Abuse: Disability Blog Carnival #36

Alright, I've got a lot of interesting (and sad) posts for this one.
Laurie Toby Edison describes the use of allergies for bullying. The victim is a girl severely allergic to peanuts. To get her to stop sitting with them, a group of girls all brought peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. It's a very shocking case, and her take on it is quite interesting.
Kay Olson describes an experience she had with institutional abuse. There are three aspects of this story that are quite important to highlight: firstly, the attitude that doing her job is an annoyance and unduly burdensome (reminiscent of the description of answering call lights in My Contaminated Smile); secondly, the power to deny the opportunity to communicate, which is such a big issue in the lives of assistive communication users; and thirdly, the 'catching' someone doing something they said they needed help with, something I've experienced as well. Another important aspect of her account is the reasons she didn't report it to that woman's superiors. She was afraid she'd be left in the care of a woman who not only was abusive, but who had a grudge against her in particular because she got in trouble with her boss.
David Hingsburger talks about a movie he's been involved with regarding the sexual abuse of developmentally disabled people in a group home. This movie has an important aspect of education, because it vividly shows the steps involved in reporting abuse.
Cusp describes the feelings evoked by the rejection of her application for DLA. Many of these I can relate to, even though I haven't been in that particular situation. When I was signing up for the disabled youth group I belong to, the form asked what I needed assistance with, and I was at a loss. I'm so used to just struggling on my own with the things I struggle with, telling no one or only my family. I finally told them that I tire easily from physical activity, that I have no sense of time, and that I find it hard to navigate by bus, but with each of those, similar things ran through my head. "But after all, I manage don't I?"
Athena, The Integral and Ivan describe their definitions of abuse. Much of this sounds like abuse from the environment, not from other people (although The Integral's stuff certainly is). An interesting idea. Does that meet the definition of abuse?
Bev describes the point of autism awareness. Another, more recent post I stumbled upon on her blog just now is a humorous description of how we need a cure for autism awareness. She discusses Donor X, a sperm donor who has fathered several autistic kids, and how, despite the positive view of autism that one of the parents has shown, the sperm bank removed his sperm. Not just identified it, added a marker stating he's had many autistic kids - they removed it. Can't have those people, even when one of his children has incredible memorization, reading, math and musical ability.
Casdok didn't submit a blog post, but she shared with me a comment posted on her blog (which she'd deleted):

“C isn't special to the rest of the world, he is only special to you. He is a burden to the rest of the world and if he was another part of nature, like an autistic fish for example, would have died long ago. You just use others to keep him alive.
And C is not the kind of high functioning autistic that will ever contribute anything to mankind. But that's okay, if something happens to you they will just control him as they wish with drugs, like you should have allowed them to in the first place. He is not a complete person, he is an autistic that shits all over everything. Get over it.
You made him, put on your big girl panties and deal with it, and stop being so self centered."

