies to my growing up into an autistic adult, rather than a non-autistic adult.)

But also the responses. A recent New York Times article that I am not going to give the honor of linking because it is terrible (it thinks early intervention leading to a child losing their diagnosis is 1) good, and 2) going to last.)

Basically, it works under the idea that an autistic child growing up into a non-autistic adult is a good thing, which is a social and cultural and otherwise made by non-autistic "experts" assumption about how autistic people should live sort of assumption. It also works under the idea that if you can reach this sort of indistinguishability once, it will last. That's not accurate, BTW. Neurodivergent K talks about that in The tyranny of indistinguishability: performance better than I could, the essential point is that as demands increase the effort needed to emulate them increases and gets even further from autistic needs.

But because autistic development and non-autistic development look different, are moving towards different... slightly closer to stable than in childhood but still always changing adult areas, and because people tend to expect non-autistic development of autistic people rather than admitting cluelessness, there's an idea that we will get less obvious as we grow up when the opposite is more likely to be true.

Back to Mel's words and the cat/dog metaphor for one way that it works:

Quite frequently when they say that they sneak in something about making us into dogs, only they call that part of the growth from kittenhood into adulthood. “Sure, learn about stalking mice and stuff, I’ll give you that, as compromise or something, but hey, wag your tail when you’re happy, not when you’re mad. That’s the right way after all. You can’t deny change. Didn’t I just talk about important skills of the adult dog… er… I mean cat?”

 Don't flap your hands, it's silly/childish. Make eye contact. Use oral speech. Sit still. These are things expected for non-autistic development in the culture of my particular bit of the USA. (Eye contact expectations are hugely variable with culture. Signed languages have a long history, and they have been an acceptable alternative that most people know in quite a few places, for quite a few reasons.)

Because of how widespread those expectations are, I actually did learn to do a lot of that (iffily, badly, actually pretty easy to distinguish from my peers even though I've always, always, even still meet the definition of indistinguishable that Lovaas and co use: placement in a general educational classroom and at least one non-disabled friend, and can we talk about how this definition depends on the person still being a student?)

But.
In growing up into an autistic adult, I've stopped doing some of those things. I've started using the skills that I need for navigating the world as I am, rather than for trying to navigate the world while pretending to be non-autistic. (By Mel's metaphor, I've started switching out "adult dog" skills taught to me as universal "adult" skills for "adult cat" skills that serve my actual needs.)

I carry an AAC device- in my case, either my laptop with eSpeak or my iPad with Proloquo2Text (or just a notepad application when I was in China because I never figured out a Chinese text to speech on the iPad.) I have one of these things and a pen and paper on my person pretty much all the time. A side effect of knowing that I'm covered even if oral speech does give out on me, funnily enough, is that I'm more likely to retain the ability to speak, but that's not actually the purpose of carrying the devices. The reason is that I'm not always able to speak orally, and it's important for me to have a way to be understood even when I can't. My autistic body language, while very communicative for people who understand it, isn't reliable for this because people tend not to understand it. Folks have a tendency not to realize I'm upset or uncomfortable until I've actually melted down, which is too late as far as I'm concerned.

I carry a stim toy, a fidget, whatever you want to call it. It's usually a Tangle, Buckyballs, or a square of satin-bound blanket. Any one of these can take care of my need to be not-still. I've also used knitting and making chain mail for this (the armor kind, not the junk mail kind.) When I'm taking care of my need to be not-still in one of these ways, I'm less likely to pick at my skin, which means my face itches less. That's actually a big enough thing that once I realized the effect was there, it got added to my list of purposes for carrying a stim toy. [As opposed to being more likely to retain speech, which I don't care all that much about.] The original reason was being better able to center myself and also better able to concentrate on whatever I want to concentrate on, which has tended to be school stuff.

I don't dress like most people. I tend to go for either T-shirts and athletic shorts (both out of the mens section) or homemade dresses and skirts. In the case of skirts, the shirt might be homemade too, or it might be a T-shirt. The common factor is comfort- I'm talking about cotton knit dresses, the kind of dress people think of as for kids because adults use more "mature" and not-stretchy fabrics that aren't as comfortable and harder to keep clean. Don't even get me started on stockings. I have refused to wear them for as long as I have been able to enforce this refusal. Actually longer but until I turned 18 I could sometimes be overruled by a parent and that was terrible.

I flap and rock and spin and jump more openly now at 21 than I did at 12. At 12, I was still simultaneously trying to get my weirds read as deliberate and trying to be more typical, more indistinguishable, than is anywhere near sustainable for me to be. At 21, I know that while the "make it look like deliberate weirdness" carries some benefits, it also means people are better able to ask me to change it, which doesn't go well because I really can't. Not sustainably, anyways. I also know that trying to act like a non-autistic adult super-duper not sustainable. That's kind of the reason behind "I really can't" on the changing said weirdnesses.

