Why Self-deprecation is Ugly

  By joel | May 9, 2013 - 6:42 pm | , ,
Leave a comment

Autistic people sometimes live a life where they are never good enough in the eyes of people important to them. Perhaps not “good enough” in the eyes of a parent, friends, classmates, or someone else’s eyes.

One response is to internalize this feeling of inadequacy. You believe yourself to be inadequate. So you express that. I understand that, I lived through it.

This is horrible for a person to feel. And sometimes there aren’t a lot of good ways to deal with this miserable life. You may discover self-deprecation. If you’re going to fail in other people’s eyes, you might as well be the person to say you’re inadequate – and beat anyone else to, getting a little bit of control. You can’t succeed, but you can take the words from others.

Of course this is not a positive thing. But understandable.

Where it becomes a problem is when it continues when the person can succeed. It then becomes not an expression of depression but rather of manipulation.

Yes, manipulation.

Once someone can succeed, the self-deprecation is now a manipulation. It can be used to get people to look at the person, give them attention, and even get others to give compliments.

It sometimes gets seen as humility (sometimes by the person acting in the self-deprecating way, sometimes by others). But it’s not humility. Humility doesn’t seek to gain control, while self-deprecation does. Humility allows someone to succeed and recognize their own success – self-deprecation actually draws attention to the success, by drawing other people into acknowledging the success. Humility doesn’t seek recognition, but self-deprecation attempts to pull out recognition from others. Humility is good. Self-deprecation is not (although sometimes it’s an understandable symptom of depression).

Self-deprecation attempts to control criticism. It seeks to get others to either sympathize with him (and tell him his being, attributes, or work are actually even better than they really are) or to see that he knows what is wrong and really is smart and able, just didn’t quite pull it off this time. Most people, being polite, will appear to sympathize outwardly.

Humility doesn’t control criticism. If someone says your work or attribute or being sucks, you analyze the truth of the statement and move past that. It allows for someone to point out a flaw you don’t know about. It also allows you to dismiss their opinion, if it isn’t well founded. Not all criticism is accurate, after all.

Simultaneously, self-deprecation not only controls criticism, but removes the need to act in it’s presence. You’ve already said it or you suck. So, what does the other person expect? You suck. You know that. You told them! If you suck, how can anyone expect you to do better? You don’t have to act, if you employ this strategy of manipulation.

Again, I think most people that practice this manipulation are doing it because of pain and hurt. They’ve probably had a horrible past. But, at the same time, it’s not always a good way of interacting with others and can become manipulative and ugly.

For myself, it took me quite some time before I could accept that a compliment was not just setting me up for abuse or humiliation. So I’d question a compliment, rather than accept it. Even when I was able to succeed, I’d deprecate. It was a bit of a habit and a bit of coping. But it wasn’t humble. It was still manipulative, even if it was developed as a strategy to cope with depression and horrible life circumstances. I needed to learn what was wrong with the self-deprecation, learn why I did it, and learn that, no, I don’t need to live in that way. I could be good at something. And someone else could tell me so – without me needing to set the stage about how horrible I was first. I could also be non-perfect, without the need to avoid all criticism by getting out in front of someone else’s criticism. I could just accept myself as I am (and recognize legitimate areas of improvement). And I could be wrong. That’s okay too.

When I continued that behavior past the places where I was being abused, and into places where I had plenty of positive feedback from others, it became manipulative. It could easily become ugly – a way to get people to do what I want them to do, while freeing myself from potential criticism. Not good. And it’s okay to not want someone to manipulate you in this way – that’s not abuse, it’s not wrong, and it’s okay to call out this behavior when you see it. It is bad behavior, even if it had a good reason. Just accepting it doesn’t help – it doesn’t help if it truly is a result of ongoing abuse (it instead facilitates the abuse – better to find the cause and get it taken care of!). Nor does it help if those things are long past and this is now just plain manipulation.

I’m definitely learning to live – and that a compliment may be just that. I may have done good! That part of my personality really might be good! And, yes, that criticism may even be valid (or not!). That’s all good. As I learn this, I learn that people’s opinions of me, while worth evaluating, are not what is important. Being as decent of a person as you can is important. Yes, you do need some positive input from other people. And too many autistics don’t get that. But at the same time, once that’s there, it’s freeing to recognize it and then let go of the need that is now met and to give up that manipulation of others.

How to Cope @ University

  By joel | May 7, 2013 - 2:07 pm |
2 Comments

A Guardian article about autistics going to university reminded me how much we miss when we call autism a “social” disability – something that affects primarily our ability to interact.

Is autism primarily a social disability? NO! Autism is a bit more complex than that. No, a lot more complex.

I had problems in university. Some of them were social. For instance, my first week of school, I didn’t eat anything because I was too overwhelmed to ask where the cafeteria was – eventually my hunger got the best of me and I stalked a group of students at around dinner time. But going a week without food isn’t a good thing. And, yes, if I interacted socially like most people, I probably would have asked someone for directions.

Some classes focused on group work. I did pretty poor in those. I still hate group work, and avoid it at all cost. Fortunately, most of my teachers accepted this and let me do individual work. But I did pretty poor when they didn’t.

But, there is a lot more to autism than social stuff. I probably would have graduated from my first attempt at university if I had some non-social help. I didn’t need help with the subject matter, but I did need help organizing things and figuring out how to schedule my time. The university may be able to help students with that now, I don’t know. But it’s deeper than that.

