What does psychopath means?

It means “I’m an ableist sanist asshole and you can stop listening to anything I have to say.”

Privately thinking you’re better than other people is your business. “making it clear” to the people around you that you look down on them is rude and potentially hurtful? Telling people you think you’re better than them is an action? How is this confusing?

Ohhhhhhhh, so my value as a human being depends on never ever talking about my mental illness in any capacity. Got it.

It’s not “confusing,” it’s expected; it’s just a really fucking shitty way to treat people.

. I would love to insult you, but instead I'll inform u, why are you spreading false information abt ABA some of my closest friends help children eat properly, socialize, take care of themselves.How is helping some1 function in society a bad thing

“Look how gracious I’m being by not treating you like the subhuman I think you are. I’m going to inform you by demanding that you justify your position against child torture. Despite not actually being involved on any level, I’m an expert because some of my friends support torturing children to make them look ‘normal.’”

Notably absent from any of this is any sign that you’ve listened to what actually autistic people who have actually been through ABA have to say about it.

Fuck off out of my inbox, anon.

#answers #aba #abused because autistic #ashlyn isn't giving you brownie points for your 'restraint' either #Anonymous

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.

“I know my body better than some doctor”
No you literally do not. You did not attend 12+ years of medical school, you did not spend hundreds of thousands in tuition and have student loans for the rest of your life to get a medical degree. You do not, in fact, know more about your body than “some doctor”. Surprise!

Okay. yeah, that doctor has a lot of training. 12 whole years. Maybe they know The Generic Human Body better than you. In fact, they probably do.

But The Generic Human Body, the one used in basically all education and medical testing, is an abled, cis, white adult man.

If you are not an abled, cis, white, adult man, there is an extremely good chance you know your body - the individual one you’ve lived with for your entire life - better than the doctor in question.

While we’re at it: When I was a teenager, I wound up in psychiatric and psychological care. I was being seen by two professionals, who combined had been trainning longer than I had been alive - never mind their actual experience.

They misdiagnosed me. Horribly. They thought I was bipolar; I was depressed. It almost killed me, and did in fact culminate in getting my stomach pumped, spending a week in psychiatric ICU on suicide watch, and permanent aggravation of my sensory processing disorder - the SPD that came with the extremely blatant autism that these Learned Professionals completely missed.

(Funfact: The drug that aggravated my SPD? I was in the trial group for it. I’ve recently gathered - with my tiny-ass reach here on tumblr - a dozen testimonials from other people with SPD who had reactions to this drug. It’s still not listed as a possible side effect or contraindication.)

image

Filed under #acab

Let's say someone horribly bullies you. One day you see the bully about to die and they are begging for your help (they are still yelling at you and calling you names as they do this) , would you help them or would you leave the bully to die?

Ayin: I’d try to save them, because frankly death over bullying is not a line I’d be willing to cross.
Ashlyn: Except I’d take front and back off. While leaving someone to die is a moral failure, you’re trying to go into a lethal situation with someone who is still an active threat and who has displayed worse ethics. We have no guarantee we’d come out alive. Defend the system at all costs.

in another post

if you believe you are allowed to be offensive and rude to cis people you are a fucking hypocrite. you want equality? then treat people how you want to be treated.

If you believe trans people’s safety and equality should depend on how polite they are to you, you’re a fucking terrible human being.

Why the hell do you assume everyone who hates pedos isn't "doing anything" to help actual children, that's an INCREDIBLY manipulative response and you don't know what people are doing in their personal lives to help children of they aren't gloating about it. My family has housed victims to protect them from their abusers. You have no right to assume that people aren't doing anything "real" because they hate pedophiles.

Maybe it’s the way y’all have harassed CSA survivors off this hellsite for daring to point to actual, empirical research on how to reduce CSA.

Maybe it’s the time I got screamed at for daring to mention anything as irrelevant as the actual real-life activism I’ve done against actual real-life child rapists when I was accused of supporting them.

Maybe it’s the time someone yelled at CSA survivors for not joining the latest hate mob and dismissed someone deliberately exposing minors to sexual content in order to harm them as irrelevant in the same breath.

