He's Not the Same

[Note: After watching considerably more of this show, I've found out that I really misunderstood the vampires. Angel was not Spike's sire, Spike, as far as I can tell, didn't actually know Angel before he got his soul back, and Spike didn't really like Angel when he was soulless.]
I've been watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer a lot lately. And I've noticed something interesting about that show.
In that series, when a person becomes a vampire, in addition to changing quite a lot physically, xe has a significant personality change. This is explained as losing xyr soul. One vampire, Angel, had the reverse happen to him as well, because a spell done on him restored his soul to his body. At that point, he had a major personality change as well.
How do loved ones react to that kind of change? There are two examples I've seen so far in the series:
Xander and Jesse:
In the very first episode, Buffy befriends two boys named Xander and Jesse. These two are described as having been good friends for a long time. During a vampire attack, Jesse gets kidnapped, and by the time Buffy, Xander and another friend come to rescue him, he's been turned into a vampire. He's not overly mean to Xander after that, but makes it quite clear that he's siding with the vampires against Xander and Buffy.
Buffy, who wasn't very close to Jesse, immediately turns against him at that point, telling Xander to 'look at him not as your friend, but as the creature who killed him'. Although Xander finds this very difficult, he accepts her advice and ends up killing Jesse*. (It is possible, however, that Xander wasn't actually very close to Jesse, because he is never mentioned again in later episodes.)
Spike and Angel:
Angel, before he regained his soul, turned Spike into a vampire. As Spike's 'sire', therefore, he is very important to Spike, basically the vampire version of a parent. Then a spell restores Angel's soul, and he turns against Spike, even helping Buffy when she tries to kill Spike.
Spike, unlike Xander, does not turn against Angel. Although he takes measures necessary to ensure his own safety when Angel is a danger to him (by hitting Angel and pushing Angel away from him), Spike makes it quite clear that, even quite awhile after Angel was affected by that spell, Spike still cares about him.
The idea that someone has fundamentally changed as a person, to the point that they're no longer the person they used to be, is not only seen in fantasy. Many real people are viewed this way, such as developmentally disabled people who experience regressions, people with certain 'mental illnesses' such as schizophrenia, and people with brain injuries. And loved ones often treat the person who's changed fairly badly, in ways that they'd never have treated that person before their change (in another Buffy episode, Xander gets possessed by a hyena and they end up locking him in a cage and refusing to let him out). From the perspective of the person's loved ones, this is 'for their own good', and the unpleasant things they do to the person who's changed are really being done to the illness or whatever that's changed them (just like how Buffy rationalizes killing Jesse in her discussions with Xander). But from the perspective of the person who's changed:

"'I want the real you back' prompts the questions, 'Do you know me? Would you love me if you found out this is the real me? Aren’t you supposed to love who I am, not who you imagine?'
...
By the way, this is even true of changes that are traditionally viewed as very negative. I have known of many people who, after brain damage, have all their friends say they want them to be the person they were before the brain damage. It doesn’t happen. It’s not real. It hurts them. It’s not that they wanted to get knocked on the head, it’s that who they are now happens to be a person who got knocked on the head, not the imaginary person that didn’t."

Ironically, in this particular way, the vampires in the Buffy series (except for Angel) come off as morally better than the humans. Spike and the other vampires who knew and cared about Angel before he got his soul mostly treat him fairly well. Darla, who I suspect was Angel's sire (I read a book about Angel before, but don't remember much of it), was trying to coax him to drink blood with her. Spike hits Angel when Angel tries to trick him in order to help Buffy, but makes it quite clear that if Angel wants to have a real relationship with Spike, he'll welcome that. They don't seem to be doing things to Angel that they'd have been unwilling to do to him when he didn't have his soul - unlike the humans in the story. Because the vampires in that universe are bad in many ways, but they are certainly capable of being loyal to a loved one.

* Not entirely intentionally, though. He was threatening Jesse with a stake, trying to kill Jesse but hesitating because it felt emotionally like killing his own friend, and then someone bumped Jesse from behind and pushed him onto the stake. However, it's likely that if he'd had more time to decide, he would have killed Jesse eventually.

Dan and the Monster Autism

Action for Children has started an ad campaign portraying an autistic kid as being trapped inside a monster, then fighting his way free with their help. I just emailed the following reply:

"I am an autistic 19 year old. I am not a monster, nor am I trapped inside a monster. I'm just a unique person who has been misunderstood and abused by many others.

