Ableism - Blog Posts
Some of y'all be like "Oh yeah I support Cluster B" until they:
Have debilitating cognitive problems
Are depressed
Have emotions that aren't aesthetically pleasing
Don't know healthy coping mechanisms
Have a different view of social norms
Struggle with relationships
Do actions that for you are "obviously purposefully evil"
Explain the thought process behind their actions, not excuse them
Have trauma that just by existing doesn't invalidate yours but somehow that thought scares you
It's almost like you don't support Cluster B, hm.
Homicidal Ideation
homicidal ideation is the term for having active thoughts about murdering others. these thoughts can be intrusive, however they can also often be voluntary.
misconceptions:
‘people who have these thoughts either have killed someone or will kill someone in the future’ - this is false. most people who have these thoughts usually have disordered behaviours (most commonly as a result of personality disorders) and struggle to find healthy ways to cope with their emotions, therefore provocation and stress can easily cause thoughts of inflicting harm onto others. this doesn’t inherently mean these people are dangerous, nor does it mean that they’re going to act upon these thoughts. most people who experience homicidal ideation never act on it and use it more as a way to process their distress/frustration internally.
‘having these thoughts about people in your life means you can’t possibly care for them’ - also false. caring for someone doesn’t make them an exception to mental illness and it doesn’t stop your mental illnesses from existing. to think that someone’s love for you is only valid as long as they’re not displaying traits of mental illness is unfair and is hugely misinformed. to love and be loved by someone who is mentally ill is to accept that they will display symptoms of their mental illness. you are not the exception and they do not love you any less by showing traits of being unwell.
‘so you endorse murder’ - no. that’s not at all what this means and if you seriously think this then your grasp of severe mental health issues is too limited to be commenting on such topics.
‘you’re evil’ - for being unwell? don’t be a cunt. if you seriously think that having a disordered manner of processing emotions internally makes someone ‘evil’ then that sounds more like an issue with you being too sensitive and having a lack of understanding, not an issue with the mentally ill person experiencing these thoughts. don’t make your inability to understand mental illness into someone else’s problem.
as someone who does experience homicidal ideation, it’s also important to not make the mistake of assuming everyone who is mentally ill experiences these thoughts either. i had an anonymous ask earlier today that directly associated the fact i’m mentally unwell with murder and homicidal thoughts, to immediately make this assumption just because someone is mentally ill is disgusting.
Just a reminder that ableism against personality disorders, especially cluster b personality disorder, is alive and well.
Not having empathy doesn’t make someone evil. It doesn’t make them an abuser. In fact, people without empathy are better in certain vital positions. We’re better at being first responders, 911 operators, and other tasks that would overwhelm empaths. We work better in critical situations than empaths do.
Thinking that any disorder makes someone evil is ableist. And when you take into account the sexist bias in diagnosing women with BPD and the racist and classist bias in diagnosing POC and prison inmates with ASPD and NPD? It’s not only ableist, it’s all kinds of -ists. Plus, it’s really rich for someone who claims that empathy is what makes someone good to have so little empathy for people with disorders that are literally trauma-based.
So yeah if you see someone being a dick to people with PDs? Say something. Because they’re definitely not going to listen to us.
Can y'all please stop using words like "delusional", "psychotic", and "narcissistic" as insults. These are terms used to describe mental illness. Mental illness does not make people evil, stop acting like does.
I don’t know who needs to hear this, but
👏Narcissist is not a code word for abuser👏
👏 Sociopath is not a code word for abuser👏
👏 Psychopath is not a code word for murderer👏
Not every shitty person is shitty because of a disorder that pop psychology likes to demonise. Slapping a label on every shitty person out there is ableist toward the NPD/ASPD sufferers who are just trying to get by. Stop it.
It's very common for people to push those with demonised personality disorders to the end of their tether via manipulation, bullying, abuse, etc. and then get upset with them when they inevitably snap.
It happens a lot within the neurodivergent community, too! People spread lies about us, do things that purposely upset/trigger us and then when we start to get upset/stand up for ourselves/etc. it's "sEE??? we were right about them all along!!!!"
Needs to be said, probably controversial, but "bad" people deserve support for their mental health issues as well. "Bad" people should not be dehumanized and berated for their mental health issues. I dont care what they've done
Not a day passes by without me being mad as shit that ableism against demonized mental illnesses is normalised.
