Freedom!!

Not that I’m looking forward to it.

COVID-19 has been eliminated in Aotearoa New Zealand.

In less than half an hour, COVID-19 restrictions will be lifted as we drop to Alert Level 1. Apart from our borders remaining tightly closed we’ll be back to pre-COVID conditions. We’ll be able to cram ourselves by the thousands into every type of venue imaginable and we can shake hands, hug and hongi to our heart’s contents with loved ones and total strangers if we are so inclined. I’m not.

One characteristic that I and many other ausistics have is an aversion to large gatherings, physical contact with other people and the need for greater personal space than many neurotypical people find acceptable.

I’ve never felt more comfortable around other people that I have during the past 70 days of the various COVID-19 alert levels. All alert levels have mandated a 2 metre spacing between people if they didn’t belong to the same social bubble.

I’m going to try to maintain at least one metre of social distancing. I find that anything less than that raises my level of discomfort. While I don’t think many people will think it odd to begin with, I wonder how long it will be before my minimum social spacing is deemed unacceptable by the community.

I’ve really enjoyed the occasional coffee and cake in a local eatery over the past month as the nearest person would be seated two metres away, and all food was delivered to the table instead of me having to dance around other patrons all trying to grab items from the display cabinets. What I have I to look forward to?

However, I appreciate I’m an exception and just about everyone else is looking forward to join the throngs and crowds, and get up close and personal to friends and strangers alike. I’m pleased for you.

But please be a little understanding if I take a step back when you take a step forward.

Ways society gaslights and stonewalls autistic people #4

Taken from 50 Ways Society Gaslights and Stonewalls Autistic People. Visit Neuroclastic if you prefer to see all 50 ways in one bite. Otherwise, expect to see one more way in which we are gaslighted each day over a period of seven weeks.

Autistic people, adults and children, are infantilized, gaslighted, and manipulated regularly by society– individuals and institutions.

Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or in members of a targeted group, making them question their own memory, perception, and sanity. Using persistent denial, misdirection, contradiction, and lying, it attempts to destabilize the victim and delegitimize the victim’s belief.

Wikipedia

Note: Some of these may overlap, and some may not fit squarely within the definition of gaslighting; however, all contribute to the way in which society functions like a narcissistic parent with regards to how autistic people are perceived and treated.

4. ABA “therapy”

When ABA therapists claim that ABA therapy for 40 hours is not exhausting for small children because it’s “just play,” when social play can be beyond-exhausting over extended periods of time for autistic kids.

Neuroclastic

Just because Autistic kids often don’t play in a way non-autistic kids do doesn’t mean they’re not playing. And by being forced to “play’ in a way non-autistic kids do – especially social play – it is no longer play. It becomes hard work and eventually beyond endurance. Such treatment of a typical child would be considered abuse, but somehow it’s okay to subject autistic kids to this sort of treatment.

Ways society gaslights and stonewalls autistic people #3

Taken from 50 Ways Society Gaslights and Stonewalls Autistic People. Visit Neuroclastic if you prefer to see all 50 ways in one bite. Otherwise, expect to see one more way in which we are gaslighted each day over a period of seven weeks.

Autistic people, adults and children, are infantilized, gaslighted, and manipulated regularly by society– individuals and institutions.

Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or in members of a targeted group, making them question their own memory, perception, and sanity. Using persistent denial, misdirection, contradiction, and lying, it attempts to destabilize the victim and delegitimize the victim’s belief.

Wikipedia

Note: Some of these may overlap, and some may not fit squarely within the definition of gaslighting; however, all contribute to the way in which society functions like a narcissistic parent with regards to how autistic people are perceived and treated.

3. Empathy

When they claim to have empathy and that we don’t, but then only measure empathy in NT ways like eye contact or understanding NT behavior.

Neuroclastic

Ways society gaslights and stonewalls autistic people #2

Taken from 50 Ways Society Gaslights and Stonewalls Autistic People. Visit Neuroclastic if you prefer to see all 50 ways in one bite. Otherwise, expect to see one more way in which we are gaslighted each day over a period of seven weeks.

Autistic people, adults and children, are infantilized, gaslighted, and manipulated regularly by society– individuals and institutions.

Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or in members of a targeted group, making them question their own memory, perception, and sanity. Using persistent denial, misdirection, contradiction, and lying, it attempts to destabilize the victim and delegitimize the victim’s belief.

Wikipedia

Note: Some of these may overlap, and some may not fit squarely within the definition of gaslighting; however, all contribute to the way in which society functions like a narcissistic parent with regards to how autistic people are perceived and treated.

2. Late blooming

Not acknowledging that many of us grew up in environments that weren’t conducive to fostering our talents ended up as late bloomers, then assuming we’re Né’er-do-wells or we’re unmotivated or unambitious. We just haven’t bloomed yet, and it’s a profound difference… but when we do bloom, look out.

Ways society gaslights and stonewalls autistic people #1

Taken from 50 Ways Society Gaslights and Stonewalls Autistic People. Visit Neuroclastic if you prefer to see all 50 ways in one bite. Otherwise, expect to see one more way in which we are gaslighted each day over a period of seven weeks.

Autistic people, adults and children, are infantilized, gaslighted, and manipulated regularly by society– individuals and institutions.

Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or in members of a targeted group, making them question their own memory, perception, and sanity. Using persistent denial, misdirection, contradiction, and lying, it attempts to destabilize the victim and delegitimize the victim’s belief.

