‘how Do You Expect People Who Have Been Abused By Someone With NPD To Refer To Their Abuse Then?’

“ew thick water gross and weird” ITS NOT FUCKING FOR YOU!!!!! “ew why buy pre-cut vegetables when you can cut your own” ITS NOT FUCKING FOR YOU!!!!!! “I don’t need a device to help me put my socks on I’m not lazy” ITS NOT FUCKING FOR YOU !!!!!!!!! “Why drink liquid meals when you can cook them” ITS!!!!! NOT!!!!!! FOR!!!!!! YOU!!!!!!!!

The r slur is a nasty, nasty word and I do not understand how so many otherwise progressive people hurl it around like confetti. A lot of yall have zero solidarity with those who are intellectually disabled. You are not ""reclaiming"" it when you use it to insult someone. Be real, you just wanna use it cuz it gives you a little surge of catharsis whenever you are Big Mad. Fuck you.

poke hornet nest

my stance on ABA

(my stance on ABA)

as someone with (some) lived experience

most of it is shit.

for long time in past and even now, ABA only service available for a lot autistic people & family.

most of it (< ABA*) still is shit. (*this disclaimer applies to rest of repetition)

heard of more than enough cases of. insurance/school system/etc give pathetic number of hours/sessions for speech, OT, etc for autism but many more hours of ABA. or only cover ABA.

most of it still shit.

some speech & OT & other so called “alternatives to ABA” use behavioral & ABA tactics.

most of it still shit.

for many family, especially those with autistic person diagnosed as “severe” or level 3 and or have extreme behavioral issues etc. their option isn’t “ABA or no ABA.” often, option is “ABA or be labeled as abusive neglectful by government” or “ABA or have child taken away” “you ‘willingly’ enroll in ABA or we take and put them in ABA anyway” or “ABA or lose job.”

most of it still shit.

“ABA or lose job” because school not able or not willing help (because autistic person’s needs “that much”), you keep getting called to pick them up from school, from day care. other people not know how “deal with” your autistic family member, you know how help them a little more but also you sure as hell don’t and are just as lost. so you keep miss work to go pick them up from places that kick them out and you exhausted and you not get sleep because autistic family member needs pretty constant supervision and you not have respite and you not know how help and eventually your job fires you because you keep miss work. and oh did ever mention caring for disabled person extremely expensive? but oh btw there ABA agency you can send autistic family member to for up to 40 hour/week so maybe you can keep job and thus keep roof over head and can still put food on table for family for your autistic family member. oh they also say they may able help with autistic family member behavior so maybe they don’t get kicked out of every necessary service.

most of it still shit.

ABA agencies frequently kick out people deemed too severe or “cannot be helped” or too violent or too many behavioral issues or cause too much harm.

most of it still shit.

in world where may & very often do kill you for seeing you as different thus “threat,” ability mask life saving survival tactic. am talking about POC. am specifically especially talking about Black people. is teaching how mask greater evil than dead killed hatecrimed? sure, no one should have to choose between these two options, but world not care about your morals n your “should”s n your envisioned better future you may or may not be actively help build right now, these people need survive in real world here and now.

most of it still shit.

there (some. a few.) ABA survivors who went thru ABA in past and now who think ABA helped. helped them gain skill. help them prevent harm. some of them don’t see self as abused in ABA or traumatized by ABA. some see it as both abused and helped and grateful for help and hate abuse. some see as both abused and helped and don’t see amount of helped as ever worth abuse.

most of it still shit. (so many were & are abused. n abuse is abuse)

many newer ABA agencies realize ABA heavily criticized n labeled abusive & say they change methods & no longer practice old school ABA & now no longer abusive.

most of it still shit. (many of these agencies still do coercive abusive stuff even if call themselves changed)

some of them maybe truly changed. getting rid of abusive practices, focusing on skill building & adaptive functioning, child-led, instead of drills and forced masking.

most of it still shit.

talk a lot with people who so adamant about “all ABA abuse” “all parents who put child into ABA abused deserve get child taken away” who never was in personal proximity of ABA who. when ask to describe what ABA is in own words, not able to. or give generic response like “abuse & force mask”, but when ask to describe specific methods they do that, not able to. when ask them what discrete trial training and prompting is and what goals may look like and how they write behavioral analysis, never heard of any of them. say listen to ABA survivors, but not able name any individual names. just “oh listen to them online, if you actually listen like me you would know & i wouldn’t need say more so it really your ignorance.” but more often, just get reactionary shut down whole conversation be seen as ableist threat if even be asked first question. how you help advocate for ABA survivors if don’t even know what ABA is? or who ABA survivors? if cannot even talk about ABA? how even fight against your enemy if don’t even know what enemy look like, not able pick out enemy from crowd unless spoon fed?

most of it still shit.