In fact, the social part of university was the part I enjoyed the most – I had more friends during that time of my life than during any other time of my life! I could find people interested in what I was interested in. I loved that part of it – I had little trouble making friends (after the first week).

I needed help with daily life. Getting up in the morning, getting dressed, doing laundry, eating, organizing my room, paying my bills, etc. Of course most universities expect you to do that yourself. Maybe that’s fine, but if it is, then this help needs to be available elsewhere.

One of the biggest things that caused me problems was the avalanche effect. I could cope with a few flakes of snow. Or even a snowball or two. But, if you get enough snow at once, it’s deadly. If I got behind a little in my daily living areas, homework, self-care, etc, it would tend to push other things behind. Pretty soon, everything was behind. After a bit of this, everything was behind so much that there was no hope of catching up. I needed a chance to rest and recover sometimes. I rarely got it.

As an example, let’s say I had a hard day for any number of reasons. I end up going to bed exhausted, but after 8 hours or so of sleep, I might not be fully recovered. So it’s impossible for me to get up and get breakfast, and maybe I even can’t make it to that first class. Of course there is homework in that class, and while I have plenty of friends, I don’t have any in that class to find out what homework was assigned. Instructors aren’t very helpful when you say, “I slept through your class…again…” so you’re on your own. So now, I have something that is stressing me out (my homework), I probably have late or no marks for the homework I was supposed to hand in, and I still haven’t eaten any food or got to any class. The stress might keep me from my next class too, which compounds the problem. Then I find I don’t have any clean underwear to wear, since I forgot to do laundry yesterday when I was stressed out. So I have to go do that – and that’s two more hours out of my day. So I end up collapsing in front of the TV or computer game or internet. And now it just looks like I’m a lazy ass, so I’m not going to get any sympathy (or, more helpfully, HELP!) now!

Another part of the problem is that most 18 year olds don’t know what help they need, and most universities don’t know either. Sure, they have ideas, but they generally lack the flexibility and imagination – and perhaps even money, people, and ability – to notice things like, “Oh, it’s probably important that we find a way to make sure Joel can get food when he’s overloaded and can’t do the dining hall. He’ll have more success in school with that.” Or realizing that there is alternatives to group work that meet students where they are instead of where their peers are. Or eliminating some of the barriers students have to getting a degree inherent in the program.

For my program, I needed a foreign language. After I took Spanish I for the third time (and failed it), I gave up on that. And I gave up on the group-work senior project class, not because of lack of ability to do the work but because of the incredibly strange way the professor wanted us to work together. Then there was certain progressions that were expected, but maybe I missed or had trouble with one part of it one semester – and the next semester, the same course wasn’t offered, but I also couldn’t progress with the rest of my class.

If we can’t even get the flexibility we need with the aspects of the program that are 100% under the control of the university – course progressions, general education requirements, and course structure – there’s little hope for us when it comes to daily living and coping with overload.

It doesn’t help when you yourself don’t know what you need to succeed yet.

Here’s what we need (and I’m sure there are others);

  • Daily Living Support – we need to meet our own needs for food, shelter, self-care, home organization, financial, and administrative stuff. There should be a way for students who could excel in their field to still excel in their field, even if they have problems with these areas
  • Structured Flexibility – I needed deadlines to get work done by. But at the same time, I needed exceptions and flexible schedules. And I needed a lot more than most students.
  • Creativity – how can I demonstrate my growth? How can I learn my field? There’s not just one way!
  • Crash Time and Space – I need a place to escape, rest, and relax. If I don’t get this, then everything else crumbles around me. A noisy residence hall is not an escape – it’s tremendous work.
  • Academic Support – this was the least important thing for me. These are the accommodations universities know how to accommodate the best (which is still often pretty awful). This is things like note takers, testing environmental accommodations, tutors, etc. I don’t know much about this because it’s not something I needed.

I’m sure there’s others, and I’d love to hear other people’s thoughts.

Group Homes Refuse to Let Couple Live Together

  By joel | May 7, 2013 - 9:29 am | , , , , ,
Leave a comment

An AP article, via Denver Post about a married couple denied the ability to live together shows a trend that has been happening for years.

I’ve written about it before: here, here, and here. Disabled people aren’t supposed to be sexy. We gross (some) normal people out. (ironically the same reason gays are in the middle of a fight for their right to marry)

Here’s the essence of the story: two mentally disabled people got married. Her group home (run by Catholic Health Systems of Long Island) doesn’t believe she can consent to sex. His co-ed home (run by Independent Group Home Living) says they aren’t staffed to help them with aspects of their relationship, “sexual or otherwise.”

This isn’t new. As I wrote about before, group homes have for a long time felt the need to regulate intimate behavior in ways that a non-disabled person would consider a violation of human rights.

They get away with it for two reasons. First, is the idea that disabled people need protection from the world. Too often, this manifests as a set of dumb restrictions (such as “married people shouldn’t sleep with each other”) that don’t actually make anyone safe!

Second is the idea that disabled people having sex is gross, perverted, and just plain wrong. It’s the same reaction that a straight guy might have in his gut when he thinks of two gay guys having sex. For lots of people, it’s “icky” to think about having sex with someone with a disability. So, because some people can’t see how someone would enjoy being intimate and sharing life with someone, the target of their prejudice ends up being restricted.