People tend not to read me as autistic anyways, because autistic... adult? Does not compute. Autistic person with college degree? Does not compute. Autistic person... as the teacher? Computes even less. Autistic person... read as woman? What? That can't be a thing. And yet... here I am. Here we are, I should say, because it's not all that unusual. Fairly sure all those things apply to Neurodivergent K, for one example. Melanie Yeargeau for another. Ibby Grace, too.

But people not attaching the word autistic to the pretty noticeable differences?

1) Doesn't make the differences stop being a thing. I jump, rock, flap, spin, openly stim, etc. I've had at least three broken bones, none of which got diagnosed at the time and one of which was very explicitly a non-diagnosis due to my not acting like I was in enough pain- I went hiking on a broken foot without realizing it was broken. I use language weirdly. I ran a 5k barefoot once. My records are fairly littered with autistic traits that didn't get called that, which means that I had the differences and that they got noticed.

2) Doesn't mean they didn't notice the differences.  R****d was my bullies insult of choice fairly often, and definitely the one they went for when I was jumping and flapping my hands. Crazy and weird were the two "negative" words that anyone had to say about me in high school. One of my college professors commented that I speak in a "unique" way. Chad Stokes (State Radio, Dispatch) still remembers me as the person who ran the 5k barefoot.

3) Definitely doesn't make me somehow not autistic. Seriously, I have no idea how the idea of "If we don't say the word then she doesn't have it" is supposed to work, but something along those lines seems to have been the philosophy that made it take so long for me to get diagnosed. But yeah. In terms of stuff I do in my life, both online and off, I probably do count as that ideal result because I'm in general education classrooms and have friends. The reason I can do those things is that I don't try to act like I'm non-autistic. My classmates and teachers from my year in Tianjin can totally attest to just how obviously autistic I am. So calling "doing stuff as an adult" the same as "not autistic anymore" (in metaphor, calling "adult" the same as "adult dog") makes zero sense. Actually negative sense.

I'm an Autistic adult doing things. Not a magically-not-autistic-anymore adult because I am doing things. Seriously. Should. Not. Be. That. Hard. To. Accept.

A Letter of Interruption

We (I) interrupt talking about the awesomeness that is 李金生 (Li Jinsheng) for me to get some words out that I'd like to have said to my academic director, but that I know it would be a bad idea to actually send her. (So um if you read my blog, cause I think you have the link thanks to the transcript of my presentation linking to another post here, remember that I did know better than to actually send you these words and that no one here actually knows who you are. Haven't told them your name or anything, not even pinyin.)

Anyways.

Hi,
You may have figured out at lunch today that the whole "sit in on one class, take one class" ending with my doing the finals for both was totally planned. At the least, you weren't happy that I was laughing about it. And yes, it was planned. I don't know how to fake a melt down, and I wouldn't try anyways, and I can't come up with deception during a melt down or anything- at the moment I suggested it, I was suggesting it for real as an act of desperation that I can't lose out on a thing I can do based on a thing I can't do yet again (this happened a lot in middle school and early high school, but by the end of high school I figured out what the weak points were so that my guidance counselors couldn't really pull that anymore.) But once I was calmed down the idea of taking both finals anyways occurred to me pretty fast and I decided to just go with it, and that telling you so would just be asking for trouble.

This is absolutely about that.
You said today that I shouldn't be laughing, because while there were gains (the reason I ignored you and did my two classes and the finals for both) there were also losses (true of every choice ever, yawn, give me news please.) I know full well what you think the losses were. You think the loss was to my grades in Chinese. You're wrong, and the fact that you still think my taking two major classes was the problem... well, your solution wouldn't have helped, and might have made things worse.

The problem wasn't my doing too many things. I've done heavier course loads before, actually, with better records at getting my homework in. The problem was insufficient scheduled transit time, or insufficient away time. Either one of those phrases, while they describe different things, would have been a partial solution. So what would really have worked? More major classes, strangely enough. Send me to the new campus daily, Sunday through Thursday, timed so that either I've got an hour or so of time between classes with nothing to do, or so that I'm going to get a seat on the subway in one or both directions. This needs to be because of an obligation, like a class or a sports practice, not just a thing that I'm doing because I think it's a good idea, or else it will fall apart quickly. That's why I say adding more major classes- it's something that could have been done, though it wouldn't have gotten approved in a million years.

I'd have needed something to do on campus, or on the subway. That would have been reading my class texts enough of the time to be helpful to my homework completion. [I know this works because transit has been how I've gotten homework done for quite a few classes over the years, and down time at an out of the way place where I don't really have time/means to go elsewhere during this time has gotten other homeworks done regularly over the years.]