We are not criminals. We are not dangerous. We do not owe neurotypicals a complete explanation on why we developed our disorders and why we aren't serial killers that kidnap people.
Fuck hollywood, fuck ableist criminology and fuck saneism.
another mental illness meme i made out of boredom
I love people with npd so much. I’m sorry that world is so ableist. I’m sorry that you can’t be anywhere without hearing the word ‘narcissism’ or ‘npd’ used in a negative light. I’m sorry that there isn’t anywhere near enough support.
I’m so sorry that you can’t win. It must be so suffocating and aggravating, living in a world where it feels like everybody hates you. You deserve better.
"i'm using delusional in the right context, it's not like it's that serious"
DELUSIONAL DISORDER + SCHIZO SPECTRUM DISORDERS + TBI + MANY OTHERS
"calling someone a narcissist isn't ableist it's not a disability"
NARCISSISTIC PERSONALITY DISORDER
"sociopath/psychopath are just adjectives it's not like I'm hurting anyone"
ANTISOCIAL PERSONALITY DISORDER
"saying i'm ocd doesn't affect you it's just the way i act"
MOTHERFUCKING OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE DISORDER
OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE PERSONALITY DISORDER
"i'm schizoposting lol it's just a joke"
SCHIZOPHRENIA
SCHIZOID PERSONALITY DISORDER
SCHIZOAFFECTIVE DISORDER
SCHIZOTYPAL PERSONALITY DISORDER
it's never just a joke, it's never an adjective. use a fucking thesaurus
Gods, the Storm post makes me so unbelievably angry. I think it says something about the community that we're erasing one character's extremely dangerous powers to act like she's being a dick to someone with powers that aren't anywhere near as dangerous just because people don't want her to be right.
Like, this is a crystal-clear example of y'all refusing to listen to people with higher support needs. I'm just saying. The parallels are crystal clear.
There is an entire blog, @cripplecharacters, you can start with. Please, this is what we're here for. To make sure people don't write stuff like this.
We shouldn't be your only stop and as OP said, sensitivity readers are worth the investment, but we can help, too. Please utilize disabled sensitivity services. We're here because we want to help you represent your characters right.
ive been thinking a lot about the whole sia music think lately and ive said this before on my other blog but if youre allistic and working on a story involving autism/an autistic character please please get an autistic sensitivity reader (ideally more than one tbhhh) and, in addition, if you can please compensate them.
if you cant afford to compensate a sensitivity reader because the story youre working on isnt something you expect to be able to monetize like thats understandable especially right now. you should still seek people out. odds are you will find someone willing to give your work a once over and provide some thoughts, but like, if thats the case expect the kind of work you would naturally expect from a freeby. reading and giving feedback on another persons writing IS work and it honestly can be very draining work especially when it involves essentially asking a marginalized person to encounter and correct microaggressions they already are forced to deal with in life. that deserves the proper appreciation.
like if youre writing something about an autistic character and reach out to me ill definitely give it a look because this is something i care about a lot and i really want to see better depictions of neurodivergence in media, but if im doing this for freesies im going to be a lot less willing to get into circular arguments about what gets a pass and what doesnt or give you super detailed advice on how to fix a particular problem.
if im taking the time to review your potentially insensitive writing for nothing but my hope that itll do some good for the community, dont expect me to hold your hand. seek out sensitivity readers. pay your sensitivity readers.
That's right. It looks like the two adult characters did physically get on top of her, restrain her, and put weight on her. Of course there could have been some cinema magic in place to protect Maddie, who was a child, from being injured, but it looks a lot like they put at least half of their weight on the poor girl and even that could have seriously hurt her or started to suffocate her. Did she have a hand signal to tell the crew that something was wrong and she needed the scene to cut? Wait, her hands were restrained. How was she supposed to communicate that she genuinely needed help and wasn't just pretending to be panicked? Restraints like that could have made speech very difficult, maybe impossible. So yeah, Maddy very much could have been in actual danger.
Considering how little Sia seems to care about putting people in danger with what she's portraying, I wouldn't put it past her. Doing this safely would have required careful planning and a lot of effort she seemed at loathe to put in.