It probably doesn’t help that Catholic Health Systems runs her home, either. The obvious outcome of sex is children – the only thing more scary to some than disabled people having sex is disabled people having kids. And it very well may be that the wife doesn’t want to have kids (she may want them – I really don’t know). But of course no Catholic-run group is going to provide comprehensive sex education, birth control training, or other basic sexual health care and educational programs. It’s supposed to be in God’s hands – well, unless they are disabled and then we’ll stop it.

As for the ability of her to consent, why couldn’t she? You have to do better than “she’s labeled mentally retarded.” Certainly a group home or really anyone else should be helping her if she ends up in a situation she doesn’t want. But she wants this and has asked for it. How much more consent can you get? I suspect it’s really codewords for “if they sleep together they’ll have sex, and then they’ll have a kid and we don’t want that.” And that’s a whole other problem disabled people face – their right to have children is routinely and too-easily challenged, even when they are plenty or more capable than other parents of raising a child (but I’ll add “having kids” doesn’t always follow from “sleeping in the same home”). And, no, I’m not interested in your story about your disabled aunt who couldn’t care for her kids so you took her child (I can give you stories about non-disabled people who can’t raise kids). I know there are people who are unfit parents, but there are also plenty of fit parents out there. And research agrees with me (go look it up yourself, and, yes, people have done a LOT of research on parents with mental retardation).

As for his home, which is arguing “married couples are too tough,” especially “sexually and otherwise” – get over it. You have a co-ed home (and I wouldn’t be surprised if sex and relationships are already happening there – do you not think disabled people seek these things?). Nobody is expecting you to physically assist with sex. Really.

I’m not going to get into too much of this, other than to say it’s a problem I’ve been shouting about to the mountain tops with pretty much no acknowledgement by any disability organization. Nobody wants to touch “people labeled mentally retarded should be able to get married.” When one of them does, they’ll get my support (hint: it’s probably good not to send me fund raising email until you acknowledge all our human rights). But until then, I will keep shouting.

Scandals and Appearance of Evil

  By joel | May 4, 2013 - 2:02 pm | , , , ,
Leave a comment

Okay, not too much to do with autism in today’s post…or so it appears. Dr. Lovaas was the principle researcher that created both the Feminine Boys Project and ABA at UCLA. ABA, or Applied Behavioral Analysis, is a popular autism treatment that isn’t exactly appreciated by many of the autistics that went through it, based on the focus of ABA (particularly the flavor created by Lovaas) on indistinguishability of an autistic child from his non-autistic peers (that’s considered success). When Lovaas worked with the Feminine Boys Project, he shared the same goal – to make the “feminine boy” indistinguishable from his heterosexual, non-feminine peers. Similar methods are used in both – behavior that is desired is rewarded, while behavior that is not desired is given disapproval. So, non-feminine mannerisms are rewarded for the anti-gay therapy, while non-autistic mannerism are rewarded for the anti-autism therapy. In both cases, this is damaging to the child’s mental health when they are forced to deny who they are.

Now, I have to give a disclaimer here, because people will read more into my words than I write: I’m not saying all therapy is bad. But I am saying therapy that is aimed at making autistic children look like non-autistic children is bad. There’s a distinction – very important, and it should be very obvious – between therapies aimed at making someone appear non-autistic and therapies aimed at giving someone the tools to navigate the world. You don’t have to make a gay person act straight for the gay person to have a successful life (and trying to make them appear straight is harmful). Likewise, the same applies to autistic people.

As an aside, the research linked above claimed that the victim of this treatment (the research subject, a 4 year old boy who later committed suicide, due in large part to this “treatment”), Lovaas and Rekers referred to the boy as “compulsive and ‘rigid’ in the extent he insisted on being a girl and in his refusal of all contact with masculine-like activities.” (I won’t comment on why they used the phrase “masculine-like activities” instead of simply “masculine activities” – perhaps an unintentional freudian slip?) Interestingly, when Lovaas describes “undesirable” autistic traits, (no, I’m not saying autism is all wonderful – just that I may disagree significantly with people like Lovaas on what the non-wonderful parts are!) he uses similar wordings with lots of phrases such as non-appropriate, rigid, etc.

This week, Rhode Island (USA) legalized same-sex marriage. In other words, the State did the logical thing: they let atheists, Muslims, and Jews marry – why should the State be bound by what some Christian sects think is religiously proper for marriage? Of course you’re probably asking, “How did you get from ABA to gay marriage? This is a stretch, even for you, Joel!” Just wait. There is a connection.

Obviously, the Catholic hierarchy disagrees with Rhode Island (as do the leadership of many other religions and denominations). Bishop Tobin, in a pastoral letter, told Rhode Island followers about his disagreement. It’s pretty offensive on several levels. For instance, the phrase “same-sex attraction” is used in the letter, not as you might expect “gay” or even “homosexual.” Same-sex attraction is a code-word for a belief that people experiencing this attraction need not act on it, and that they can live happy, heterosexual lives – it’s a belief that gays don’t exist, only people with “same sex attraction” and others who wrongly act on that attraction. In fact, the letter asks for prayers for families impacted by same-sex attraction, particularly for parents (another view of this crowd is that same-sex attraction is an immature sexual development during teenage years).

