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Ballastexistenz’s latest post, More careful, not less, is a tough read for a parent but absolutely necessary. An excerpt:
To me, “more severely disabled” (however that gets defined) means less able to fight back, less able to talk back, less able to do anything about what is happening. (Where “less able” can mean “less enabled”.) And to me, that means being more careful about violating the rights of people regarded as severely disabled. Not less careful. Not disregarding rights entirely as if these are “special cases” who need to be treated with less respect than everyone else.
I am afraid of losing certain abilities. But it is not the loss of abilities that scares me. It is not the inability to move on my own. It is not the inability to understand or operate a keyboard. It is not the lack of certain kinds of communication skills. …….
What frightens me is what people are likely to do to me. I have had people slap me, punch me in the face, kick my body, kick me in the head, shake me, grab me and carry me, twist me into different postures, stick their body parts into my private parts, grab my body parts and stick them onto other people’s private parts, wiggle their private parts in my face, leave me outside in the cold, confine me to an institution or an isolation room, regard me as ‘non-communicative’, have contests of jumping up and down on my hands, avoid making life even remotely interesting for me, and make all kinds of derisive statements and jokes about me. All because they could get away with it when I was unable to do anything about it, or because I was assumed not to matter.
I hope everyone will read the entire post.
Charlie cannot–cannot yet–communicate in language well enough to tell us if any of the abuse that Ballastexistenz describes has happened to him. And that is why I have to worry about abuse.
The notion of abuse was also mentioned in the comments on my post on The Meaning of Cure:
(Ms. Clark) “Autistic people are abused by ABA (maybe not always) and by DAN! practioners (almost always) and the message to the kid (don’t think the kid doesn’t get the message) is you must change. Your autism is a problem, and I will ‘yank it out by force.’”
(John Best) “Autistic kids smash their heads through walls to try to ask you to help them. Child abusers like you who allow your kid to rot should have your right to free speech revoked so your idiotic rantings can not influence unsuspecting parents who do not sadistically torture their kids by forcing them to remain in the grasp of autism.”
Abuse is a tough topic–to understate the matter–for any parent to read about in a discussion of their child. As readers of Autismland.com know, ABA is the teaching method at the core of Charlie’s education; it has given him the foundation to learn, to talk, and much more, and thereby to enable him to tell us if anything like abuse ever happens.
I hope it never does.
But so did the parents who trusted their children to priests who have been charged with pederasty.
no form of rehabilitation could change their lives for the better
what?
whose life? my life? My childrens’ lives? JBJr & Sam’s lives?I’m confused Chuck.
I can only speak for me & my family. Our life is great!
Suzanne and Kristina Chew’s thinking is very concerning to me. If any individual thoughts are deemed “inferior” by comparison to an arbitrary measurement, and their tone is so anchored and unchangeable that no form of rehabilitation could change their lives for the better, then what chance does ANY ASD individual have in society today? It is these views that create the situations in institutions like Ballastexistenz described, rather then correcting or eliminating these situations.
I would say in regard to the person under discussion, it is very much possible to predict the direction and tone of his comments.
Again Chuck, I did not say I find HIM inferior. I said I see his thinking, as is obviously based on hatred of human diversity, inferior to thinking (such as Estee’s) that is based on love.
My stance is NOT that he doesn’t have a right to exist. rather, that I have nothing to gain (but hateful feelings) from reading his blog. So I won’t. I know who he is. I have educated myself as to his position, and there’s simply no swaying either of us. end.
His blog is called Hating autism. I also hate autism sometimes myself and I see nothing wrong in voicing his opinion. There are a great many maladies, sicknesses, diseases and situations that I hate and yet I do not hate the people that are living within these conditions, nor do I believe that Mr. Best does either.
Anyone who builds their opinions based on love would not be able to find anyone else inferior.
Chuck, I hear what you’re saying.
Let me clarify a few mistaken points you made regarding my view of MrBest.
1) John Best Jr calls himself a Hater of Autism by virtue of the title of his blog. It is not a random epithet I threw at him.
2) I didn’t say I find his humor disgusting. What I said was “Calling it humor is disgusting to me”. I do not find anything he says humorous. I do indeed feel disgusted when I read him.
3) I did not suggest he is diseased. On the contrary, I suggest he is neurologically diverse.
If HE calls that a disease…. well… I wouldn’t be surprised.
It is true that I see his thinking, and proclamations as inferior to the opposite opinion (which would be founded in Love).
Discounting someone’s opinion, calling them a “hater”, calling their humor disgusting, calling them diseased, is what most bigots do to someone who they believe is inferior to them. It should never be done.
Spydyee, You give John too much humanity. He’s a Hater. The title of his blog says so. Calling it humor is disgusting to me, but I don’t find Jeff Foxworthy/Bill Engvall/Ron White/and Larry the Cable Guy worth listening to either.
He clearly does not believe his “train wreck” has any potential unless he can be cured of his neurodiversity. Diversity in general seems to have no place in this twisted man’s world. Perhaps because his own ND was suppressed all his life. He’s bitter.
There is nothing to glean from a hater’s words, but more hatred.
Spydie, thanks for your broader perspective; writing about autism and trying to understand it and do the best we can requires that we all be honest and look hard at ourselves. People care passionately about the issues discussed to be sure. I am always interested in why there is so much interest in seeking something, or some entity, to blame.
I have found that I can most help my son by concentrating on where he is now, on who he is, today, right here, and by accepting autism and trying to understand how those who have lived with autism all their lives have suffered and lived and learned, about what their stories are.