People are right to point out the use of dangerous restraint methods in Music in the context of its impact on the autistic community, but I'm also concerned about how they actually filmed it? Like maybe I'm missing something, idk a lot about filming movies and such, but if they actually did that restraint, doesn't that mean Maddy Ziegler was put in danger?
Okay, as a mod of cripplecharacters, I'm about to go off from several different angles. And these aren't even all of my thoughts. I have more. (TW for ableism, mention of prone restraints, caricature characters, and really, really poor writing of disabled characters.)
If she didn't get her information through a collaboration with Autism Speaks then where'd she get it? She claims she did three years of research. Did none of that research include basic stuff about writing disabled characters in general? Also, it takes five seconds to find out that there's an issue with Autism Speaks. It's in the little Wikipedia blurb. She didn't even skim Wikipedia in three years?
Not even come slightly close to the topic of prone restraints (which have a death count,) and definitely not portray is as a good thing twice
Gotten rid of that detail of Music having an accident during Kazoo's relapse. Yeah, that can happen sometimes with some autistics in real life, but the fact that it was portrayed the way it was and by an actress who wasn't autistic-
Similarly, the angry "Brush you hair" scene was... where to even start? No, not by an actress who isn't, at the very least, MSN or semispeaking (or even nonspeaking)
Gotten rid of that inspiration porn Music singing scene at the end.
Significantly rewritten the guy who is... I think he's Zu's love interest?
Actually done something with the kid who seemed to care so deeply for Music.
Explained how said kid managed to acquire twenty thousand dollars to buy Music a service dog over the internet just like that???
Remove Music not doing anything about finding her grandmother dead on the floor??? Or at least acknowledge that the poor girl was probably traumatized from the experience and had no idea what to do or how to help? It's shot almost like she's being selfish and choosing not to help rather than being disabled, terrified, and unable to help.
Not forced Maddie into this movie using their massive power imbalance. Definitely should never have forced a young teenaged girl into a position so bad that she literally broke down sobbing because she didn't want to come across as a caricature, at which point Sia lied to her. Look, Maddie was what, fourteen? And Sia was basically a mother figure and the one responsible for Maddie's success.
Not called stimming tics. Tics come from a very different group of disorders, involuntary stimming behaviours are a completely different thing with different reasons and mechanisms. If she wanted to write Music having tics, she should have given her a tic disorder. Actually, wait, scratch that. She screwed up badly enough with a singularly-disabled character. I don't want to know how much lower she could go by trying to portray a multiple-disabled character.
Not lied about trying to get a nonspeaking actress (because she was quoted long before that as saying she would only make the movie if Maddie was the main role. She wasn't going to try with an autistic actress.) Not acted like firing the fictional autistic actress was a mercy rather than putting some work in and making the set accessible for her.
Like, sure, maybe a hypothetical nonspeaking actress couldn't have been able to handle the dancing. You know what the solution to that is? Either adapt the dancing or get her an autistic stunt double who can do the dancing
Not have Music be significantly less autistic in her head? The stimming and movement abnormalities fade, if not vanish entirely, during the dream sequences. As though the version of Music in her head is less autistic than Music in her body, maybe even not autistic at all. Which is an idea that has blood on its hands
Not tried to portray all of autism rather than just Music, a character who happens to be autistic. What Sia was doing was trying to portray autism as a whole, or maybe even turn the entire idea of autism into a character rather than create a person with autism. Compare this to a (slightly) better example, Wendy from Please Stand By. Dakota Fanning wasn't trying to portray all of autism and her character wasn't written to portray autism as a whole, she was playing Wendy, one particular autistic woman, rather than a caricature.
Given Music literally anything. Why doesn't she have hobbies? Where's her personality? I know nothing about Music as a person and that's because she wasn't written to be a person.
The dead disabled brother plot was unnecessary. As was the HIV plot.
"She can hear two rooms away" she's autistic, not Superman.
The grandmother left absolutely no plan to help Zu care for her H-MSN sister, not even a note in her will like "The neighbour is close with her, he can help." I know she died suddenly but c'mon, she has a grandchild who will need care for the rest of her life, she should have been more cautious as an elderly woman. Her carelessness was setting Zu up for failure and Music up for an even worse time of this massive change in her life.