Don’t believe me? Read a same-sex-attracted individual talk about his same-sex attraction and why that’s different than being gay or homosexual. Among other things, he says:

I’m not very sensitive about the word “gay”, but some of us in the Gay Catholic business prefer the phrase “same-sex attraction,” or SSA. I find it more accurate than “gay” or “queer” or any of the others, just because it suggests that homosexuality is something I have rather than something I am. That’s the way I think of it. So the idea of gay culture, gay rights, gay marriage, gay anything really, is foreign to me. You might as well talk about gluten-intolerance culture, or musician’s rights.

Or, read about the definition samesexattraction.org uses, which provides this pseudo-warning (albeit one not based at all in research): “Whether or not sexual orientation (in the sense of an underlying same-sex, opposite-sex, dual-sex, or other spontaneous attraction) exists, and whether or not it can be changed is a matter of some controversy.” On this anti-gay website, which includes other sections like “How to resolve Same Sex Attraction”, their FAQ page says:

Some same-sex attracted people do have memories of early experiences of sexual abuse, reactions to breakdowns in family relationships, exclusion from same-sex peer groups, or early exposure to pornography. Others are not used to thinking about predisposing circumstances and have no idea how their homosexual orientation developed, just as most heterosexuals have no idea how they became heterosexual. There are many paths that could lead to homosexual attractions, each relatively minor in the overall picture, but in the aggregate very important to those individuals whom they affect.

But, beyond the de-gaying code words, the Bishop goes on to talk about how you may be causing “scandal” by attending a gay wedding. Scandal isn’t necessarily what you might think (the common definition would make the catholic hierarchy excellent at understanding the word scandal). Instead it refers to an act which, in and of itself, is not intrinsically evil, but someone less mature than you (isn’t that nice?) might see as encouraging or allowing sin. Thus, someone who sees you seemingly approving of or allowing sin may think you, the mature believer that you are, believe it okay. And because you believe it okay, now they will sin and not be perfect. Or something like that.

That’s the reason for the focus on outward sin instead of inward sin. Even Jesus was criticized for this idea of scandal – see Luke 7:33-35. Meanwhile, Jesus focused on inward sin. For example, in Luke 16:14-15, you can read:

The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. He said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts. What people value highly is detestable in God’s sight.”

Okay, enough Bible verses here. I’m not trying to preach to anyone or convince anyone of the Bible, Jesus, or my theology. But it’s relevant in the sense that the very idea of scandal would have condemned Jesus just as much as anyone attending a gay wedding – and it isn’t apparently what concerned Jesus most, at least according to a book the Catholic Hierarchy accepts.

In the pastoral letter, Bishop Tobin says,

Our respect and pastoral care, however, does not mean that we are free to endorse or ignore immoral or destructive behavior, whenever or however it occurs. Indeed, as St. Paul urges us, we are required to “speak the truth in love.” (Eph 4:15)

This is the essence of the issue. In the conservative Church I used to attend, rather than referring to this as scandal (endorsing or ignoring immoral or destructive behavior), it was referred to as “giving the appearance of evil.” That was taken not necessarily from Eph 4:15 (although that verse certainly was used), but also from 1 Thessalonians 5:22, which was poorly translated in some translation, namely the King James Version, to say “Abstain from the appearance of evil.” Most other translations used instead something along the lines of “abstain from all evil” (NRSV), but that didn’t stop some from believing that avoiding the “appearance of evil” was almost more important than actually not doing evil. This was used to justify all sorts of craziness, such as throwing away secular music (“Nothing wrong with it, but someone might think you don’t just listen to praise music all day and then think they can listen to it when it’s not okay for them!”), not being in the same car as someone of the opposite sex (you might not be one of those sex-starved Christian guys who will rape the nice Christian girl in the ankle-to-chin covering, but someone might think you are), or other craziness (I’ve seen more than a few children’s ministries who are more concerned that someone might accuse them of child molestation, and thus they take all sorts of precautions to avoid being accused but don’t spend nearly as much time actually making sure kids are safe).

And this appearance of evil thing is exactly what gets us back to Dr. Lovaas and both his Feminine Boys Project and his UCLA Young Autism Project. It’s not about appearance. It’s about being true to who you are. Whether you are gay or autistic (or both). It’s not so much about gays not getting married as it is about gays acting as if they aren’t gay. A wedding puts it too much “in-your-face” for the Bishop, thus it’s important to protest it somehow. I’m sure telling the couple they look lovely or that you are happy for them would be an even bigger sin than attending. You have to apply good, old behaviorism: make sure the joyful couple knows you disapprove of their actions. That’s apparently called love by some.

Yes, everyone needs to learn how to work in the world, including autistic people. But true success doesn’t come from avoiding appearances of autism, homosexuality, or (gasp!) attending gay weddings! As for me, I’ll avoid the appearance of avoiding the appearance of evil any chance I get, particularly should any gay friends or family get married.

Evil Autie celebrates 1000 Ausome Things #AutismPositivity2013

  By joel | April 30, 2013 - 9:41 am | ,
1 Comment

I don’t usually go along with the crowd and do things, but today people are blogging about the “ausome” parts of autism. But, the Autism Positivity Project seems pretty cool, and worth breaking my own rules for. See more information at the Flashblog’s page.