John is not as bad as you might think. He takes a little getting used to. He has a very sick child. His child is sick from what we in this community call co-morbidities. The medical profession chooses to lump the co-morbidities into the label Autism. It is theco-morbidities he hates. He is angry because his kid is sick and in pain and the very community that should be supporting this sick autistic kid is attacking the things that are helping with the sickness. As an Aspie mom of genetically autistic kids I see a real problem within our community. Lets assume his kid is autistic and I mean that in the brain difference sense. Then his child has a genetic susceptability to enviromental toxicity which weakens the immune system and allows 3 very nast viruses to attack his kid all at the same time. Now what we have is a member of our community (the child) who has been made ill (a co-morbidity to the autism in reality) by a legally required procedure that the child and many more in our community is not capable of tolerating. Why may I ask is there no outrage about this abuse? I will tell you why.
1.Because we genetic autistics don’t want our brain differences changed or cured or anything else.
2.The medical and psychiatric professions have lumped all the nasty co-morbidities often found in autism as part of the label rather than separate illnesses. This was actually caused by insurance companies but you don’t want me to get started on them so we will leave the blame on the medical community.
3. These parents use a 4 letter word to describe their desire to remove the intense pain their children are experiencing and we despise that word.
I have seen one of these precious vaccine injured autistic children up close and personal. I have given respite to her mother. She is miserable. Well she was until I got her mother to get her to a doctor for chelation. She is much better now. She is Autistic. That will never change. What she is not now is mercury toxic. Now before everyone has a fit. The recognized mainstream medical treatment for mercury and lead poisoning is chelation. It has been the mainstream medical solution for years. The only issue is how to test for toxicity to get accurate results. Even the Bio-med community argues over this one.
On the subject of Freedom of Speech and parents being led astray and all that rhetoric.
Besides being nothing but inflammatory and totally non-productive it is just so insulting.
1.That statement insinuates that parents are too stupid to figure out for themselves what is best for their children.
2. Well Ghandi said it best
Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right. —-Mohandis “Mahatma” Ghandi
On to John himself
Ok he CAN be a total jerk at times. He is a very angry parent of a very sick little boy. I would be angry too if my child was going through what his child is going through. You can go look at my kids at youtube and you will see why I can be a “Happy Aspie Mom” but my friend does not have pictures of her daughter that look like the pictures I have of my kids. Her child cried all the time. She had bruises all the time (self inflicted). She was a sick little girl. Autism did not make her sick. Her co-morbidities made her sick. I know that and luckily because of her association with me and my family her mother knows that. John doesn’t know that yet. Well maybe a part of him knows that but he still wants to get his son out of the horrible pain he is in. To fail to cure these co-morbidities and leave his son in pain is a sin and a crime. IT IS ABUSE. That is the message that John is spreading. I don’t approve of his methods all the time but his message is right.
The other thing about John is that he uses humor and satire to release stress. Go watch Weird Al Yankovich if you want to see the kind of stuff I mean. Also the Blue Collar Comedy Tour which consists of Jeff Foxworthy/Bill Engvall/Ron White/and Larry the Cable Guy. Some of what he writes is purely done in this style. If we get our sesetivities off our sleeves and learn to laugh at ourselves we will seem like less fanatical people and we might find ourselves more respected. If we learn to poke fun at ourselves then we take away the opportunity for hateful people to poke fun at us in a derisive way.
Question for thought:
If Diva writes at the end of one of the posts on her blog “Autism Diva Rocks” is it cute or funny?
If John Best writes it is it an attack?
You see it is a matter of perspective. If John is quoting the Diva then it is funny if he says it first it is derisive. In reality it is funny either way if you have a sense of humor. Maybe belonging to a religion that has been poking fun at itself for years to avoid being attacked by all our haters has taught me a lesson. Either that or I am suffering from an overdose of green jell-o one (good Mormon humor there). The point is we need to lighten up and remember what we adults are trying to accomplish here. We are trying to make this a better world for our children and our grandchildren. We can’t do that if we keep spreading the hatred and prejudice. We ask to be treated with respect while disrespecting the bio-med parents. Does anyone other than me see the hypocrisy in that?
2193 days ago
[...] In a post yesterday, Abuse: a tough topic I worry about, I quoted comments from Ms. Clark (who blogs at Autism Diva) and a Mr. John Best (who blogs at Hating Autism). [...]
2194 days ago
[...] A parent worries about abuse of their child and of that child on the school bus–the subjects of my two previous posts–because of stories like this. A school bus aide beat a 9-year-old boy who has developmental difficulty because he was “a brat”……… [...]
We’ll have to get to work on him.
Indeed. If you want to see where John is coming from, take a look at his own blog, hatingautism.blogspot.com. If it weren’t for the fact that John is active in GR circles in “real life,” he’d just be considered a standard Internet troll (i.e. someone who posts messages with the sole intention of picking fights).
Exchanges are helpful. Exchanges with John are not. Anyone who has interacted with John can tell you this. If you are unfamiliar with John, his aim is to insult those who promote autism acceptance. He’s a bigot who hates (at least) autistics and homosexuals.
All views are welcome on this blog and, whether in disagreement or agreement, I’m very glad to learn from everyone. The truth will out.
These kinds of exchanges may not seem so helpful to you, but they are to me.
Who knows what the latest nonsense by John means. I don’t understand the purpose of quoting him actually. You are familiar with his views, are you not?
We must ask him to clarify.
Camille’s use of “ABA” is not intended as a nasty insult. John’s use of “abuse” is.
I recognize that. I also think Ms Clark’s use of “ABA” is different than mine.