in response to this post

Hey I wanted to thank you for all the ABA posts you've been making. "Compliance" and "compliance training" have been major triggers (It's okay because I don't exist right now) for me for years and I've never heard anyone else talk about ABA using those words (and I've repeatedly questioned whether I imagined it all). I don't know. My brain feels wrong so this probably isn't coherent. But thank you. (I'm sorry if you've already gotten this but I wasn't sure I'd sent it so I'm sending it again)

Thank you, Nonny. This is— this is good right now and I appreciate it. I don’t think I realized quite how sensitive a subject this was for me until I got into it, and I definitely didn’t expect that post to explode the way it has. I’ve made variations on that post before and they never got anywhere near this level of attention. And while that’s a good thing - I want people to be aware of this - it also lead to people coming into my inbox to try and justify this stuff to me.

Here’s the kicker: I haven’t been through ABA proper. My compliance training was informal - but I can see the strong parallels between the ways I’ve suffered and the effects it’s had on me, and what ABA survivors talk about.

Compliance training teaches us that it’s wrong to say no, particularly to anybody in a position of perceived authority. It teaches us to do as we’re told, and to credulously accept what we’re told even if it makes no sense to us.

This is extremely fucking dangerous to do to disabled people, and kids, and disabled kids.

Disabled people have phenomenal rates of abuse and sexual assault - up to 80% for disabled women. And I am thoroughly convinced at this point that a large part of the reason why is that we have been conditioned and pre-groomed for our attackers.

Compliance training lead directly to my assault. I don’t want it to lead to anyone else’s.