Pattern recognition. It's something I'm good at. The classes I was most consistent at getting my homework done for were ones where I had enforced down time or transit time (or another class I didn't pay attention to, sorry, not actually a good student.) That doesn't happen by telling me to drop classes, by the way. That's happened when I've been ridiculously busy. Leave the house at 6 or 7 am and not get home until 8:30pm kind of busy, that was the best term and a half or so of the only year I ever got straight A's.

So yes. There was a loss from the way I handled my major classes, there's basically always a loss to every choice. So as for the loss: It's not a hit to my Chinese grades, that's mostly a function of how the class was structured (OMG so much homework, this is a problem) and partially a result of my not having that kind of stuck/down/transit time that let me get stuff done better in swim season than in not swim season. It's really, really not the Chinese grades, and you're probably not going to believe me no matter how many times I tell you that those aren't a result of my taking two major classes, not even a little bit, but that's the truth. There's exactly one day all semester where the major class I was supposed to audit but actually did the final for could have hurt my Chinese performance, and my homework was done that day- I'm talking about the day of my final presentation, when my paper was due. The paper was a one-night deal for pretty much the same reasons that my homework was an issue all semester.

No. Chinese grades weren't the loss. You probably no longer trust me not to nod along with what you think I should do, then ignore you and do what I want anyways. Which, I mean, you shouldn't trust me not to do that, because I absolutely will! It's not even the only deception-type thing I did this year- when they asked about disabilities for ADA reasons, I described way fewer effects than actually showed up over the course of this year because I didn't want to get kicked off before I even got here. But your idea that I'm pure or innocent? Yeah, I think that got lost. It's an acceptable loss, as far as I'm concerned. I'll keep laughing.

Alyssa

BADD: Not what I was planning on but it's ableism and I'm against it

Warning for ableism in school/educational settings.

This is my post for Blogging Against Disablism Day. It's not the post I was planning on writing but then I melted down over this so it's what we're getting. If I'm lucky, I'll manage one on my planned topic thanks to time zone differences.

I don't phone. My program people know that I have issues with phones, but don't seem to get the full extent of the issues: I am pretty much limited to scripts and noncommittal sounds on the phone, because I am not processing phone conversations in real time much of ever. So if they're calling to say "I said I'd call you when I got here and here I am" I'll be fine: I go meet them. If they're calling to say "Yo, you forgot your book in my office," I'll be fine: I know that script, I say thanks and ask when I can get the book. I might need to supply some information that I already know, but I don't need to figure out what script to put it in or create one from scratch.

But if it's communication for a job and I need to be able to react to new and potentially unexpected information with actual solutions and real-time reactions? I've got to be text based. That's just how it is. Email is good. Text messages are manageable, though kind of annoying for long things because of the keyboard and screen size and not really practical for job communications thanks to that.

My program people have been good about many of my issues, but not all. Mostly it's been cognitive stuff that they've been bad at: Newsflash, a person can be cognitively disabled and still meet the ADA "otherwise qualified" thing when the stuff that cognitively doesn't work isn't the core duties of the job/the core expectations of the academic program. And still need accommodation for those things.

So: This paperwork is not cognitively accessible to me, I need the questions in a different, less open-ended form or to not be the one doing this paperwork.
They wouldn't believe me until they actually saw me melt down related to it. Twice. Once at orientation, and yes I told them what the problems were then [the questions aren't accessible to me and also your person talking about cross-cultural communication is using the same words that the people telling autistic people how we interact wrong in all the ways use.] Once after I told them and their suggestion was to have the residence director help me with it, ending with my melting down in her office.

So: I need significant support writing a cover letter for a job. Basically it means the person helping me asks a ton of questions and I answer them and then edit into niceness, I actually posted the progress on We Are Like Your Child after a friend helped me in English.
The friend helping in English happened because my program people didn't provide the help needed. Residence and Academic directors totally talked to each other about how my issue was "worrying" but they didn't tell me what they were worried about and they didn't give me the help that would have led to there not being an issue.

So: I don't phone. They've been told multiple times that I don't phone.
Academic director calls me on the phone to tell me that my internship teacher isn't using email for a reason I don't understand. But one of the big things is that people often don't understand the reasons behind very real needs so I'm not going to argue. It's something about computers not being good right now. Fine. Since I'm getting this information second-hand from someone with no such issue, how about telling me this in a mode of communication I'm OK with? But no, this is apparently too much to ask, for people who don't have issues emailing to remember that calling me should only happen for things that are both urgent and important. At the start of a break over which I am not working, this is not urgent.
Also the teacher-given suggestion is not practical: texting for all job-related (sciency!) communication is not practical. Small screens, small keyboards, not good for reasons that I don't think even have anything to do with my being Autistic.

Yes, these are individual incidents faced by one person, but there is a pattern: I am disabled. I have a need related to my cognitive/thinking/processing stuff. It's not believed without huge piles of proof often involving meltdowns, and even with the proof the offered solutions are often impractical. These needs are special and it's expected that people won't understand them. I should be grateful that I'm here at all, really, my program had to bring up the fact that they could get sued if the university rejected me over disability after the program accepted me to get me here.

That's saying that these needs, which are considered part of a disability instead of "sometimes people have things they can't do," are special and I should expect them to get ignored or forgotten. That's ableism. It's part of a pattern of how differences in how people can think and process get us excluded, you know, ableism. That thing we're against today?

Disorganized ramblings on asking for and then not receiving help

After climbing the Great Wall of China with my teachers and classmates from my study abroad program, I realized something. When I have a really obvious coping mechanism or solution where you can tell I'm doing something unusual, they're really fast to come offer help. But when I ask for help with something everyone else seems to be able to just do, they're not really sure what I need and I'm probably not going to get what I need. This is really frustrating, because guess what? When I've got the obvious coping mechanism going on, that means that I've got a solution! I probably don't need help! I've got this!

When I'm asking for help (which is one of the things I'm really bad at,) there's something I need help with. It means there's a problem where I don't have a good solution. If it's something that most people my age are expected to be able to just do, that's thought of as simple? Chances are, I don't even have a bad solution that drains my energy like woah, because even those are less draining than spending a long time explaining that I can't do the thing, why I can't do the thing, what help I need, and probably still having to use my bad solution anyways because “I should know how to do this.” Yeah um... I'm well aware that most people can do the thing. I am well aware that pretty much the entire rest of the world thinks FAFSA is annoying but simple while Real Analysis is complicated and hard. I am well aware that my thinking Real Analysis is simple but FAFSA is made of pain and misfortune is weird. This is not even vaguely news. Telling me this is not even vaguely helpful.

Not helping me (or thinking that giving me the first step will magically solve the problem even after I've told you it won't) isn't actually helping me, because I'm not going to magically gain these skills just because you think I should have them. Not tolerating the lack of certain skills doesn't make them appear. It just means not tolerating the people who happen to lack those skills. Which, um, not cool much? Also going to exclude people who have the skills needed to do the job but not to get the job in the first place, which is counterproductive for you too!

So reality moment: Writing a cover letter to ask for a job is hard for everyone, being worried about the fact that I need to be walked through it step by step every time is OK (it worries me too sometimes!) but deciding to worry while not giving me said walk-through is worse than useless. Telling me that FAFSA and scholarship applications and other burecratic paperwork are simple but boring isn't helpful, though if that's what they are for you, helping me get them done totally is! Because guess what? For me, those aren't simple. I'd rather sit my Complex Analysis final again. Maybe the whole 3-finals-in-a-row day, at least I understood what was being asked and how to answer those problems.

Yeah, I'm conventionally “smart” in a lot of ways. I do ridiculously well on standardized tests. Like, 8^th grade me got higher on the SATs than most of the high schoolers taking it to try to get into college. In 10^th grade I sat the physics subject SAT on about a weeks notice and one hour with a study guide, and I got an 800. I passed an AP test for a class I never even took. (US History, in case you were wondering.)

I'm still cognitively disabled. Folks tend not to get how that works until they watch me crying over an attempt at organization, or FAFSA, or other bureaucratic paperwork, or maybe it's a personality multiple choice test that doesn't have an other option and no I can't just choose one they are all wrong so I just have to exit out of the whole thing. Yes, I mean those buzzfeed sorts of quizzes people my age seem to like to take, though surveys sent by my school and FAFSA applications have both done this to me too. Probably about half of my attempts at those end with me melted down and the quiz not actually done. Maybe it's a particularly open-ended assignment at school where the teacher is refusing to limit my options because it's supposed to be open-ended and I'm trying to explain that if they don't limit my options I can't do the assignment at all and for goodness sake limiting my options on an open-ended assignment should be a reasonable accommodation. Tell me what I am supposed to do and there is at least a chance that I can do it. Tell me the point is to give me options and I will look at the assignment and have no clue what it is that's even being asked for and therefore come up with nothing. Heck, give me a list with a note at the bottom saying that the list isn't exhaustive. I mean, I'll almost certainly do my project on: 1) Something from the list, 2) Why the premise of list item X is terrible, or 3) Why items X and Y from the list have relation Z, but I at least have a project chosen from within the acceptable space of projects.