So yeah, it would make sense that there's some growing pains, Zu has no idea how to interact with her sister and her sister is probably distressed, confused, grieving, and frustrated because her entire world is changing. But rather than treating this as a "Yeah, this would have gone better with a bit of planning and we're both struggling because we're going into this blind," it's portrayed as "Music is the source of all of my problems, she's the worst, she's unreasonable, she's the worst thing that's ever happened to me and I hate her." Why is Music being portrayed as a burden rather than the burden being how ill-prepared the grandmother left all involved parties for this eventuality.
Wasn't Music meant to be HSN? Like, level three autism? Spoken like someone who's never interacted with someone who's HSN before.
Zu is high-key resentful towards Music as though any of this is her fault and she seems so desperately dedicated to either ignoring or despising her sister and the way it's portrayed makes it feel like the audience is supposed to agree with Zu?
Wow, I went off. To keep this from being nine hundred miles longer, she should have just not done that. If she had submitted this plot to cripplecharacters, literally any of us, autistic or not, could have told her not to do this. Did she even talk to someone from the disabled community? You don't even need to be autistic, just disabled, to know that pretty much all of this was a horrific idea.
What SIA Should’ve Done Making Her Movie ‘Music’
Cast an autistic actor for the main character
Consulted with actual autistic people instead of f$&@ing Auti$m $peaks
Did PROPER research
Made the movie accessible to watch - got rid of the whole flashing light thing that could trigger seizures
Used an actual mixed actor instead of doing literal blackface
Started being open to criticism instead of having a flip out at people for calling her out
Not agreed with an interviewer comparing non-verbal people to an actual inanimate object wtf
Feel free to add to this
I am speechless at this blantantly ableist article from Bruce Pardy of the National Post.
Here’s a personal story. I have various learning disabilities one of them is called slow motor skills. This results in very poor writing speed. If I did not get extra time as accommodation or access to a computer to type my exams, I’d fail all my classes because I would not be able to finish my exams, and unlike Pardy’s claim, getting extra time doesn’t make me an A student. I’m not an A student and never have been, despite trying very hard. My accommodations don’t give me an edge, if anything they level the playing field. My disabilities have more of a negative effect on my learning than any accommodations I receive provide positives, but these accommodations allow me to at least pass my tests and continue my studies.
What’s pardy’s conclusion? People with disabilities shouldn’t be allowed in post secondary education? Because that’s what’s going to happen when you take away disability supports.
I am furious right now.
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?
this is going to be a long post, it's kinda just me writing all my raw unfiltered thoughts on ABA therapy as someone who actually went through it
-> TW for ABA therapy, child abuse, suicide <-
I was functionally diagnosed with autism at the age of 3 but it wasn't until I was 13 that I was actually formally evaluated for it and given an official diagnosis. I was behind in social skills and developmental skills
[ID: "was also described as a sensory seeker. She does not currently have any friends and has struggled to make and maintain peer relationships throughout her childhood. Difficulties with social skills were initially noted when she was in preschool (years before the onset of clinically significant symptoms of anxiety and"]
[ID: "Social functions: [blank]'s mother also completed a questionnaire rating her social responsiveness. Her responses on the SRS-2 indicated that [blank] is demonstrating severe deficits in the areas of Social Communication (reciprocal social interaction and nonverbal and verbal communication), Social Motivation (motivation to engage in social-interpersonal behavior) and Social Awareness (perceiving social cues) and moderate deficits in the areas of Social Cognition (understanding social cues). Severe Repetitive and Restrictive Behaviors (stereotypical behaviors or highly restricted interests) were also reported. The total T-score on the SRS-2 indicates severe deficiencies in reciprocal behavior that are likely to result in interference in everyday social interaction"]
[ID: "%ile) are mildly impaired, while her social skills are moderately impaired (2nd %ile). By domain, demonstrates mildly to moderately impaired abilities in six adaptive skills areas, including self care (9th %ile), communication (5th %ile), home living (5th %ile), self-direction (2nd %ile), social (2nd %ile), and leisure (1st %ile)"]
and ultimately all this ended up with the number one recommendation after my autism evaluation being for ABA therapy.
[ID: "Recommendations: Based on the above results, the following recommendations are made for [blank] and her family.