Wikipedia

Note: Some of these may overlap, and some may not fit squarely within the definition of gaslighting; however, all contribute to the way in which society functions like a narcissistic parent with regards to how autistic people are perceived and treated.

1. Sensory differences

Telling us that our sensory differences are “no big deal” and that we just need to “be resilient” and learn to deal with it. They assume their brains are the same as ours and assume we can habituate when we can’t, so instead force us to be in awful environments to try to “habituate us” to the stimulus. Which is just further traumatizing us. Thinking they get to decide what is loud, bright, painful, or tastes funny.

Neuroclastic

The “Severe Autism” Concept is Behaviourism’s Final Stand

Neuroscience threatens the foundational theories of behaviorism, and the ABA lobby has tried hard to suppress the fact that behavior is abuse for apraxia.

Source: The “Severe Autism” Concept is Behaviourism’s Final Stand (5 minute read)

wikipedia.org Article on Sue Rubin

This is one of a number of articles I am linking to in opposition to Wikipedia editorial policy that promotes “the complete erasure of living, breathing, autistic human beings and their experiences from the world’s largest encyclopedia”.

Sue Rubin’s page on Wikipedia was removed due to discrimination and vandalism. In protest, The Aspergian is reposting and editing the pages of nonspeakers.

Source: wikipedia.org Article on Sue Rubin

FC, RPM, and How Wikipedia Became Complicit in Silencing Non-speaking Autistics

This is one of a number of articles I am linking to in opposition to Wikipedia editorial policy that promotes “the complete erasure of living, breathing, autistic human beings and their experiences from the world’s largest encyclopedia”.

Over the past few months, I was involved in an editing dispute on Wikipedia involving the efficacy of facilitated communication (FC) and Rapid Prompting Method (RPM). What began with one contentious edit has now resulted in the deletion of the following biographical articles of autistic people from Wikipedia: Amy Sequenzia, a prominent non-speaking self-advocate who…

Source: FC, RPM, and How Wikipedia Became Complicit in Silencing Non-speaking Autistics

I have stopped donating to Wikipedia

For many years I have been donating anonymously to Wikipedia. Last year I slipped up and provided an email address. As a consequence, I received an email from Wikipedia the other day requesting another donation.

I will not be donating to Wikipedia.

While Wikipedia maintains its editorial policy of deleting pages by or about non-speaking autistics, I refuse to support it financially. For a better understanding of the background, I recommend reading FC, RPM, AND HOW WIKIPEDIA BECAME COMPLICIT IN SILENCING NON-SPEAKING AUTISTICS (13 minute read)

Why I’m Not a High-Functioning Autistic

Like most autistics, I dislike functioning labels. These are terms neurotypical people use to describe how an autistic person appears to be relative to a typical non-autistic person from a non-autistic perspective.

I have been described as “high functioning” because I had a successful career of 35 years with the same multinational I.T. company and because I have been married for 48 years and have two wonderful children. Yet my attempts at socialising can at best be described as “tries hard, but fails to implement the required rules. Grade: F”.

My social skills are lacking. I can’t do small talk; I avoid eye contact and touching of any sort unless I know someone very well; I can’t read body language and that especially applies to that used in the process of dating and courtship (by either sex); I didn’t understand gender roles; not being aware of non-verbal communication, I didn’t use any, and my voice and body language appeared to be lacking any feelings or emotion. If I had put my faith in finding a partner the “normal” way, I’d still be looking. (Perhaps I’ll tell the story of how my wife and I discovered each other another time.)

When seeking work for the first time, I applied for six jobs and was accepted for all of them. They were all related to my “special interests”, often referred to by “autism experts” as “obsessive interests”. While I still struggle to tie shoe laces, or converse and do up a button at the same time, I had no problem dismantling a mechanism with over 5000 individual moving parts and comprising of more than 8,000 parts in total, and then reassembling it without the need to refer to a manual. This was in spite of a work colleague messing up my neat piles of parts spread over four workbenches just “for laughs”.

I struggle comprehending a three line haiku in English, yet I had no problem solving a Boolean equation comprising of over 4600 symbols, or single handedly writing and maintaining a parts management system comprised of more than 20,000 lines of code that was used in the company I worked for in the late 1980s until the mid 1990s.

(I have used the past tense with regards to the positive traits mentioned above due to the fact that my ability to process large amounts of information has declined with age and the rise in frequency of migraines.)

On the other hand, I have no perception of the passage of time. I understand the concept of time. I’m unable to experience time passing. Without some external aid, I can’t tell you whether 5 minutes or five hours have passed. Something that happened last week or last decade often feels more recent than something that happened yesterday. My determining of “recent” is based on how much detail I can recall, not on when it occurred.

As a consequence, I suck at time management and prioritising tasks. Given the opportunity to concentrate on one task as a time, I can do a superb job, but ask me to juggle two tasks at the same time, and there’s every chance neither will actually be completed.

So while I’m deficient at some skills, I am very proficient at others. I am neither a “high functioning” autistic, nor a “low functioning” autistic I am simply autistic.

What is most appalling about the use of functioning labels is in the determining of one’s competence. Wikipedia’s editorial decision to delete pages by or about those they consider “low functioning autistics” is but just one example.

This post was inspired by one of the same name by Emily Volz over on the Aspergian: Why I’m Not a High-Functioning Autistic