Maybe it’s that the performative hatred and stigmatization of pedophilia has the effect of making predatory skills into survival skills for these people - making them both more likely to offend and more capable of offending - but has not been demonstrated to actually reduce the rate of child sexual assault.

Maybe it’s that the conflation of “pedophile” and “child molester” allows opportunistic predators to fly under the radar and face no consequences for their actions.

Maybe it’s that the anti squad embraces all of the above, rather than condemning it.

When you actively contribute to pedophiles learning predatory skills, harm CSA victims while letting active offenders go untouched, and literally don’t care about real life activism— yeah, I’m gonna accurately state that you don’t give a single fuck about helping kids.
Filed under #Ashlyn is still waiting for literally any of you to give a single fuck about COCSA survivors #CSA #pedophilia #Anonymous #answers

I get intrusive thoughts about lots of things but I don't actually want to do them so I feel like using intrusive thoughts to defend MAPs (who do want to have sex with kids even if they wouldn't act on it ) perpetuates the wrong idea that people always want to do the things their intrusive thoughts are about.

When I talk about how this shit is splashing on people with intrusive thoughts, it’s not in service of somebody else.

See if you can follow: If you demonize people for thoughts rather than actions, or equate thought to action, you are saying that people must maintain perfect control of their brains at all times. If they have a Bad Thought, regardless of whether they have any control over it, that makes them a monster who deserves to die.

This splashes on literally all mentally ill people (you know, people whose brains are outside of our control and hurting us), but particularly on people with intrusive thoughts.

Again, we’d like to point out: We have a girlfriend who has intrusive thoughts. These thoughts have nothing to do with pedophilia at all. And as a child, this shit nearly killed her. Because it convinced her that she was an irredeemable monster who would inevitably hurt people she cared about.

Regardless of your position in the discourse around CSA, this is a bad policy that splashes on all sorts of unintended targets and does real, tangible harm to them.

People should not be made suicidal because they cannot control their brains perfectly. I cannot believe this is remotely controversial.

(I’m leaving aside the whole “there’s no such thing as an unwanted attraction” thing because that’s a whole other can of worms, but it too is an ugly one that splashes on unintended targets.)

Unfriendly fucking reminder that the best predictor of mass shootings is not mental illness, but being an angry young white man who has recently experienced rejection and has easy access to guns.

I 100% agree with your points on mental illness, but race and gender are entirely unrelated and tying them into your argument just inspires discrimination. I am not a white male, and that is the demographic which is involved in school shootings most often, but it’s wrong to target any race or gender and criminalize them. It takes away from the message you’re trying to spread about mental illness and makes you seem like a bigot. If you want people to listen be a bit nicer

Oh man where do I start.

Sweetie, I invite you to go back there and point out just where I talked about “criminalizing” anything. What I am concerned with is stopping murder. Which means when a wildly disproportionate number of shooters comes from a single demographic, it’s about time to admit that there are some underlying factors there. Maybe even time to admit that catering to and justifying white men’s violence at everyone else’s expense is a super shitty thing to do and we need to stop doing it.

What exactly is your plan? Throw up your hands and let more kids die because oh, gee, it would be unfair to look at the structural factors that play into these things? Tell me, how fucking fair is it that people like me get shot because nobody is willing to examine the prejudices I’m calling out there? How fair is it that existing while mentally ill can get me locked up indefinitely or killed, whether or not I’ve done anything wrong?

As for the tone policing: If you’re not willing to stand with mentally ill folks because we didn’t abase ourselves before you properly, you were never our fucking ally. If “you didn’t ask nicely!” means more to you than “people are fucking dying because of this,” then your priorities are flat-out wrong and disgusting.

#glenjamin1616 #tone policing bullshit #ashlyn is so tired of being 'politely' told to sit down and shut up

in response to this post

Wow. You know so much about me. We have tried literally everything, with varying degrees of success. From holding him down so he didn’t hit me anymore to running away to Both me and my wife had to go to the hospital on different occasions.