Back to the point: Obvious coping mechanism doesn't automatically mean help is needed, though offering is nice and I swear I won't be mad at you for offering me help. [If I say I'm fine and then you insist on what you think is helpful anyways, especially if it involves touching me or my things without permission, I will be mad.] Asking for help means there is a big freaking problem and if you don't help on the basis of “you should be able to do this” then I probably think you are terrible. If you're not sure what it is that I need, you can and should ask, because I know that my needs seem a little incongruous with other abilities. I'm totally willing to explain what help I need, as long as you're not going to then tell me you won't do it because then I won't learn or some such nonsense. That is a thing that people have done, as is worrying about me/talking about this worry behind my back because I asked for help but not actually providing the help (why would you ever do that?)

And yes, I've gotten pretty good at explaining what it is I need from those occasions where people are actually willing to provide said help. It's still more energy than most other people are spending, because the explanations take energy and the way I do the things with supports are often still more draining for me than they are for the folks who think it's “simple.” That's a kind of tired that I've learned to calculate for, because it's reality. It's just when I manage the request and the explanation only to not get the help because of some idea of what I should be able to do that I'm stuck, because I can't exactly calculate for “have to do things I am not capable of doing.”

Yes, Autistic people can get pregnant.

Someone got to my blog by searching "can autistic girls get pregnant" so I'm going to answer now, just so everyone can see the answer: Generally, yes. There could be reasons other than autism that mean a particular autistic girl or woman can't get pregnant: being trans, being too young to menstruate, being on birth control, being to old to menstruate, or having been sterilized (which happens both with and without consent.) I'm sure I've missed a few reasons.

There are autistic men who can get pregnant too: trans men exist, and some can get pregnant.

I don't entirely get how people would feel the need to ask if autistic people can get pregnant, because there's nothing inherent in autism that would prevent it, and a lot of autistic adults are finding out that they're autistic after their kids are diagnosed now. Guess what? If you're autistic and get diagnosed after your kid is diagnosed, you still had kids while autistic. This is a thing that happens.

Also, second and third and fourth generation autistic people are around. Part of how we're around is that autistic people can and do reproduce. Sometimes this means autistic people getting pregnant. (Wrong Planet apparently has or had some discussion forums related to being an autistic parent, including "um, we're both autistic and our kid isn't what do we dooooooo" type threads. So it's actually kind of established that autistic parents can be just as confused by an allistic kid as allistic parents are by autistic kids. Also the existence of such threads requires autistic people getting pregnant. So yes. That is a thing that can happen. Autistic people can get pregnant, carry to term, and have kids. 

Autism Speaks Are Work-Stealing, White-Texting Liars.

Image of Radical Neurodivergence Speaking's cat, reads: "You stole my mom's writing and lied about it for three years. I will end you Autism Speaks. End you. timetolisten.blogspot.com "

Now that I've got your attention:

This started about three years back. In February, 2011, Kassiane found that Autism Speaks had quoted her out of context in their transition toolkit and gotten the attribution wrong. She wrote a post called Autism Speaks: SHUT UP AND LISTEN. It was from a book, so the protocol should have been to ask the publisher: Autism Speak's representative, Kai McMahon (his title legitimately used to be "Social Media Crisis") commented claiming to have gotten permission from the publisher, the publisher says no such permission was given. Given that Autism Speaks didn't manage to be honest anywhere else with this... I'm much more inclined to believe the publisher.

Come 2012, usethebrainsgodgiveyou commented on Kassiane's original post, noting that if you go to the toolkit and search for Kassiane's name using CTRL+F (might be different on operating systems other than Windows,) her name shows up twice. Rather than take the quote off at authorial request, they white-texted it. That's the tactic disreputable sites use to get higher up in search terms, by the way, and it's worked: as of 1:41am Eastern Standard Time on January, 25, 2014 (2:41pm same day China,) that document is the top result for "autism speaks kassiane sibley." It's on page 2 searching "kassiane sibley."

Now, here's the even more dishonest bit.

Thanks to the comments on Liz Ditz's post, "When National Charities Offend Those They Are Supposed To Serve," we know that in January 2012, sometime between the 13th and the 17th, Autism Speaks did take the quote off their kit. At the time, the kit was at this link: http://www.autismspeaks.org/docs/family_services_docs/transition/Self-Advocacy.pdf

Today, in early 2014, the quote is back. It's also at a new URL- the old one is broken. The current one is here: http://www.autismspeaks.org/sites/default/files/documents/transition/self-advocacy.pdf.

And yes, the URL change could be a result of site reorganization. The fact that the document is back to the one with the white-texted quote? That requires intent, and it makes the URL change look more suspisious. It's like they're trying to hide just how dishonest they really are. We don't actually know the exact date of when they changed back to the white-texted version- I know that I checked in mid-2013 and Kassiane's name did not appear, but "sometime between mid-2013 and January 25, 2014" isn't very specific.