It's not my fault, or the fault of my autism, that other kids called me names, shoved me, etc. Nor was I bad when I did the only thing I could see to do, and lashed out at the bullies or ran away from school. That was better than when I shut down and lashed out at myself.

It's not my fault, or the fault of my autism, when my teachers insisted that I rearrange my mind to fit their curriculum. When I refused to obey them, hid under tables, or just stood there defiantly until they called my parents, I was advocating for myself. When I thought of myself as stupid, lost interest in things I used to like, and promised myself I wouldn't be 'bad' anymore, that's when I did something wrong, because I was hurting myself.

If no one else will defend your rights, you must defend them yourself. But some kids, like Dan, give in and accept the poisonous blame. They attack themselves, trying to defeat the monster inside. They learn that they're broken, and they must spend 'as long as it takes' to make themselves into worthwhile, valuable human beings. My parents told me that I was always a valuable human being, but many kids don't have parents who do that.

If you claim to be committed to helping children break through injustice, then do that. Don't tell kids they have to defeat the monster that is inside them, tell them they're OK and they must respect themselves. Don't tell them the way they were born, the way they are, is inherently broken, or else you're the injustice they need to break through."

The Moorchild

When I posted an entry about Delia Sherman's book Changeling, someone commented about the book Moorchild by Eloise McGraw. I now have that book. I have a few concerns about it.
Firstly, as in so many other books, the 'happy ending' consists of the parents getting their own child back. In Selma Lagerlof's story, the troll baby goes back to his mother. In Moorchild, Saaski/Moql ends up wandering with Tam, the orphan boy she befriends. Though both are treated with kindness by their human mothers, their mothers clearly would rather have a proper human child.
The only one who shows any sign of preferring the changeling to their own child is Yanno, who is sad that Lekka/Saaski (the stolen child) is terrified of bees, while Saaski/Moql helped him with his beekeeping. In Delia Sherman's book, instead, both Neef (the stolen child) and Changeling go back to their adoptive families in the end. That's the happy ending. Changeling clearly belongs with the humans, despite being a fairy in the form of a human, and Neef wouldn't want to go back there - it's not her home anymore. You never meet Changeling's parents, so you don't know what they want, but they've clearly been decent parents to Changeling, and she loves them.
Another problem, and this is present in both Changeling and Moorchild, is that the children fit in too well. They're only odd. In all the stories of changelings older than infant, if they described the child's abilities, they usually couldn't talk (except when tricked into revealing their true age) and some couldn't walk. They were all severely disabled, 'useless eaters'. But both Changeling and Saaski/Moql are strange rather than obviously disabled. Though Changeling clearly was considered disabled, she's in the category of children who have only recently been considered disabled, not those who were always viewed that way.
Saaski/Moql also should have been more disabled among the fairies, most likely. Apart from being unable to shapeshift or disappear, she seems to have normal abilities for a Folk child. She fits in among them even more than among the humans, until they reject her for what seems not to be much of a reason (after all, she could easily have been accomodated, especially since she was perfectly capable of making herself look the color of moss as she hugged a tree and could have hidden that way and gone out only at night when the risk of capture is less). She is more agile than most humans, but again, she's no less agile than most Folk.
A last comment about the stupid teacherly 'Alladin Reading Group Guide' questions at the end of the book. At one point, they state:

"The Moorchild is dedicated to 'all children who have ever felt different.' Is this another way of saying that the book is dedicated to all children? Do you think every child - or adult - has felt different at some point in their lives?"

I hate this kind of normalization of the experience of being different. Maybe many kids feel different on some occasion, but very few kids, like Saaski/Moql and myself, have felt different virtually every time they're with a group of children. It's totally different from occasional concerns about not fitting in. Instead, you know that you never fit in, you never belong, or at least so rarely it feels like never. It becomes a part of how you see yourself - not within any group but always an outsider. It's like the difference psychologists draw between state and trait. State anxiety means you are simply anxious at the time. Trait anxious means you're an anxious person. Though you may not always be anxious, you are anxious much of your time. Similarly, the feeling of not belonging can be a state or a trait, and it's very different when it's a trait than when it's merely a state.

PS: Here's my favorite write-up of the changeling myth.