Seriously, go fuck yourself you self righteous fuck. You know jack shit about what has gone on

As to cops, it’s not their job to deescalate meltdowns. It’s their job to enforce laws. But hey, I do know a mentally ill person killed two cops in California who were calming talking to him by drawing out a gun and shooting them while they tried to deescalate. One was set to retire in December and the other just got back from maternity leave. I’m sure they would be alive if they had you peoples edgy training. [..]

I will say it again and slowly. IF THE FORCE RISES TO LETHAL, POLICE CAN USE LETHAL FORCE IN DEFENSE. THE MENTAL STATE OF THE SUBJECT IS IRRELEVANT

See? No advocating killing aspies. No saying meltdowns warrant lethal force. Only if lethal force is offered it can be returned. That’s it. That’s all I’m saying. Apparently reading comprehension is an issue in your diagnosis as well
And if you say cops shouldn’t use lethal force because the subject is mentally ill, you don’t deserve to be in a grown up conversation

Replying and blocking so the person can’t respond. Nice echo chamber. Why am I not surprised that a cop is also a blatant fucking hypocrite?

You know what I notice every time you talk about dealing with your son’s meltdowns? You’re always - literally always - talking about what you did for yourselves. Nowhere on that list is anything to do with addressing the cause of the meltdown, removing your son from the circumstances that are overwhelming him that badly or removing the thing which is causing it. Nowhere in there is even the slightest shred of awareness of what meltdowns are and why.

You have demonstrated, right here in this post, by your own explanation of what constitutes the boundaries of “everything,” that you have tried everything except treating your child like a fucking human being with a mind and reasons for these actions.

I might not know every single detail of your life. But I know your type, I know the way people like you operate, and - this is key - I know a world more about autism and meltdowns than you ever will, you arrogant abusive fuck.

I also noticed the bit where you said lethal force is justified to take down someone who presents a threat to no one but themself - how exactly is that in keeping with literally any definition of public safety or justice?

Now, since you obviously won’t listen to people whose lived experiences demonstrate a pattern of police violence that is not in keeping with a just society, try looking at the cold, hard data:

About 18.2% of the population of the US is mentally ill. Yet 50% of police shootings involve mentally ill victims. For the current situation to be justified, as you hold, mentally ill people must be 2.5 times as violent as the general population.

The problem is, we’ve done the research on this. Extensively. The conclusion? Mentally ill people are no more prone to violence than the general population. The most stigmatized illnesses, such as schizophrenia, tend to be less probe to violence than the general population. However - and this is important - the belief that mentally ill people are prone to violence is used to justify violence against them, making them more likely to be victims.

So if police use of force against the mentally ill is justified, we should see mentally ill people involved in about 18.2% of police shootings. Instead, that number is fifty goddamn percent, two and a half times higher than is reasonable.

There is absolutely no explanation for this that does not involve systemic violence and wildly unjustified force by police. Period. And people like you, trying to use the violence that has been done to us in the past to justify violence done to us in the future? You’re an excellent illustration of where the fucking problem lies

Again, I'm not threatening and I'm not saying I'll stop supporting the autistic community just bc one member was mean to me, I'm saying I'll stop supporting THAT particular member. And that's not ableism, that's a personal trouble.

Making your support of someone conditional on their behaviour is a threat. It is saying “You will do what I want, or I will support hurting you.” (Remember, silence is assent to the status quo, and the status quo is “autistic people are dehumanized and tortured and killed.”) That’s not support - it is very literally how abusers keep their victims in line. Anon, please stay the hell away from all of us. We don’t want your thinly-veiled abuse.

image

[ That's Why I only date Masochists now, I can take out this anger on them and it's not abuse it's foreplay ]

I would love to insult you, but instead I'll inform u, why are you spreading false information abt ABA some of my closest friends help children eat properly, socialize, take care of themselves.How is helping some1 function in society a bad thing

“Look how gracious I’m being by not treating you like the subhuman I think you are. I’m going to inform you by demanding that you justify your position against child torture. Despite not actually being involved on any level, I’m an expert because some of my friends support torturing children to make them look ‘normal.’”

Notably absent from any of this is any sign that you’ve listened to what actually autistic people who have actually been through ABA have to say about it.