UPDATE 4am EST, Jan 25: Waybackmachine shows it's been up since September 28, 2013 or earlier.

But at the heart of it, how long it's been up there isn't entirely the point. The point is that it should never have been up there, because the publisher says no permission was given, it should have been taken down the first time Kassiane asked, and once it was down, it should have stayed down. None of those things happened, because Autism Speaks are work-stealing, white-texting liars. And yes, I find it ironic that I'm finding out about this right after writing a post about how it's important to cite your sources, partially inspired by Autism Speaks doing this sort of thing.

And can we maybe think about the fact that this is an organization run by mostly white middle to upper class parents of autistic kids doing this to a poor, multiply disabled, Autistic woman of color? Did they maybe purposefully choose someone they'd expect to be unable to fight much?

This needs to be a social media crisis. I suggest tweeting, sharing (including to Autism Speak's wall and comment threads), retweeting, looking at Boycott Autism Speaks and their memes, that sort of thing.

Screenshot of Google Search for autism speaks kassiane sibley, first result is for the toolkit. Taken January 25, 2014

Screenshot of Google Search for kassiane sibley, second page, with the Autism Speaks toolkit as a result on the page. Taken January 25, 2014

Screenshot of my searching the toolkit for "Kassiane" and getting 2 results. Taken January 25, 2014.

UPDATE 4am EST, Jan 25: I've been told that the toolkit comes up first page if you search "Kassiane Alexandra" instead of Kassiane Sibley. Screenshot attached.

Screenshot of Goofle Search for kassiane alexandra, first page. Autism Speaks toolkit is the third result. Taken January 25, 2014.

UPDATE 7:40pm EST, Jan 27: Thanks to ischemgeek's comment, I checked again. The white text isn't 100% gone- there's "One thing autistics and parents of autistics agree upon is the desire for " remaining where the white-text was, but most of it is gone. The Google cache has not been updated, however, and the document is still the top result for searching Kassiane Sibley Autism Speaks. While on the document, I noticed that Ask and Tell, the book Kassiane's work was pulled from, is first on the list of self-advocacy resources. Using Wayback Machine, I confirmed that this was the case previously as well. I also screen-shotted to show that the white text was present on both September 28, 2013 and October 13, 2013.  Additionally, Autism Speaks has not made the (actually) public apology that Kassiane has been asking for since this whole mess started. The most public was on Liz's old blog post near the bottom of the comments section, and that was prior to the current round of dishonesty.

I also checked Wayback Machine for the old URL of the document, at this URL: http://www.autismspeaks.org/docs/family_services_docs/transition/Self-Advocacy.pdf April 28, 2012 was the only date that the document was covered by the archive at that URL, a couple months after the events Liz chronicled at  "When National Charities Offend Those They Are Supposed To Serve." This version also has no results when searching for Kassiane, but does retain "One thing autistics and parents of autistics agree upon is the desire for " as white text. 

New screen-shots are below, with captions. Note that I am on Beijing time, not Eastern Standard, meaning that my times are 13 hours ahead of Eastern Standard.

The Autism Speaks guide with most of the white text gone. "One thing autistics and parents of autistics agree upon is the desire for " remains. Taken January 28, 2014.

Google search result for autism speaks kassiane sibley, the transition and self-advocacy document is still the first result, indicating that the cache has not been cleared. Taken January 28, 2014.

October 13, 2013 version of the document via Wayback Machine, showing highlighted white text and that there are two results for kassiane. Taken January 28, 2014.

September 28, 2013 version of the document via Wayback Machine, showing highlighted white text and that there are two results for kassiane. Taken January 28, 2014.

April 28, 2012 version of the document at the old URL via Wayback Machine, showing no results for Kassiane and with "Select All" to show that one line of white text remains. Taken January 28, 2014.

Chinese Practice

Chinese, primarily education, should be trigger free?

 

为了帮助贫困问题，这些年轻人甘于放弃好的工作机会。他们宁要帮助贫困问题，不看重自己的工作。

之所以英语横扫了中国，是因为在国际贸易现在多用英语，而且是因为科学现在多用英语。中国要开拓国际市场，所以学贸易的人都学英语。而且，企业靠科学，科学多用英语。因此，中国也注重科学，科学家要学好英语。

在高考决定孩子的命运这样的情况下，出国留学是反对你不同意的决策。如果孩子生病，考得不好，他就不能上好的大学。这是应试教育和高考风靡一时的一个问题。在全球化的推动下，这个学生可以出国留学。孩子知道除了考高考以外，还有机会上大学会营造放松的氛围。因为只有钱的学生才可以出国留学，所以留学有如高考：有一些好的学生可以用这个做法读大学，但是也有很多好学生无法读大学。