That’s probably the first ausome thing – sometimes you need the kid to say, “The emperor is naked!” We often see things differently than others do, and are willing to go against the crowd. Supposedly that’s a deficit, but it’s often a strength too. Too often, leaders end up surrounded by “yes men.” Too often bad decisions could be prevented if only someone would say “NO!!!!”

Another ausome thing is our eye for detail (like how, when I saw the “Ausome Things” Flashblog request, the first thing that stood out in a wall of text was the word “Ausome”). Coworkers used to joke at a previous job that they could pour over a computer screen for hours looking for a bug, but that I would see it instantly. That wasn’t quite true, although sometimes seeing the world differently and being focused on details gave me an advantage in finding the problems. In fact, one of the struggles I’ve had at some jobs is convincing people that if I see a problem, there really is a problem. In the networking world, often badly configured networks seem to sort of work, but “sort of” isn’t the same as “working as they are supposed to work.” I can’t always explain why I know something is wrong, but often with networking, I know something is wrong and know what the fix is. Yet, it can be difficult to try to convince a coworker who expects me to notice problems in the same way he does. Sometimes the problem is obvious to me, just clearly evident. But it’s not to others (I’m sure it works the other way plenty of the time too – hence why we need all types of people). But they don’t see me struggling or working to notice it, so they sometimes think my opinion is unfounded or not based on strong evidence, particularly when I spot something wrong after only a few moments with the networking element and they’ve spent days or years working with it. But, over time, coworkers have learned that, yes, when I notice a problem, it really is broken!

My wife’s ausomeness is her ability to visualize assemblies. Whereas I might make a mechanical device by trial and error (“Oh, that didn’t work. Let me try this…”), she has a comprehensive design in her head – and sees the strong points and weak points of the design and how forces will impact it, long before she lays her hands on the raw materials for the device. In fact, this is so natural to her that she’s sometimes confused when I explain that I can’t see what she’s trying to explain. I’ve lost count of the times she’s told me or a mechanically gifted neighbor, “I wouldn’t do it that way…” and we’ve went ahead and ignored her advice – only to discover later, when it’s much harder to fix, that, yes, she was right. We just couldn’t see what she saw instantly!

That’s the last ausomeness I want to write about today: our uniqueness. Not only are autistic people different from non-autistic people, but we’re also different from each other. While my wife has amazing mechanical visualization abilities, I don’t. We’re all different from each other, and that includes the ausome things.

Rights for the Worst of Us

  By joel | April 27, 2013 - 1:13 pm | , , , ,
Comments Off

Sometimes, when people are fighting for their rights, someone is able to make a case in court that their constitutional rights were violated and change must happen. Too often, the response – even from people who believe in the right at the middle of the challenge – is that the person making the challenge is not the right person to make the challenge. You see this in non-court proceedings too, with “non-respectable” people being shunned by the very movements they are fighting on behalf of.

Let me tell a story (this will be US-centric, since that’s what I know) about a man arrested for the rape of a teenage girl in Arizona. After he was arrested, a confession was sought. The police did have a lot of evidence that this man did the crime, but of course they wanted to build a stronger case. So, during their interrogation, they managed to get the suspect to confess to the crime. With this and other evidence, he was tried and found guilty – and received two sentences of 20 to 30 years each, one for kidnapping and one for rape.

This man – Ernesto Miranda – challenged the ruling, saying that while he did write the confession and did sign a statement that he was aware of his rights, he never was told that he had the right to an attorney during questioning. This case of course became famous – the Supreme Court of the US decided that the confession was wrongfully obtained and could not be used. This created the important “Miranda Warning” protections we have in the US today (well, for some people). It also wiped out the trial court’s verdict, so a new trial was held.

During this new trial of Ernesto for the rape and kidnapping of the teenager, he was again found guilty, this time without his confession being introduced as evidence. He was sentenced to 20 to 30 years, but ultimately released in 1972 on parole. Ironically, when he was murdered in 1976 during a bar fight, his suspected murderer, after being advised of his Miranda rights, chose to remain silent, the case against the suspect ended up dismissed due to a lack of evidence.

Miranda was guilty of his crime, with or without his police confession. Rape and kidnapping are pretty disgusting crimes. Yet, this very non-respectable person managed to get the rest of us some rights.

We saw the same thing in Lawrence v. Texas, where sodomy laws were challenged. Lawrence and Eugene were charged with sodomy (actually, “deviant sex”). There is a lot of debate about whether or not we was having sex (two of the four officers responding did not report seeing any sex, the third officer said he saw oral sex, and the final officer said he saw anal sex), but at the end of the day his legal team fought the charges on the basis of equal protection under the law, not lack of evidence that the crime was being committed, in a desire to change the law. What isn’t as commonly known is that Lawrence was with not one man, but two. The man he was accused of committing sodomy with was a roommate of the third man at Lawrence’s apartment. Both Garnet (the man Lawrence was accused of having sex with) and Eubanks (the roommate of Garnet) had criminal histories. After an drunken argument broke out (with loud shouting and threats, that were heard by neighbors), the third man, insulted that the other two were flirting with each other, called police and reported “a black male going crazy with a gun” in the apartment where all three were. Police responded, although what happened following this differs in the police version vs. Lawrence’s versions of events and isn’t really relevant, other than the fact that in the various reports, Lawrence was quite angry and upset about police busting into his apartment without a warrant – and made that clear to them.