1. ABA therapy: [blank] May benefit from an intensive treatment program to foster cognitive and communication skills, improve independence and adaptive functioning, and help manage interfering behaviors (i.e home-based, 1:1 instruction, task analysis, etc.) Most private and community programs are based on principals of operant conditioning and taught in home with 1:1 instruction"]
*I'm getting misgendered here. my pronouns are he/him
"operant conditioning"-- like a dog 🐕🐕. woof woof.
my mom didn't know any better so she put me in ABA therapy with the Center for Autism and Related Disorders. she regrets this. I regret this more.
my autism evaluation was cruel, it dissected all my flaws as if I was a bug under a microscope in a highschool laboratory. my evaluation was passed around to ABA therapists, a line of high schoolers peering through the microscope examining the most vulnerable parts of me.
and I choose the highschool analogy quite deliberately. most of the ABA therapists at my center were recent highschool graduates with no degree and little training. they knew nothing about autism and had no qualifications. you need more certificates to become a professional dog trainer than to become a professional human trainer.
"operant conditioning"
and I wish I could say it was just a poor choice of words but ABA therapy was dog training for children. my dad used to call me an "it" and somehow I felt less dehumanized by that than the entire experience I had in ABA therapy.
I was the oldest person at my center (I did not receive in home therapy) with the next oldest being approximately 3 years younger than me. at the time I felt babied. I was surrounded by 5 year olds and I was treated as if I was not just a 5 year old but an autistic 5 year old and anyone who has been a visibly autistic 5 year old knows what that feels like. I had escaped being an autistic child and now I was being treated like one again. The head of the program tried to console me by telling me adults received their services too.
[ID: "Following the principles of applied behavior analysis, CARD has developed a treatment approach for children and adolescents with"]
this was the first lie they told me. CARD does not work with adults.
I was not allowed the privileges of being a 13 year old. because I was an autistic 13 year old and therefore I was the equivalent of a 5 year old. I was in psychotherapy at the same time and I had grown very accustomed to some level of freedom in therapy. I was allowed to use the bathroom independently. in ABA therapy I was not allowed to use the bathroom independently. I tried once, me and my therapist were on an "outing" to the grocery store and I told my therapist I was going to the bathroom and walked off and I got a very stern talking to about how I needed to "stop eloping" and if I didn't stop it would "become a behavior"
eloping became a common theme used to control me and squeeze money out of my parents.
out of everything I hated in my life, including severe physical abuse at home (which they did not report), I hated ABA therapy the most. I would repeatedly make serious threats of suicide to try to get out of ABA. no one cared. everyone thought I was being dramatic but there were times I wrote out suicide notes and ABA was among the reasons I listed. ABA made me feel hopeless, depressed, revolting, disgusting, inferior, and less than human. between ABA, my home life, and my social life I had never felt so hated and it was boiling through my skin. I acted out, I was bullying people, I was behaving recklessly, I was starting fights, and all this only made the oppressive force of ABA crack down on me harder. I was a cat hissing in the corner begging to be left alone and ABA brought a net to try to tame me further. every time I scratched back it was listed as a reason I needed to be there.
I was "disruptive" and "rebellious" and "uncooperative" and "resistant to treatment" and no one could figure out why I was "regressing" despite me shouting the answer. I was screaming and no one was willing to hear me
I hated myself and my autism. my autism diagnosis made me want to die. I didn't feel freed by it or understood I felt ashamed and disgusted. I felt incompetent and like I had failed. I was ashamed to be at ABA, it was my biggest secret. I'd lie to my friends about why I couldn't hang out and I'd lie to people in public about who the woman I was with was and I'd lie about all of it to try to cover up my most shameful secret.