随着全球化及科学的快速发展，教育越来越重要。父母为了孩子的成功要营造对学习好的氛围。为了进入好的大学，学生甘于化过长时间学习。但是，社会需要的教育反其道而行之。随着科技快速发展，人需要的知识也快速改变。由此，学好怎么自学宁应该普及，不比化太长时间学什么内容。例如，我和我的外公都是工程师。我们两个人，上大学的时候学到完全不同的知识。他的学习没有电脑软件，而我的教育靠软件。甚至我上初中的时候，没有我现在用的软件！因为科技发展的越来越快，所以我未来的工作会需要完全不同的软件或者做法。而且，个人可以上网查什么内容。如果我已经知道背景，也学好了怎么最好上网查事情，什么信息都容易找到。归根到底，学生最要学好怎么学习，大部分的内容在其次。

中国父母认为子不教，父之过，所以父母有责任教孩子。因为美国父母包括很多文化不同的父母，所以难以说“美国”的父母是不是这样认为的。但是，美国父母与中国父母在家庭教育的内容是不同的。在美国，如果孩子做不道德的事情，人们会认为这是父母的责任，但是上学的问题是孩子或者老师的责任。在中国，好像父母认为孩子读书的问题也是他们自己的责任：子不教，父之过。在道德的方面，中美两国父母同意：子不教，父之过。在读书的方面，中美两国是不同的：如果美国学生因为父母不让他学好所以有教育问题，人们才会认为这是父母的错误。如果父母没有来帮助孩子学习，这件事不是父母的责任，父母真的做什么事，害得孩子的学习，才能说这是父母的错。而在中国，帮助孩子的学习也是家庭教育的一部分。总之，中美两国家庭教育的不同点不是家庭有没有责任，而是家庭教育应该包括什么内容。

My Memories of the Autreat Mess

Trigger Warning: I'm gonna go with gaslighting and access fails?

I'm doing it. I'm writing up my memory of the Autreat debacle. There's an official report on the ANI Facebook, which I can't link properly because of fun with my proxy and the Chinese internet. I'm bystander 2 in that, which is totally inaccurate but hey.

Heads up that K is Neurodivergent K of Radical Neurodivergence Speaking, since I know her blog URL here's that, as of this writing her write-up is in seven parts and the most recent stuff pile on her blog.

So here's my memory. Some of this is before Autreat.

I had K's thing about what to do if she's having a seizure. It's very much written in K's style, which is fine by me, I understand it fine. One of the things that stood out was that if she's having a seizure, people need to back off. Unless there's a reason that she must be touched, like about to walk into traffic, or if she's still in the room with the trigger, hands off, and if must move, slowly, carefully, calmly. Which means keep security, etc, off K's case in emergencies. We established that I would be a person who helped run interference in emergencies, keeping people away from K. That's background.

Now flash forward to Autreat, in the room where the incident began. Stuff is a bit fuzzy, because that happens when I'm overloaded, and also this was a while ago. I remember a not-particularly-coherent K sounding scared when there was a bass sound, and I remember her trying to get at medicine of some sort, and I remember her hands going over her ears. I remember someone going over to the TV to turn it down, and I remember that person getting yelled at. I also remember a lot of yelling happening after that. The first yelling was definitely the person being upset about the TV being turned down because of her daughter. I can say that much. Order gets a bit fuzzy. Speaking isn't a thing that was happening much for me, again, happens under stress. Pretty sure K was out of the room by the time a sarcastic comment was made by Shaun of “because autism means we can only care about ourselves,” which got responded to with “Exactly.” Not with a thing about etymology. Just agreement. At which point there was a question of, “If you think that, why are you here?” Again, not a statement. A question. Considering the statement that was just made and what Autreat is supposed to be about, a pretty reasonable question.

When K did the whole leaving the room thing, the person who yelled about the TV being turned down at least started standing up. So I was pretty sure that this was a move to follow. So I put myself such that to get from sitting on the couch to the door, she'd have to go through me. Not attacking her, which is probably why I got called a bystander and not a support person, even though I was doing exactly the support job that I was supposed to be doing, but hey. It also might have something to do with my never having yelled directly at this person, which shouldn't be a defining factor of who is and isn't a support person for K. Really shouldn't. Those are guesses for why I might have gotten called bystander 2 in the official report, but I'm not actually sure. Not a mind reader, can't know. What I know is that it's not accurate.

Yelling yelling yelling, couch person yes acting like she might be triggered, bystander in the kitchen area acting possibly triggered and I think saying openly that she was, and me being a bit confused because why would someone who has their PTSD triggered by yelling be the one to start the yelling? I mean, people getting angry and forgetting stuff like their own limits happens, yes, but it's still a little confusing to watch a person do that.

Eventually leave kitchen and I forget what.