So, one of the pivotal cases in gay rights revolves around a possible love triangle involving three drunk men arguing, two of which had prior criminal histories. Not quite the message HRC wants to put out about who gays are (nor is it an accurate reflection of who they are). Yet, at the same time, they did have rights – and those rights, as recognized by the courts, included the right to consensual sexual relations within a private home – an important right for all of us, gay or straight.

These are hardly the only cases where rights were recognized as a result of less-than-presentable people bringing challenges to the law. So the next time you see an autistic person who isn’t as presentable as you might like, remember they might win the battle that you’re also wanting.

Ally Impostors

  By joel | April 18, 2013 - 2:28 pm |
Comments Off

There’s a lot of impostors, who claim allyship without actually delivering. An ally is someone who uses their position, power, and privilege for equality – in other words, they’re working themselves out of a job. An impostor is someone who uses the impression that they do that in order to support their position, power, and privilege.

I have a very simple test of allyship, that seems to work in the autism community. If I’m at an event and want to know about someone, I’ll listen to how they refer to autistics. If they use “person with autism”, I’ll refer to myself as an autistic and see if they catch the hint and use that term when referring to me. And vise-versa, if they say autistic, I’ll say “person with autism” and see if they catch the hint.

If they are a true and useful ally, they probably will catch the hint. They’ll use the language I’ve used of myself when referring to me. Now, if they don’t change, that doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t a good person (they might not have been aware of what I did), but it also indicates, “Okay, here’s someone that might not be taking their cues from me. It’s worth some investigation.” The worst outcome is when that person explains how their preferred terminology for autistic people is more important than the term a person with autism uses.

An ally empowers people. They use their power and position to give a voice to people who don’t typically get it everywhere. But they don’t seek to be the voice. They seek to give someone else the chance to speak for themself. To an ally, the best possible outcome is that they get to sit back and watch, not doing anything, not taking any time in the spotlight, and not even getting acknowledgement that they are an ally – because that means the other person has power and influence, and doesn’t need the ally.

That means an ally knows he isn’t always right, and doesn’t always understand (the same can be said of an effective self-advocate). If I see a woman being sexually harassed, I will speak up (assuming I need to – if she’s handling it fine on her own, I’m not going to diminish her power by stepping in). If she rebukes me for doing this, I don’t take it personally or as an insult – she’s the one I want to see empowered, and that includes being able to tell this guy “back off, I don’t need or want your help.” If I think there is some need to defend myself (“Most women would have been glad they got help”) or whatever else, even if I may be right about other women (or whoever I’m an ally of), now my focus isn’t on empowering this person, but rather on the opposite! Once I start defending myself, I’m showing I care about preserving my position, my reputation, the view of me as a defender or such. An ally won’t care if they are needed or not, they’ll just do work when they can to advocate, but will accept direction and correction when appropriate. Sure, does it suck to be wrong? Of course. But it’s life, and if the real goal is to empower someone, you do that – you don’t worry about whether or not people will see you as an ally.

What is important is being an ally, not being known as being an ally. An effective ally might never get acknowledgement or notice. They might not get awards or be thanked. It might even be difficult at times! But once I become concerned that I’m not being gratefully received enough, then I’m showing I’m more concerned with ME than actually being an ally.

An ally doesn’t try to barge in. An ally doesn’t say, “Oh, I have autistic traits too” to show that they know exactly what it is like to be autistic, when they aren’t autistic. They do see similarities and how they have much in common – but they also see differences, both real and social.

An ally doesn’t typically need to say or prove they are an ally. I’ve seen people, when corrected about how they were trying to advocate for someone, turn around and get very defensive and upset – they feel that their self image was attacked, that people aren’t going to see them as a wonderful, open-minded ally anymore. If you’re an ally, you’re glad to learn and are glad you did (you also won’t feel the need to make tons of statements about how sorry you are, how wonderful someone is for correcting you, or whatever else – you won’t feel that your identity depends upon showing how open-minded you are; you’ll do, not just tell).

An ally does the hard stuff, not just the easy and popular stuff. Anyone can turn on a blue lightbulb. But not everyone can help an autistic person and check on them when they haven’t been seen leaving their home in a few days. An ally isn’t just willing to talk, they’re willing to put themselves out a bit and do (not that talking isn’t something an ally should do – sometimes it is very powerful – but it’s not everything either). They don’t wait for a cause to get support and be popular. They are willing to go against what is popular. If your advocacy is popular, it probably isn’t doing much – people already agree with whatever you are saying or doing.

An ally listens carefully and is socially aware. Sure, there is different levels of social awareness, but it’s important to be in touch with the people you supposedly are empowering. You need to be able to take the hint when your help isn’t help or when your help isn’t even wanted. You need to be aware that what you’re doing yourself could be better done by someone else, when that’s true. You need to be aware of when you’re overstepping your role as an ally and not taking your cue from the people you’re empowering.

Some of the best allies will never get recognized for what they do. They’ll never be seen by others as part of the social justice movement that was helped by their wise use of privilege and position. They’ll never get the credit. What they get is knowledge that they did their best to make the world better. For an ally, that’s plenty. Even if they are the only person on earth who knows they did it.