Well, that's certainly abusive!
She also makes an interesting comment: 'abuse stems from ignorance.' I wonder about that. I may blog about it later.
Dorry Carr-Harris at the Torontoist discusses an art exhibit about the history of disability discrimination. They presented 13 objects, including a closet with sixteen identical sweatsuits for institution residents to wear, a billboard listing 'four types of mental deficiency' and a bassinet belonging to a 'funny looking kid' who was given a digoxin overdose without her parents' knowledge.
Jeff McNair discusses the horrifying statistics regarding the rate of sexual abuse of developmentally disabled people, and the protective role the Church could serve. He says that ministers should watch out for this, and if they suspect abuse, they should report it. He also discusses the resistance to inclusion that he's encountered when doing activities with developmentally disabled group home residents.
Astrid asks the important question of whether you should pressure disabled children to achieve at a normal level in every area. She discusses reading speed for blind children - Braille readers tend to be slower. Her discussion reminds me of my old post Milestones, in which I argue that a disabled person's achievements should be celebrated based on how hard they were to achieve, rather than undervaluing milestones met later than normal (or overvaluing things which really aren't that hard).
William Peace discusses rich priviledge and a quadriplegic man who can afford state of the art technology and all the best care, and doctors are 'amazed by his progress'. It reminds me of all these people who pay enormous amounts to cure their autistic children, while moaning about the economic burden and ignoring the families just struggling to survive, who have trouble keeping food on the table, much less getting expensive therapies. Another thing I've noticed is the 'perfect lives' phenomenon - if practically everything's gone in your favour for most of your life, as soon as something doesn't, it's an absolute tragedy. The parent quoted in A Work in Progress said that having a developmentally disabled child must be 'every parent's worst nightmare'. Tell that to a refugee mother. Hey, you could even tell that to my mother, who found out her daughter was getting sexually abused in her own home. Clearly, if you think developmental disability is 'every parent's worst nightmare', you have led a sheltered life.
Shiva submitted an excellent post called The Thing Itself is the Abuse, about the common pattern of portraying 'misdiagnosed' people who were abused in a way common for the group they were mistaken as like their treatment would not have been abuse if they really were a member of that group. In my opinion, this is the best post contributed. I was going to give Shiva the blog award I'm supposed to pass on, but xe already got it. I've certainly noticed that as a problem myself. My teachers thought I had ADHD, and treated me badly based on that. Had I really had ADHD, if anything, it would have been worse, because their treatment of me would seem to me to be more 'justified'. In some cases, it is true that the misdiagnosis is the biggest problem (for example, a bipolar child misdiagnosed with ADHD will generally be given medication that is helpful for many ADHDers but induces serious manic symptoms, rapid cycling, and raging in many bipolar people) but it's really important not to assume that, or act as if certain categories of people are okay to abuse.
Knitting Clio posted an entry Good Cause, Bad Idea for Fundraiser about a 'Jail n' Bail' fundraiser for the special olympics. I'm kind of baffled by this. Where did that idea for a fundraiser come from? What did they mean by 'Jail n' Bail'?
Ruth posted about road rage against wheelchair pedestrians, clearly a terrifying situation for the pedestrian. Sometimes I really wonder about people, and road rage is one of those things I don't understand. I actually understand a parent killing their disabled child better than I understand road rage (note: understand is very different from agree).
The Goldfish will be hosting the next Blogging Against Disablism Day on May 1st, and has written a comment about terminology in preparation for it. And the next Disability Blog Carnival will be at cripchick's weblog. The deadline is May 4th, the carnival will be up on May 8th, and the topic is 'Disability Identity' - something I know I will be able to blog insightfully about, as this is an issue I've pondered a lot.
Lastly, I have my own comments. Firstly, I notice that all the posts seem to be primarily about real abuse of disabled people. Although this is an important issue, I'm a bit disappointed that no one discussed the following:

• things wrongly perceived to be abuse of disabled people, such as the belief that denying autistic, ADHD or other disabled children treatment to make them more normal is abuse; the attitude that it's abusive to deliberately have a disabled child, or even not take 'sufficient' measures to prevent their birth; and the assumption that if a disabled woman is pregnant, she must have been raped.
• stereotypes about abuse by disabled people, such as the belief that developmentally disabled men are sexually abusive (because they have 'animal urges' that most of us supress and they don't); the identification of certain disability-related characteristics as indications of a criminal or potential trouble-maker (such as the tale of a bipolar middle-eastern man who was mistaken for a terrorist, or the 'walking while developmentally disabled' crime that Amanda Baggs has gotten in trouble for); or portrayal of simply being exposed to a disabled person as a form of abuse.
• lastly, real abuse by disabled people (especially mentally ill/developmentally disabled abusers), how it is viewed, why they do it, and so on. A certain proportion of abuse survivors go on to perpetuate abuse (such as the autistic mother I heard about with seriously low self esteem who verbally abused her autistic child for being too much like her). Disabled abusers, if they abuse in ways society generally recognizes as wrong, may be more likely to be caught. They are also viewed differently, either as 'can't help it' or as much worse than a non-disabled abuser. And lastly, the existance of disabled abusers feeds into stereotypes regarding disabled people, and is used to justify abusive treatment of disabled people.

Regarding that last category, a study I found recently is relevant. They studied sexual abuse of developmentally disabled people by developmentally disabled or non-disabled men. Firstly, they found that almost half of the reported cases of abuse of a developmentally disabled person involved a disabled abuser. The disabled abusers were more likely to have abused men, more likely to have done sexual touch or masturbation instead of attempted or actual penetration and more likely to have done only a single episode of abuse. All in all, it sounds like they were probably much more often reported. Possible reasons are suggested by the fact that others had witnessed the abuse three times as often if the abuser was disabled, suggesting the disabled abusers were less sneaky when abusing others. Another fact is interesting: though the disabled abusers appear more likely to be identified, they were also much less likely either to be charged or have charges considered. Almost all of the disabled abusers either had no action taken, or in-service action such as warnings to staff working with them, whereas 'only' about 2/3rds of the non-disabled abusers were treated this way.

PS: Laura, the link you sent me seems to be broken, and I couldn't find the post by searching your blog. Sorry.

Ransom Notes campaign

NYU Child Study Center has an awareness campaign called 'Ransom Notes'. Here's what I emailed to them in reply.

On your webpage, I noticed the 'Ransom Notes' awareness thing, with stuff about ADHD, Asperger Syndrome, Autism, Bulimia, Depression and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.
I am diagnosed with PDD NOS, which is a condition related to Asperger Syndrome and Autism (in my case I'm more AS-like), and with PTSD, which in my case results in depression and mild OCD-like behavior.
I would like to say clearly that there is an important difference between the two types of conditions I am diagnosed with. PTSD is something I have, which causes me serious psychological pain and does feel a bit like 'being kidnapped'. In contrast, PDD NOS is something I am, which affects my thinking in such profound ways that I cannot imagine it any different, has many positive effects as well as negative ones, and only harms me in making me fit poorly within my environment - change the environment and I'm fine.
Portraying conditions like Bulimia, Depression and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder as kidnapping a child is a vivid analogy for how it really does feel to have those conditions (I'm basing this off of both personal experience and personal accounts I've read by other people). Portraying conditions like Autism, ADHD and Asperger Syndrome as kidnapping a child is offensive to those affected by those conditions, and encourages others in an erroneous and harmful perception of them. That's not the kind of awareness I'd like. In fact, treating fundamental brain differences like they are separate from the person and a terrible thing is part of the reason I have PTSD (I experienced abuse in two very distinct settings, one of which was well-meaning but very harmful abuse from my teachers, who thought my differences were something wrong with me).
Worse, your descriptions of what the supposed 'kidnappers' are making the ADHD, autistic and aspie kids do is offensive as well. ADHD behavior is only a problem in certain circumstances. Studies have shown that if a teacher is highly engaging, less children meet behavioral criteria for ADHD - because ADHD kids are not incapable of paying attention, they just need more stimulation. And the idea that it's a detriment to others is a concept frequently used to justify treatment that harms the recipient or at the very least doesn't benefit them. It's justified with abusive behavior, but it is not justified when the person is merely acting annoying or weird.
Regarding the ability to interact with others, I have yet to meet a single child, with any disability, who was incapable of interacting with others - including many much more disabled than any autistic kid. I know one boy with severe CP who can barely move and can't speak, but he looks at things and groans to communicate. Interaction is a two-way street - he can't interact with someone who ignores him, but that's not really his inability. And social isolation, firstly, is in the eye of the beholder. It's likely in the month of December I will only spend one day with anyone else my own age. But I'm not lonely - I don't need interaction that much. Other times I do want friends, but no one wants to be friends with me. That is not a social impairment on my part, but their own intolerance of diversity - after all, openly gay teenagers often have trouble making friends too.
As for caring for yourself, who in our society really is independent? Apart from hermits living off the lands (ironically, many of them are probably on the autistic spectrum) no one is. But only if you're dependent in the 'wrong' way does it ever get noticed. My father can usually fix his own car. Most people can't, so they hire a mechanic. This is not considered a disability. Most people can tell time within about an hour or so, and can certainly tell when mealtime comes. I can't (in the absence of external cues). This is considered a disability. In another society, however, it might be the opposite.
Ettina

NT children 'becoming human', unlike autistics

I just sent the following e-mail to CBC, regarding a radio interview on the same topic as this article.

"I was shocked this morning to hear a man on the radio, in discussing early diagnosis of autism, say that parents should watch for their child 'developing into a human being'. Why is such prejudiced language acceptable. Firstly, it is prejudiced towards children. You cannot become what you already are, so your guest speaker was basically saying children aren't human - they must become human. Secondly, he was saying that not only are autistic children not human, they, unlike normal chidren, will never become human. When David Aheniquew (sp?) said the Nazis were doing a good thing by trying to get rid of Jews, everyone was shocked and appalled - if I recall, he may even have been charged with hate crimes. Why are children and autistic people not afforded similar respect? Since most people think being human means being worthy of respect, calling any human being non-human is not only biologically innaccurate but prejudiced. Yet your guest speaker said that autistics and children aren't human, and the interviewer didn't even comment.On the subject of early diagnosis, ideally I'd support it but with the state of our society right now, I say just leave them be. I'm glad my own autism wasn't diagnosed until I was 15 - by then, I was able to self-advocate and no one could force me to try to become someone I'm not (that's what autism treatment is - like aversion therapy for gays)."