ABA therapy did nothing but foster this. In ABA therapy I was mocked for being autistic and what was happening only clicked when a young kid, maybe only 4 or 5, was flapping his hands and a therapist took out her phone and recorded him. we were circus animals. it was all an entertaining show to them while they poked and prodded at us with metaphorical hot irons to make us dance. the first time a therapist laughed at me for rocking back and forth I wanted to throw up. I almost did. it was systematic bullying of children I was forced to watch and experience.
my point is: the last place on earth I wanted to be was the ABA center.
so of course I tried to leave. my mom would bring me McDonald's and I'd beg, sobbing real tears, to leave early because only she could sign me out. every time I'd go to meet her I'd be marked as "eloping" and my hotel stay in hell would get extended.
my natural response to a stressful environment (leaving) was pathologized. I was eloping this way and that way and never once did I actually, truly elope. that word was a weapon used against me. they used my "elopement" to justify extending my stay to my parents. they ate it right up.
they argued I needed to stay there because I was making friends. this was true, I'm great at getting along with children it's part of why I want to go into pediatrics, but I had also made real friends with people my age at my highschool. ABA was getting in the way. I wanted to spend time with my friends outside of school but ABA took up all my time from the minute I left school to 6pm and all day on weekends. I was doing a full time job's worth of hours. I complained about how I was missing out on spending time with my real friends (as in, over the age of 7) and I was met with almost no wiggle room in my schedule. I was allowed to pre-plan time to spend with friends but every time my friend group wanted to do something spontaneously? I had to say no, and I had to lie about why. my friends would share stories about driving around town with 2 people in the group stuffed in the trunk, of hanging out in the woods together, of taking part in ordinary highschool activities as ordinary high schoolers and it made me cry because I was not an ordinary highschooler and I was not allowed to participate in ordinary highschool activities. I was one of those weird, unpleasant, socially awkward autistic people instead. eventually, they just stopped inviting me. I was forced into the out group by ABA.
I'll never get that back. I'll never get a chance to be a normal highschooler ever again.
when I did have time available to hang out with people I never had the energy to. at the time I was living with an undiagnosed physical disability and I was begging to see a doctor but no one would believe that it wasn't just anxiety. the people who believed me least of all were the people at the center.
I was constantly told I was trying to get out of therapy by "feigning" very real pain and fatigue. I tried to explain spoon theory, and that I had limited spoons, and in response they made a task for me to name things to "regenerate spoons" that's not how it works. I wasn't the only physically disabled person there. there was a wheelchair user who was constantly forced to stand for periods of time despite being in agony doing it. he wasn't allowed rewards until he did it.
rewards were used to train us like dog treats are used with dogs. sometimes the treats were fun! I'd get to cook, play Mario kart, and go on outings. other times the treats were "using the correct name and pronouns for me." I'd constantly be threatened with deadnaming and misgendering if I was being "noncompliant."
misgendering because of my autism was a theme in my life. my neuropsych evaluation report misgendered me. my parents misgendered me. the staff at ABA misgendered me. at one point the head of the program suggested that my "gender confusion" was because of my autism. my abusive father latched onto this and still claims that the reason I'm "confused" about my gender is because the evil transgenders tricked me into thinking I'm one of them because I'm autistic and therefore easily impressionable.
the two therapists I had were nice because I refused to work with the others. they weren't on a power trip and both eventually left because they realized the harm the organization was doing. other therapists were not so kind. other therapists were on a power trip, because in their mind lording over autistic 5 year olds (and autistic 14 year olds) makes them powerful and strong. occasionally I'd get stuck with one of the other therapists when my usual therapists were out. they would talk to me in a baby voice. they would make fun of me for rocking back and forth, for not making eye contact, for talking about Skyrim "too much" and generally just for being autistic.
I never really knew what I was supposed to be doing, just that I was doing it wrong. the therapists there rarely actually told me what my tasks were they'd just mark yes or no on them, judging me for something I wasn't aware of. I was never actually supposed to graduate, I was never supposed to get out, if they wanted me to succeed they would have taught and explained what was happening but I was intentionally left in the dark.
I continued threatening suicide to get out. no one took me seriously. I was seriously considering it. there's no happy conclusion where someone finally realized it was all wrong, or I figured out how to be allistic and graduated, or I felt more comfortable there. I only got out when covid struck and shut the center down. it's gone now, replaced by a family advice center. I hope their advice for autistic children is to never put them in ABA.
there is no grander message here just suffering. I'm sorry if you were expecting some sort of great point at the end of this. there's not one. it happened, I wish it didn't, and I hope no one else experiences what I did ever again.
okay to reblog
“Imagine having a child that refuses to hug you or even look you in the eyes”
Imagine being shamed, as a child, for not showing affection in a way that is unnatural or even painful for you. Imagine being forced, as a child, to show affection in a way that is unnatural or even painful for you. Imagine being told, as a child, that your ways of expressing affection weren’t good enough. Imagine being taught, as a child, to associate physical affection with pain and coercion.