Eventually text from friend of K using K's phone (I know this because I just checked my phone text history.) Go find K, who I think is in common area of her floor crying at this point? Help acquire food for her and also acquire own food, per request of K's friend. Food important. People coming, people going. Time passing. Meeting. Lots of yelling about not assigning intentions. Sometimes this happened after person repeating intentions that person doing action had actually stated, which isn't actually assigning intentions. It's taking word on intentions. Lots of suggesting that thing is about use of common space. Which yes, is problem, but big problem is about how to handle access violations once they come up. [And seriously what is with refusal to accept that TV is a want and not a need? I do not understand, but as I'm not a mind-reader I'm not going to understand. But yes, that was one of the things that we weren't allowed to say, that TV is a want and not a need. Also question about adult daughter's agency, which, um, no one's talking about what she did because she didn't do the things that were problems?]

Lots of confused. Lot's of K crying. Lots of “NO DON'T REDUCE THIS TO USE OF COMMON AREAS.” Because yeah, that's a thing. But there's a lot more than use of common areas. Use of common areas could have prevented the thing, but this was about how to handle access issues once they happened, I think. And went badly.

Lots of discussion of how triggered person who yelled about the TV being turned down was. Not so much about how K could easily have wound up in the ER, and how “you're not going to die” is a thing that was said to a person who's been clinically dead from seizures before. Suggestions that statement of daughter having seizures was meant as understanding the problem. Given demonstration of not understanding (see also: you're not going to die,) would be a false demonstration if so. Again, not mind reader, but is pretty clear that telling a person with epilepsy who has been clinically dead of seizure before that they're not going to die indicates a lack of understanding.

Um. More discussion. Goes to very late. Not good- lack of sleep can make epilepsy stuff worse, I remember this from another time I was with K.

Morning. I see text from K, and respond assuming that I missed a text from last night. Nope. Is text from this morning. K crying, not sure she feels safe to leave room to come meet with me and another person related to a meetingful thing I don't even remember properly. I know there was supposed to be a meeting because text records, and also that K says she is feeling gaslit. I think I help acquire the soggy breakfast for K before spending much of morning in K's room, but am not sure 100%. I know I got to attempt eating said soggy not that great breakfast, and yeah, it was soggy before the rain got on it too. That day was not a good breakfast.

Spend morning with K. Lots of crying happening, decent bit of K hitting head against wall and saying she wanted to go home and being triggered and being in meltdown. I admit that I am impressed with her ability to maintain crying that long, as I become exhausted much faster than that. I also try to be comforting. I don't think it worked very well. Apparently my saying that I'd understand if she left and couldn't be my first witness made her feel really bad about maybe not being able to do it. My understanding was a sign of my being a decent enough person for her to care, or something similar. My memory is a bit foggy, but it was something along those lines, and this is her having said something of the sort, not me mind-reading it. Also, there was wailing of “I don't know.” There was a lot of that. And being afraid to leave room unless it was to go to the airport and get on a plane home.

Go acquire food for people- I am in the Subway contingent that acquires food for many room people. I think we got a total of 4 sandwiches, including mine an Ks and also one for the person who was driving. One other, and yes, I know who, but don't know if she's cool with name reveal so I won't.

Eventually there is a Jim. Who isn't going to apologize for the gaslightyness, or for much of anything if I understand correctly. Which, hey, at least honest, since fake apology is bad and K's pretty clear about not wanting those. But also suggests not understanding what went wrong. I wasn't processing in real time for this, and the only person who was, Jim said either that person or Jim had to leave. After wailing “I don't know” from K multiple times, another person suggests maybe that person leaves. I will take K's word for it that the kicked out person's name is Shaun, and that this person is cool with name being open. Shaun looks at K, asks “Is this what you want.” K wails “I don't know” yet again. There has been a lot of wailing of “I don't know” this morning and into afternoon. Starting to wonder if there are any other phrases K can currently access, at this point. Which is bad sign. Focus is very much on “there are number of people waiting for presentation” and not so much on “how to we make K feel safe.” That's not a good sign. K moves from wailing to moving really fast, but since I'm not processing in real time I don't quite get what's going on.

Go to presentation room with K. K gives presentation. It is very good. Apparently this is because K's autopilot is very well-tuned. That good of an auto-pilot does not happen for good reasons. Text record suggests that swimming happened in between presentation- for sure that I did that, possibly K too, but I don't remember if she did or not. I shower, brush hair, go to K's room and K fancy-braids my hair.

Nothing bad particularly happens at 5A, though I was only semi-coherent for it. Usually I can make words off the cuff pretty well, but not then. So I was left with not the words I was was expecting to have.

I spent sufficiently much time in K's room instead of mine helping her try to feel even a little bit safer during Autreat that all my chargers were in her room instead of mine. I think that should say something.