Nearest book

David Hingsburger was tagged for something awhile back. You take the nearest book, go to page 123, and type up three sentences. I'm not sure, from the instructions, if the sentences are meant to be sentences 5, 6 and 7 or 6, 7 and 8. Anyway, he said people could tag themselves if they wished, rather than him tagging people. So I've tagged myself.
Nearest book is the abc of CHILD CARE, by Allan Fromme, Ph.D. It was first published in 1960, but my copy is the 4th edition, published in 1975. Since I'm not sure which 3 sentences to quote, as described above, I'll quote 4 instead.

"b. If we are fortunate enough to have our own outdoor play area for our child, it is worth equipping it in such a way as to attract other children. Although this may sound extravagant, it is economical in the long run to have a sand box big enough for several children, with enough sand toys for all. One outdoor swing is never as effective as two or three. A place to play, indoors or out, where children are not constantly nagged about the mess or noise they are making is in itself attractive enough for children to want to return to of their own accord." (In a list of suggestions on improving your child's friendships.)

Now, that's not one of the really interesting parts of the book, so I'll quote a few of the more interesting (accurate or not) parts:

"There is no such thing as an aggressive child who also feels loved. Children who are habitually and openly overaggressive are the very ones who baffle their parents the most by their extravagant if infrequent demonstrations of thoughfulness, love, affection, and begging for forgiveness. ... Superficially, of course, we assume that we all love our children and that therefore none of them should be aggressive. No doubt we do love them, but it is equally true that we don't always put it in evidence sufficiently clearly for our children to feel our love. A child, for example, doesn't see our love when we scrub the dirt off from behind his ears. It is equally true, too, that in addition to the love we have for our children, we frequently feel annoyed, irritated, offended, impatient, and even desperate about them. Without realizing it, we sometimes express these feelings very much more dramatically and clearly than we do the more tender sentiments of love."

There are aggressive kids who act that way for reasons other than feeling unloved. Although many of those kids end up feeling unloved, it's simply because many people don't act loving towards an aggressive child, rather than because feeling unloved makes them aggressive. Apart from that, this statement is very true. Many aggressive kids act that way because they feel unloved, and being loved doesn't necessarily equal feeling loved. With autistic kids, especially, they are more frequently corrected and redirected. They also hear parents describing them as having a problem that may have stolen their child, be trapping their child, be an enemy that must be fought, or other forms of nasty imagery about autism. Those statements might be less harmful if the child's perception matched them - for example, if they really did feel trapped - but most autistic children don't naturally feel trapped by their own brain style. (Some feel trapped by movement difficulties, but even that need not be seen that way.) The child often wonders 'if you knew this was who I really am, would you hate me?' and feel your expression of love isn't real.

"The child can be spared considerable confusion, in many instances, if the divorce is as complete for him as it is for his parents. His father's visits almost always lead to additional rejection when they are eventually discontinued. The younger a child is at the time of divorce, the easier it is for the man to divorce himself from his child also. Although this may not be easy, in any case, and is not supported by the law, it is merely a recommendation worth considering. The child should be adequately prepared for his father's departure in either event."

"Most important of all, replace your child's father as quickly as possible by remarriage. Don't try to be a mother and a father to your child. You can't do it. You'll remain a mother, make your child excessively dependent on you, and confuse the masculine and feminine roles in life for him. The longer you put off remarriage, the more difficult it becomes for you and the less easily do children accept the idea. Remarry - it's the best thing you can do for yourself and your children."

"In the case of the death of a child's mother or father, the recommendations above still pertain. However, the most important thing one can do is to supply a substitute as soon as possible. A child's daily physical care is the paramount issue. No woman can be father and mother to a child alone, nor can any man expect to perform the functions of mother and father himself. The greater problem, of course, is the death of the mother. Ideally, some immediate substitution should be made. A maid or grandmother are good temporary solutions. Remarriage is the best permanent one."

All of this advice is precisely the opposite of what is really best for the child. Absentee fathers are a big problem, and this should not be encouraged unless the father is abusive. Regarding remarriage: a) single parenting is not a big problem, provided they have (and use) a good support system, b) you can't be choosy if you're in a hurry to get married, especially since many people don't want to be stepparents, and therefore are more likely to make a poor choice, and c) children need time to adjust and grieve (especially in the case of death rather than divorce) and even after many years may be unable to accept a 'substitute' (in fact stepparents must never be portrayed as a substitute, because they are not the same person as the child's parent). The only children to whom this advice wouldn't necessarily be damaging are children under 2, who will be fine as long as they have good parenting (however, making a poor choice in spouse or having unresolved grief can adversely affect them long term).
The other advice they have for children in case of death is also damaging, because it encourages the parents to minimise it and ignore or suppress the child's grief, in the idea that children grieve not because of their own loss but rather modeling from parents, and that grieving is unhealthy for children.

"Under no circumstances is spanking your child the best technique of discipline. No doubt you have friends who feel differently about this. Certainly you must have heard them say, 'Why, when my child behaved that way, I gave him a good spanking and that was the end of it.' They're telling you the truth, too, in their naive way. Probably it was the end of it - from what they could tell.
But were they in the best possible position to make this diagnosis? They were interested in a specific result and got that result, but do they know what else happened in the thought, feeling or behavior of their child not obviously or immediately related to the very specific misbehavior they were trying to correct?
Spanking a child is effective only if it hurts him - hurts him enough so that he becomes afraid, not only of the thing he might have done, but of you. ... Spanking our child has still another unfortunate effect upon him. Just as he learns to fear us as a result, he will also learn to resent and hate us. Since our child also quite naturally loves us, we place an enormous burden of conflict upon him by infusing his feelings of love with those of fear, resentment and hate as well."

This seems to me to be very accurate, not only about spanking but any kind of aversive. Some aversives don't exactly hurt, but any effective aversive is unpleasant enough that the child will fear getting it. You can fear eating something disgusting, for example, even though the unpleasant taste isn't painful.

[children up to about 10 don't mourn much unless parents overburden them with their own grief]

Changeling Lullaby

Changeling Lullaby, a video version of the song published in Our Voices.

[Edit: Here's a related post by Amanda Baggs.]

Why I'm Not Offended

Recently, I found a book in the library called Changeling, by Delia Sherman. It's at the perspective of Neef, a child stolen by fairies at a young age. I'm not going to reveal too much of the plot, but she ends up meeting the fairy created to replace her, who she nicknames Changeling. Changeling has meltdowns, hates changes in plan, is very literal and rule-bound, hates to be touched, is great with computers, has an excellent memory and has received assistance in social skills from a psychologist.
I looked up the entry for that book on Amazon.com (see above) and read the comments. Many people guessed, probably rightly so, that Changeling's personality is modeled after autistic people. Apparently in the acknowledgements Delia Sherman thanked someone for teaching her about Asperger Syndrome (I rarely read the acknowledgements). It's very likely, therefore, that Changeling was intended to be autistic or autistic-like.
One person on Amazon.com commented:

"I did have a bit of a problem with the book equating Asperger's Syndrome with Changlings. It seemed a risky correlation for Ms. Sherman to make. She's never blatant about it, of course, but a quick examination of Changeling's personality (she says that when she was younger she needed a therapist to help her develop social skills) coupled with the note in the book's Acknowledgment section that reads that someone, "gave me an invaluable education on Asperger's Syndrome", was enough to put my hair on end. We don't really want to equate Asperger's with someone being physically from another world, do we?"

This made me think. Why am I not offended by this comparison, when I'm offended by many other similar portrayals of autistic people?
The reason is the way Delia Sherman portrays Changeling. Changeling is portrayed pretty well. My biggest criticism was that she could've had more self-determination, and portrayed Changeling as being more able to speak for herself and having more ability to make effective choices, though partly it could just be that Neef was more used to the environment they were in than Changeling was. But Changeling's unique qualities turn out to be essential to their success and probably their survival, and Neef and Changeling become good friends.
My favorite part is a section (don't have the book so I can't quote it) in which someone tells Neef that people like Changeling are useless. Their sole purpose is to replace humans stolen away, so the humans don't notice. Fairy folk don't want them because they have little magic, and even the humans don't really like them - they used to abuse or kill them, and now they try to force them to conform. Neef indignantly stands up for Changeling, asserting that she is valuable.
I think this book is one of those admirable books that take a harmful tradition (in this case the portrayal of disabled children as a 'stolen' normal child replaced by an 'empty shell' or as Martin Luther stated, a soulless 'massa carnis') and twists it around to make it positive. And the biggest test is 'how is this likely to affect how autistics are treated?' I think it's likely to be a pretty positive effect, if anything.

Changelings

Just writing to mention that I found a bunch of changeling folktales:

British changeling stories
German changeling stories
Scandinavian changeling stories

It's often theorized now that those stories referred to developmentally disabled people, especially autistic people. Chilling, when you think of how they were generally treated in those tales and how they were viewed.

[Edit: here's another story.]