what i need narc abuse believers to realize when we say "narc/npd abuse doesn't exist" is that we are not saying:
your abuse wasn't real or valid
pwNPD are never abusive
pwNPD are perfect angels who can do no wrong, ever
you're a liar
you're lying about your abuse
there is a 0% chance your abuser had npd
abuse isn't real
abuse doesn't happen, ever
you're an abuser
you are, without a doubt, not disabled, and also one hundred percent ableist and sanist
we are saying, though:
narc abuse itself, as a concept, does not exist
narcissists do not perpetuate any type of abuse that egotypicals can't
your abuse and trauma wasn't narcissistic abuse but rather emotional or psychological abuse
narc abuse itself, as a concept, has harmed pwNPD and their relationships
narc abuse has ruined any chance of finding actually good resources
narc abuse itself, as a concept, has been used to abuse narcissists
narc abuse itself, as a concept, is named after a mental disorder, which is inherently sanist and ableist
you have ableist and sanist biases that you do need to check, regardless of if you're intentionally or actively trying to harm people or not
Most people really don't seem to know what this mysterious "residential care" means when it comes to disabilities.
"This person is severely disabled, they have to live in residential care."
Do you know what happens when a severely disabled person with high support needs who isn't aware of dangers and needs constant supervision applies for residential care?
They get turned down or kicked out a couple of days later.
This happens regularly, btw. Kids grow up and parents think "Oh, residential care sounds good", and then suddenly every institution, etc. goes "Sorry, we don't specialise in that, sorry, your child is too aggressive, sorry, your child can't stick to our sleep schedule, sorry, your child is too noise sensitive, sorry, your child HAS to participate in our weekly activities even though their disability makes it impossible for them to do so, sorry..."
People who can live in residential care aren't your "the worst of the worst" example. There is such a thing as "too disabled for residential care" and it's more common than you'd think! ☝🏼
"But what happens when someone is too disabled for residential care and their family can't take care of them? Surely everyone eventually ends up somewhere!"
They get passed around from institution to institution, but everyone eventually goes "Sorry, we can't keep them here", and it won't stop. Until, maybe, one day they're lucky and a fixed team of carers "adopts" them and tries to create some kind of assisted living from scratch.
Nobody talks about it, which is why it's always a big shock for parents who found a really good residential care place for their soon-to-be adult child and their child looks forward to moving out, and suddenly this wonderful residential care company turns their child down because it's too disabled. And then the next one. And the next.
So no, residential care isn't for "those with the most profound disabilities" - people with the most profound disabilities can't be in residential care at all.
I don’t know if you’ve heard, but it has become a big conspiracy theory among teens in Tiktok the idea that Helen Keller was fraud that didn’t exist, and the main argument to back this is “how could someone be both blind and deaf and still be successful and write books”. That’s plain ableism. This entire thing is just deeply ableist and the fact that an ableist conspiracy theory like this can spread so easily among kids is just scary.
Conspiracy theories, misinformation, fake news and bigotry are not a generational thing! It’s not a “boomer” thing, this is something that happens among all generations.
can we stop saying that words like dumb and stupid are ableist slurs or ableist language please I’m autistic and that’s just… not what the fuck a slur is bye
good afternoon everyone! not so friendly reminder that correcting someone’s grammar and/or spelling as a comeback to something they said is ableist! implying someone is not worth listening to or their argument is automatically invalid because of their grammar and/or spelling is ableist!
disclaimer: i’m not saying everyone who has ever done this is a horrible person or that you consciously knew it was ableist, i’m saying that it’s a harmful way of thinking and going about things and it needs to stop now. you’ve done this and now you feel guilty? good on you for recognizing that it was bad. not many people are willing to do that. get up, keep going, don’t do it again, and point out ableism where you see it. as i always say, in an ableist society like ours, the only people free of internalized ableism are those who have already unlearned it.
He doesn't have "the brain of a two-year-old," he has the brain of a forty-year-old man with IDD
disabled adults don’t have “the brains of children” they have the brains of adults with disabilities. just because you can’t understand the difference doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist