![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aviaI thought I would begin this journal with some essays about autistic people, and the way we are treated in society. As an autistic person, activism about this is a big thing for me, and, one of the reasons to have this journal is to keep all these essays in a more tidy place than Tumblr, but, I thought I might start to write some original ones too.
So, here is one about coping behaviours, and how they are pathologised in autistic people.
Warning: triggers for abuse of autistic children.
Almost everyone has some behaviours that they use to cope with stress. I'm not very familiar with neurotypical ways to cope with stress, but, from reading a lot of books and knowing people who are not autistic, I get the idea that common neurotypical ways to cope with stress are things like:
...etc.
I want you to take a moment, think of the ways that you personally cope with stress. Particularly if you are neurotypical, or, your neurodiversity is not related to the ways you cope. Think of the little things you do to help you get through the day, that are harmless, or, if they do a slight harm (like smoking), it's something you are happy to trade for a little relief from the stressy, busy world. Make a little list on some paper if you like. Don't continue this, until you think about it for just a few moments.
Are you done? Okay.
Now imagine that you go to work, to school, to the store, and people are watching you, all the time, making sure you don't do these behaviours. Every time you pull out your headphones to listen to some music, someone grabs them out of your hand. Every time you pick up the phone to text your friends, someone yells at you, "Don't do that!" Every time you want to pet your cat, someone picks up the cat and takes her away. You would soon start wanting to punch a pillow. But, you're not allowed to do that either. You run to your bedroom in tears, and, everyone starts calling you "too sensitive", "having a tantrum", "showing emotions in a wrong way".
Do you think this is fair?
This is what happens to many autistic children. Fortunately, not to me, but, I hear the stories many times, I hear it happening at schools, homes, and the places that they call "therapy centres". For us, stimming behaviours, repeating sounds, staring at patterns, lining things up, and playing with toys in a repeating way are our coping behaviours, our ways of dealing with stress, making the world feel a little more safe and like something we can handle. It's not different from taking a warm bath or petting your cat, to make you feel like the world is a more soft and gentle place. A lot of autistic people find the world to be very busy, unorganised and chaotic, and so doing repeating things, or making things tidy, is a way to focus of order in a chaotic world, just like listening to a calming classical song is a way to find peace in a stressful job.
But a small child, who is not yet mature to cope with the world, is often abused by parents and therapists who want to "stop these autistic behaviours". Every time the child does something to cope, like flapping their arms or repeating sounds, the adults who are "treating" them will say, "Don't do that", or even grab their arms to keep them from flapping. They are rewarded when they do things that look like "normal" coping behaviours, like playing with toys in a "normal" way, even though these things might not help them. And, the goal of the therapists is never said to be "find ways to help the child cope with stress". The child already knows how it works best for them to cope with stress. The goal is always said to be, "give the child more socially acceptable behaviours".
It is like if someone stopped you from using your music player on the train home from work, because they don't think it's "socially acceptable".
If you want to cope with the stress from your work day, they say, you can always flap your arms. That doesn't work for you? It doesn't help? Oh... too bad. Well, that's what's socially acceptable.
We live in a world where social pressures are very, very high. Acting in the "right" way is something that a daily "functional" life demands us to do. We are expected to smile when we feel like screaming, to say "that's fine" to a hundred things we don't want (and, the stigma of saying "no" is something I will talk about in a separate post). It's not surprise when we need to use a coping behaviour at some times. It's fortunate for neurotypical people that their coping behaviours "look normal"... or, what is more true to say, we have accepted them as normal because they are what neurotypical people do. If neurotypical people didn't like to touch animals, petting a cat would be pathologised. If neurotypical people never listened to music on the train, wearing headphones on the train would be pathologised. Really, putting some metal and plastic cuffs over your ears and tapping your fingers to a beat of music is not different from putting your hands over your ears and rocking to a beat inside your body, but one is okay in a public space and one is not. Because, the first one is what neurotypical people do (and, autistic people as well, I add. I listen to headphones on the train. But, many autistic people also discover music late, because many of us are very sensitive to sounds and it takes time to build up a "language" of music, to work it out in the brain and hear it as pretty and not painful). The second one is only something that autistic people do. So, it's pathology.
And, more than this... when the stress that makes you use coping behaviour is mostly stress of handling the always changing pressures of the social world, is it not the most stress, to be told that your coping behaviours are not acceptable, and, you have to learn ones that fit the social standards? If you are not behaving by social standards automatically, and your coping behaviours are to help you deal with living in a world where you are under a constant pressure to understand a social world that is hard for you, and then people say that your coping behaviours need to be checked and matched with what is socially "right", too....
How can you ever, ever escape that pressure?
Oh, right... people don't want you to. Because, if you ignored the question of what is socially acceptable, you would not "look normal". And, we can't allow that. The very purpose of therapy like ABA is to teach you to act normal, all the time, even when you're alone. It's to teach you that coping in ways that break from what is socially normal is bad.
And so, even more than a neurotypical person, you will be afraid to ever do things like escape into books. You will be afraid that it's "not normal". One of the beautiful things for me of being autistic, is that I don't feel a strong drive to care what is normal, and so I can express my self in my own way. But, that will be pushed out of you. You will be so obsessed with performing normal that it drains all your energy. And, you, more than neurotypical people, are much less able to handle that constant analysing of the world. It is the very definition of autism that you find it hard to do. But you will be expected to do it the most.
This is what "autistic therapy" is teaching children.
So, here is one about coping behaviours, and how they are pathologised in autistic people.
Warning: triggers for abuse of autistic children.
Almost everyone has some behaviours that they use to cope with stress. I'm not very familiar with neurotypical ways to cope with stress, but, from reading a lot of books and knowing people who are not autistic, I get the idea that common neurotypical ways to cope with stress are things like:
- smoking a cigarette, having a small drink of alcohol, or some similar thing
- going for a run
- taking a warm bath (I like this one too)
- watching a movie
- listening to some music
- calling or texting your friends
- playing with an animal
- punching a pillow
...etc.
I want you to take a moment, think of the ways that you personally cope with stress. Particularly if you are neurotypical, or, your neurodiversity is not related to the ways you cope. Think of the little things you do to help you get through the day, that are harmless, or, if they do a slight harm (like smoking), it's something you are happy to trade for a little relief from the stressy, busy world. Make a little list on some paper if you like. Don't continue this, until you think about it for just a few moments.
Are you done? Okay.
Now imagine that you go to work, to school, to the store, and people are watching you, all the time, making sure you don't do these behaviours. Every time you pull out your headphones to listen to some music, someone grabs them out of your hand. Every time you pick up the phone to text your friends, someone yells at you, "Don't do that!" Every time you want to pet your cat, someone picks up the cat and takes her away. You would soon start wanting to punch a pillow. But, you're not allowed to do that either. You run to your bedroom in tears, and, everyone starts calling you "too sensitive", "having a tantrum", "showing emotions in a wrong way".
Do you think this is fair?
This is what happens to many autistic children. Fortunately, not to me, but, I hear the stories many times, I hear it happening at schools, homes, and the places that they call "therapy centres". For us, stimming behaviours, repeating sounds, staring at patterns, lining things up, and playing with toys in a repeating way are our coping behaviours, our ways of dealing with stress, making the world feel a little more safe and like something we can handle. It's not different from taking a warm bath or petting your cat, to make you feel like the world is a more soft and gentle place. A lot of autistic people find the world to be very busy, unorganised and chaotic, and so doing repeating things, or making things tidy, is a way to focus of order in a chaotic world, just like listening to a calming classical song is a way to find peace in a stressful job.
But a small child, who is not yet mature to cope with the world, is often abused by parents and therapists who want to "stop these autistic behaviours". Every time the child does something to cope, like flapping their arms or repeating sounds, the adults who are "treating" them will say, "Don't do that", or even grab their arms to keep them from flapping. They are rewarded when they do things that look like "normal" coping behaviours, like playing with toys in a "normal" way, even though these things might not help them. And, the goal of the therapists is never said to be "find ways to help the child cope with stress". The child already knows how it works best for them to cope with stress. The goal is always said to be, "give the child more socially acceptable behaviours".
It is like if someone stopped you from using your music player on the train home from work, because they don't think it's "socially acceptable".
If you want to cope with the stress from your work day, they say, you can always flap your arms. That doesn't work for you? It doesn't help? Oh... too bad. Well, that's what's socially acceptable.
We live in a world where social pressures are very, very high. Acting in the "right" way is something that a daily "functional" life demands us to do. We are expected to smile when we feel like screaming, to say "that's fine" to a hundred things we don't want (and, the stigma of saying "no" is something I will talk about in a separate post). It's not surprise when we need to use a coping behaviour at some times. It's fortunate for neurotypical people that their coping behaviours "look normal"... or, what is more true to say, we have accepted them as normal because they are what neurotypical people do. If neurotypical people didn't like to touch animals, petting a cat would be pathologised. If neurotypical people never listened to music on the train, wearing headphones on the train would be pathologised. Really, putting some metal and plastic cuffs over your ears and tapping your fingers to a beat of music is not different from putting your hands over your ears and rocking to a beat inside your body, but one is okay in a public space and one is not. Because, the first one is what neurotypical people do (and, autistic people as well, I add. I listen to headphones on the train. But, many autistic people also discover music late, because many of us are very sensitive to sounds and it takes time to build up a "language" of music, to work it out in the brain and hear it as pretty and not painful). The second one is only something that autistic people do. So, it's pathology.
And, more than this... when the stress that makes you use coping behaviour is mostly stress of handling the always changing pressures of the social world, is it not the most stress, to be told that your coping behaviours are not acceptable, and, you have to learn ones that fit the social standards? If you are not behaving by social standards automatically, and your coping behaviours are to help you deal with living in a world where you are under a constant pressure to understand a social world that is hard for you, and then people say that your coping behaviours need to be checked and matched with what is socially "right", too....
How can you ever, ever escape that pressure?
Oh, right... people don't want you to. Because, if you ignored the question of what is socially acceptable, you would not "look normal". And, we can't allow that. The very purpose of therapy like ABA is to teach you to act normal, all the time, even when you're alone. It's to teach you that coping in ways that break from what is socially normal is bad.
And so, even more than a neurotypical person, you will be afraid to ever do things like escape into books. You will be afraid that it's "not normal". One of the beautiful things for me of being autistic, is that I don't feel a strong drive to care what is normal, and so I can express my self in my own way. But, that will be pushed out of you. You will be so obsessed with performing normal that it drains all your energy. And, you, more than neurotypical people, are much less able to handle that constant analysing of the world. It is the very definition of autism that you find it hard to do. But you will be expected to do it the most.
This is what "autistic therapy" is teaching children.