What does an impostor do? They seek prestige and position. They want to get noticed and get accolades. They want people to tell them what a good job they are doing. Most of all, they need someone to help. That means they don’t really want to empower – they need the power imbalance so that the need for their “help” remains.

Don’t be an impostor.

How to Respond to Tragedy – a Simple Guide

  By joel | April 15, 2013 - 5:13 pm |
Comments Off

Apparently, online, many people have trouble figuring out how to respond to tragedy, such as the news of the bombings in Boston.

I’ll break it down and make it simple.

Here’s the right reaction: sadness, sorrow, and an expression of sympathy.

Here’s a few wrong reactions:

First, this is not the time for your gun control debate or jokes about “we should ban explosives.” It’s time to think that someone is dead, not think “Oh, I can score some points in my agenda.”

Second, it’s also not the time for your debate about how we need to lock more people who up won’t ever shoot, stab, or bomb anyone. That would be 99.99% or more of the “mentally ill” who are at far more risk of being a victim than committing the act.

Third, it’s not time to make points about how awful the USA or whoever else is, whether it’s due to our excess or due to our country’s involvement with killing others. It is not the time. It’s the time to say, “I’m sorry people are dead.”

Forth, it’s not the time to say “other people have it worse.” We all know that. If I say I’m sorry that there are people dead in Boston, that doesn’t mean I think Iraqis killed are okay. It means I’m sorry there are people dead in Boston. It should go without saying that death anywhere is bad. Unfortunately it doesn’t.

Sure, there’s a time and place for gun control debates. And for discussing how we treat the mentally ill. And even for pointing out the wrongs America has committed. Or that some people are at extreme risk of violence every day, way above those of most Americans, and too often they are ignored. These are all important things to talk about! But, damn it, this isn’t the time.

It’s really simple. Think of the person who lost a loved one, who might stumble on your point-winning argument. Let them bury their dead. We’ll still have plenty of time for you to score your points.

I Would Make an Awful Welder

  By joel | April 9, 2013 - 11:40 am | , , ,
1 Comment

In the early 90s, a guidance counselor in my school suggested welding as a possible career choice. I’m guessing he didn’t have a lot of respect for welders, unfortunately. I certainly wouldn’t have helped that field any – and if I was welding, there would be more Arkansas pipeline spills in the world. We don’t need that.

Here’s what I think happened: I think the guidance counselor probably was overworked, busy, and required to help 750 students or so find their true calling in life. That’s just not going to work, period. But with autistic people, it can be even more challenging than it is for many other students.

So this guy, who doesn’t know me personally (the school had about 3,500 students with only a handful of guidance counselors), pulls up my transcripts and other records. In the other records, he sees that I was at one time in special education for reading, had numerous absence problems, and was planning on making up some classes in summer school that year. He probably saw teacher notes – you know, things like, “your child has more potential than he uses” on his report card. Then he saw my transcripts – I was solidly at the top of the bottom 25% of my class! My grades in math were poor (D’s), I failed several humanities classes, but did great in introduction to auto mechanics.

So, seeing someone with behavioral problems, trouble reading, laziness (isn’t “your child has more potential than he uses” the long way of saying “lazy?”), failing or nearly failing things like math and English, and who seems to only be doing good in one class, what does he do? He picks something totally out of left field and suggests it (likely, in his eyes, welding and car repair are basically the same thing).

There’s just one problem. He didn’t have all the records, and the ones he had misled him (and plenty of others in my life).

It missed my passion. I had a passion for computers and programming. I still do. In fact, I used to brag that at age 25, I was doing my dream job – the one I wanted when I was 5 or 6 years old. How many people get to do that? (turns out that I found out that job wasn’t quite as great as I thought, so, although it wasn’t bad, I moved on to other related fields) I would never have found my path if I listened to this counselor or ignored my passion.

Passion is important for autistic people. Our skills look uneven to people who equate normal neurotypical strengths and weaknesses with “even skill development.” We’re not neurotypical, so our strengths and weaknesses differ. This isn’t bad, it’s just plain different. And one of my weaknesses was dealing with the structure of a school day and homework. It’s not that I couldn’t do it, it’s that it would burn me out.

But that’s not all of it. That special education for reading? I had a great vocabulary. I could read several grades above my grade level in elementary school. But I couldn’t express myself nearly as well. So, rather than realizing the difficulty was expression, it was believed to be reading. And later writing. Ironically, I didn’t discover until after I finished school that I love writing and am at least fair at it – I truly believed it was one of my biggest weaknesses. I hated reading and writing – today they are both huge joys in my life. Yet, I remember sitting there in elementary school repeating flash card words back to someone, thinking, even then, “Why do they keep asking me to tell them what this card says? This is dumb.” It was.

He could see that I did bad in math. Of course I was getting a “D” in advanced math, but nevermind that! I was getting a “D” because I lost books, pencils, paper, assignments, etc, and because of something else I’ll mention later. But I did great on the tests. Someone looking into this would have realized, “Wow, this kid knows the math but is nearly flunking. What is going on here? We should figure this out. How can he be nearly flunking, but get A’s on all his tests?” Perhaps grading my ability to learn math rather than my executive function without support would have been a good start.

Then, in English, I just hated that class. Same with social studies and history. Ironically, I love all of them today. But I really did hate them in school. I saw no connection to what I wanted to do in life. And that is important to an autistic student! Combine that with the same executive function problems I had in math…well, there’s no way I was going to pass those classes.

