The Violence Stigma Pt 2.

Hello everyone, welcome back to the Audacious Aspie! Today is part 2 of the look at the stigma where those of us who are on the spectrum are often seen as the instigators of violence. Last post, I talked about how people who are not on the spectrum sometimes misunderstand the reasons why we have sudden meltdowns and how to counter such misconceptions. In this post, I will explain how our in ability, certainly from a young age, to voice our opinions, wants and needs verbally helps to perpetuate the myth of us being violent by default.

 

My parents taught me that one of the best ways to communicate with someone who is on the spectrum is to find out what their obsession is, then proceed to teach the child, or communicate with the child, through that obsession (primarily when we are children. We do learn, and are able, to talk about more than just our preferred topics when we get older. This is called maturity). Of course, we all, on and off the spectrum, still do it now from time to time, we call it daydreaming. Except this time, instead of missing out on cookies or free time or such, we miss out on important things like: daydreaming while studying; daydreaming while listening to a presentation; or worst of all, daydreaming while on a date (should have gone out for coffee).

 

Whatever you do, don't think about the person you’d rather be dating. If your date asks what your thinking about, say how lovely they are, or the food, or if you locked the door or not. Anything but the truth.

 

As the saying goes: if you don’t have the one you love, love the one you got. But what this transpires to when we are children, perhaps even adults in certain situations, is this: the person daydreams, thinking marilly about their obsessions, while ignoring the instructor’s activity because, since it does not pertain to the obsession, it is therefore boring. Or the person has done the activity so many times, he/she wishes to move on to something else. The instructor, thinking that the person does not understand the activity before them quite yet, or a little tired and angry that, after days of practice, the person now still does not know or refuses to perform the activity, decides that the person needs help.

 

So, in order to speed things along, or genuinely wanting to help the person, the instructor might physically grab the person (arm, hand or whatever body part the instructor wishes the person moved to further along the day) and physically force them to perform the desired task or goal in mind. Now, you and both know that to do this another human, child or not, for the sole purpose of teaching that person language skills, cognitive therapy, or the like is morally wrong at best. And if someone tried to do that with us, it would be a safe assumption that we would do anything to prevent that person from doing so, including violently lashing out.

 

But we are adults, or certainly people who are capable of voicing our displeasure of being manhandled in any way, shape or form. Not to mention striking out at the person and informing others as to why we struck out. But the person who is on the spectrum, having either only partial power of speech or not all, cannot in the moment properly convey the message to the instructor that they do not wish to be manhandled for seemingly no reason at all, and there may not be another person in the room to assist, nor even within hearing distance. The person on the spectrum still knows that what the instructor is doing is wrong, leaving them only one other option.

 

The instructor, not understanding why the person lashed out, and seeing nothing wrong with their former actions, might come to the belief that the person attacked for no reason at all. The person before them, therefore, is naturally violent. And because it is only, according to the instructors experience, and perhaps some others, the people who are autistic/asbergers who lash out violently, that there is something wrong with them. We are violent by our very nature.Thus, in a misguided attempt to warn the parents, the instructor alerts the person's family as to what happened form the instructors point of view, while the patient is completely unable to tell his/her side of the story.

 

The instructor may than write about their experience to either the newspaper, a medical website, or what not and, will, you get the idea. How do you combat this part of the violence myth? Will, a good start would be to teach your autistic/asperger child, or other children on the spectrum, the way this organization has gone about it, completely opposite what was discussed above. Everyone, meet  the Son-Rise program: http://www.autismtreatmentcenter.org/contents/about_son-rise/index.php. I won't go into what they do, as I’ve done that in the post talking about autism resources in America. I can attest to its success as my parents have raised me based on a copy of their principles.

 

Will, this ends part 2 of the violence myth, and how to combat it. Hopefully it also explains to you how damaging it can be, to use the violence myth for any reason, including defending someone in a court of law who has been charged with a violent act. Even worse if that someone is in the eye of the media and/or a position of power and influence. Will there be a part 3? You’ll have to wait and see (hey, that rhymes! With any luck, I’ll be like doctor Seuss, writing to, uh...um. What rhymes with Seuss?). Until then, this continues to be, the Audacious Aspie.

 

Sources used:

http://www.autismtreatmentcenter.org/contents/about_son-rise/index.php.