found that. when am talking about ABA. from add nuance to encourage thought provoking questions to even rhetorically ask people to describe ABA. have to repeat emphasize that am not saying ABA all not abusive. even if it first thing i lead with. even if it super clear that am indeed criticizing ABA, just with more grey area and nuances than people used to. lot people will block me from this post just within some paragraphs. lot will block me over saying “most of it still shit” instead of denounce all ABA, when it clear that use of word “most” is deliberate choice n reason of said choice is in every corner of this post. others will finish reading (if even that) and all get out of is repeating “most of it still shit.” made similar posts year(s) ago. and still, find people vague post or explicitly post about me or my post, paint me as evil ABA apologist. whenever come across people who talk about “post where talk about ABA good,” stop and wonder, are they talking about me?

don’t want to talk about ABA because of this. tired, not worth it, often is bad starting point is turn off for people who never seen my posts when have other posts much easier entry point, n start off at bad start may cause them to not listen to me and maybe even other higher support needs and or nonverbal nonspeaking autistics in foreseeable future or ever.

you know, this post started off as “… so you all know i don’t think kindly of ABA right”

throughout write this post, don’t know which part am emphasizing more. the “most of it still shit” part or parts in between.

still. most of it still shit.

If you’re someone without a personality disorder trying to defend people with personality disorders, you get told that you’ve been manipulated and brainwashed and can’t be trusted.

If you’re someone with a personality disorder trying to defend yourself, you get told that you’re manipulative and dangerous and can’t be trusted.

There really is no way for us to win.

Where are all the "slow" kids, the challenged kids, the burnouts from birth, the burden to have in class? Where are the autists who can't mask, who self harm, who are loud and can't stop stimming? The NDs with processing disorders, brain damage, brain fog? The ones with down syndrome, FAS, and other conditions that people treat like curses or defects. I hardly ever see them past 18 and I know they don't just dissolve once they become adults.

Talking about a discourse that doesn't even exist on Tumblr

On Tumblr, us higher support needs nonverbal/nonspeaking people often had 2 possible scenarios to deal with:

1. People ignore us and our opinion because our writing isn't "proper" English, and they make fun of us or comment on our writing style.

2. People think we're faking because our writing is good.

I couldn't care less about scenario number 2. And luckily I'm not affected by scenario number 1.

But what happens now is that somebody tries to discuss a Twitter discourse that simply doesn't exist here on Tumblr: Nonverbal/nonspeaking people with severe or profound autism and/or severe or profound intellectual disability who use FC to run their blogs.

This isn't happening.

Nobody on here (except maybe 1 person, but even there I'm not sure) has profound autism. Severe yes, there are some. But we don't use FC to run our blogs. Nobody on here (except maybe 1 person) has a profound ID. Severe yeah, maybe. But most people with ID are mild or moderate. And none of them use FC to run their blog.

So what happens now is scenario number 3:

3. People (or rather 1 online troll) think that what we write is facilitated and not our own words.

Especially those of us who have severe autism and/or ID. This is worse than scenario number 1 or 2. Especially because there's no way to disprove it. The better our grammar, the higher the probability that somebody else wrote our posts; at least to this online troll.

So whenever you encounter someone who says that what we write is facilitated and/or written by someone else: Don't believe them. Yes, sometimes people write something for us, but we can always check if we agree with what's been written.

I've heard of the FC problem where caregivers wrote something for the nonverbal/nonspeaking person, and it always was about how great FC was, etc. I think this was on Twitter and on individual blogs somewhere on the internet. But this isn't happening on Tumblr. Nobody with severe autism and/or severe or profound ID uses FC to run their blog on Tumblr.

It's basically "Yelling into the void".

Edit:

Since this post reached people who aren't aware of what was going on lately:

FC is short for Facilitated Communication. It's a method for people who can't speak and struggle greatly with other communication methods, such as writing, signing, or using an AAC device.

There's nothing wrong with people helping someone to run their blog; I, too, sometimes need help to run my blog. There's also nothing wrong with people writing posts or messages for someone. This post was only to inform others that nobody on Tumblr uses FC full time to run their blog. Because this is what this troll believes. She basically complains about something that's not the case.

give me a show with disabled queer representation. and I don't just mean amputee that is not affected at all by their amputation because "we're all basically the same- woo friends!". I don't just mean non descript wheelchair user that uses a hospital wheelchair. give me young queers using canes and rollators and white canes and powerchairs. and give them bright hair and make them neurodivergent and have struggles in life relating to them not fitting in with a lot of abled queer representations and "disabled friendly" pride events that aren't disabled friendly. make them black, make the Asian, make them fat, make them interesting. make them angry, make them punk, make them pastel, make them have interest and passions, have them protest, show them taking breaks and having to take care of themselves. please.

girls sitting next to me talking about how a peanut allergic kid transferred into one of their schools and all peanut products were banned. They're genuinely hating on this kid so much. One of them compared it to lactose intolerance and how they don't restrict who eats what and I... THERE'S A BIG DIFFERENCE BETWEEN "I DRANK MILK AND SHIT MYSELF" AND "I SMELL A PEANUT AND DIE OF ANAPHYLACTIC SHOCK" they are in fact WILDLY DIFFERENT DISORDERS. One is the inability to digest a sugar and the other is a deathly allergy. This counts as ableism right? Like hating on someone because you have to accommodate their involuntary life issues?