But there was an even bigger problem in school: I was suicidal, extremely depressed, and routinely afraid for my life at the hands of others. I was insulted, shoved, pissed on, hit, burned, taunted, molested, and generally bullied in pretty much every way possible. Go figure that I did bad in that environment. When I told a teacher, I was told to “man up” or whatever else would get me out of their hair. I don’t recall any of my complaints of bullying being taken seriously. Some even got me things like a group circle discussion between me and my bullies where the bullies explained what was wrong with my social skills and how I needed to change to not be bullied – uh, ya, that’s social skills training. Apparently the person who is taunting another is fine, but the victim should stop it. So I stopped making complaints to adults.

Combine the bullying with intense loneliness. I had nobody much of the time. Nobody.

So I did bad in school. Well, except for auto mechanics. You see, auto mechanics didn’t require any homework. So I did good if for no reason other than not needing to lug around books and remember to do assignments. But combine that with it being a relatively easy class, and of course I got an A. If you could change oil, you probably passed this introductory class. If you could also not destroy anything in the process, that got you a B. If you knew oil was black, not red, that got you an A I watched a couple of my fellow students drain the transmission and, then, when noticing it was the wrong color, tell each other, “Oh, that’s the RED oil. It’s really good stuff”; I watched another drive a car off of the auto lift. So I was going to do pretty good here. I didn’t destroy anything.

I’m still okay in auto maintenance. But just okay. You don’t want me fixing your car.

But that still doesn’t get us back to welding. I’m still not sure where that came from, but the idea of me welding is absurd. I’ve seen my wife (a master welder) do her stuff – it requires a fine motor control, eye for detail, and patience that I just don’t have. That’s fine. Welding is a great career. But so is my field.

Here’s my advice to people giving others advice. I’ll keep it simple, like people like to do with special education:

Listen!

When the kid says, “I love X”, it might be helpful to look at that field first. Duh.

Look!

If you’ve seen this kid get bullied, that kid has a problem. Even if it was mild. Even if it was only once. The bullies aren’t seen 99% of the time. So if you see it, it’s bad. Really, really bad. And that kid ain’t going to be able to accomplish shit until the problem is fixed. And he might end up dead if you don’t do something.

Think!

Oh, he’s doing great on tests, but poor on homework? Maybe something is going on. Maybe it’s worth investigating. Maybe it’s bullying. Maybe the kid is working to support his family when he’s not at school. Maybe he’s being abused at home. Maybe he’s autistic and has difficulty with executive function. Maybe it’s more than one of these.

But don’t just pick a random career and ignore this!

There’s More

I’d also add the following:

  • Focus on strengths – What is the kid good at? But not just, “Where does he get good grades” since grades measure a whole lot more than the subject at hand.
  • Be creative, school isn’t life – Just because a student doesn’t demonstrate an aptitude for something in school doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have an aptitude for it in a slight different environment. Think about solutions to the school problems and how the student can find solutions to actual career issues.
  • Career isn’t life either – While I’ve been talking about careers, a traditional career-that-gives-paycheck isn’t the only way to have meaning in life or to improve the world.
  • Get the whole picture – Find out if the kid has hobbies or interests that he pursues outside of school. Might these be important?
  • It’s okay if he’s different – Some of the greatest people in our world (not just financially successful or successful in a career) are different. Greatness requires difference.

So, what else is there? I’m sure I’m not the only one with thoughts or experiences.

Estimated 98% of World’s Banking Leaders Pre-Collapse are Non-Autistic

  By joel | April 5, 2013 - 3:30 pm |
Comments Off

Interestingly, new research by the Institute for the Study of Neurotypicality has found that, most likely, the vast majority of North American and European banking leaders prior to the 2009 financial collapse were non-autistic. Equally frightening, many of these same leaders are still in a position to cause financial damage.

While the research did not attempt to show that non-autistic leaders cause banking collapses (they may simply be attracted to employment in sectors that are less stable), it is an interesting data point as we strive to understand the impact of neurotypicality. It is not known at this time if other non-typical conditions, other than autism, were also noticeably absent among the banking leadership.

In the Institute’s final report on the study, the researchers urged national banking regulatory bodies to carefully study the impact of an over-representation of non-autistic people in this key sector of the world’s economy (in fact, possibly in an attempt to avoid the high cost of competent employees, it became difficult for many autistic people to obtain work in banking and other fields). In particular, the focus on abstract instruments (really worthless pieces of paper or bits in a computer system, with no actual strong financial backing) rather than concrete investments (tied to actual ability to repay) may be a weakness of the non-autistic mind. A concrete focus, common in autistic people, on aspects such as profitability of companies and the ability of borrowers to repay loans, could have avoided the tremendous losses so many innocent families experienced.

Simply put, there may be a danger to others when non-autistics are able to wield large, complex financial instruments, which they themselves admit they don’t understand. In particularly frightening cases, some banking officials were found to have approved lawsuits where their own bank sued their own bank! Can these types of people be trusted with large financial instruments? For too long, our society has neglected to provide the help these non-autistic banking leaders need to function in society without being a danger to themselves or others – and others have been placed at risk because of it.

(yes, this is sarcasm, not an actual report of real research)