Fuck off out of my inbox, anon.

#aba #abused because autistic #ashlyn #isn't giving you brownie points for your 'restraint' either #Anonymous

I speak here as an autistic person who, as a child, had the police called on her for melting down. (Fortunately I am white and live in an area not coded as “poor,” and the officers responding were better people than skypig357, or I would not be here to write this.)

One time, I even went so far as to pull a knife and threaten to attack my stepfather.

[ on cops dealing with autistic people assaulting and threatening others ]

Cops do not have the freedom to let people meltdown, if their actions could harm other people. If they are alone and not self harming? Sure. Give it hell. Bust up their own property. I’ve let my son do this.

But if they are a risk to themselves or others? Or are damaging other people’s property? No. Cops must act and stop whatever is happening.
Look, your rights do not trump other people’s rights. And if it becomes necessary to use force to take someone into custody then so be it.
[...]

It’s been challenging at times not to rise to my son’s bait. The screaming, name calling, hitting. It’s hard to be purely defensive when someone is doing everything they can to hurt you. Especially when they are 6'2" and 180lbs and have been since they were 14. He’s one of the most amazing people I’ve ever known, but not when he’s in the middle of a rage. He’s almost evil sometimes. Even though he regrets it later.

But he’s hit me and my wife numerous times. He’s put her in the hospital once. He broke my finger. He’s hit with fists and weapons.

We deal with it because he’s our son. No one else would be required to. Certainly no police officer. And we’ve taught him how to interact with police. It’s his job to comply with their orders, not theirs to figure him out. And he would be the first person to tell you if he tried to hurt a cop of someone else that he should have force used against him.

You have no idea what I have or haven’t done with my son. I’ve tried literally everything. Mostly we direct it and let it burn itself out. I’ve held him down. For over half an hour. Ever wrestled someone for half an hour to keep them from hurting you? I’m betting no. I stopped counting punches he threw at me once when he got to 200.

[...]

But you seem to think cops need to fix some kind of problem here. Be a social worker and therapist. It’s not their job. They are law enforcement. Peace officers. Public safety. You think they need to have this magical ability to fix your shit. They don’t. If you’re breaking a law you go to jail or receive a summons. If you can’t do that peacefully you will receive force until you comply. That’s it. It’s a simple equation.

In case anybody needed any further proof that all cops are bastards, seeking an excuse to lash out violently at people they consider “lesser.”

I’ll just add that this horrendous fuck has no idea how to deal with auties at all, if he thinks “deescalating meltdowns” means “holding the person down until they comply.”

This person has abused his child horrifically, called it love, and uses an abuse victim’s response to being abused as justification for why they should be murdered. While claiming to love them. I literally cannot think of a clearer example of pure malevolence.

My hatred of sexual predators is not "performative" it comes from deep hurt and this is the EXACT manipulative bullshit I am talking about. Fucking. Stop it. Hating predators is not performative what the fuck

So you’re clearly too busy being an ableist sack of shit to think about things at all. See, here’s the problem: If your policy is that people are responsible for their thoughts, regardless of whether or not their thoughts ever translate into actions of any sort, then people who are literally incapable of controlling their thoughts are going to suffer. By fostering a culture where thought is just as bad as deed, where having bad thoughts makes you a bad person, you are causing direct and very real harm to people with intrusive thoughts.

My girlfriend almost died because of shitstains like you.

You are literally killing people by convincing them that their inability to silence their destructive thoughts makes them monsters.

But hey, as long as you can be seen to hate the right things loudly enough, who cares about the trail of bodies in your wake, right?

if you believe you are allowed to be offensive and rude to cis people you are a fucking hypocrite. you want equality? then treat people how you want to be treated .

If you believe trans people’s safety and equality should depend on how polite they are to you, you’re a fucking terrible human being.

Nightly reminder that the fascists, white supremecists, and other godless people who were riled by Trump’s presence in the election and exposed themselves will still be here after Trump loses the election.

Voting can potentially stop the fascists from reaching office, but never the fascists that’re already in our communities. For stopping them, i suggest baseball bats.

Okay, look. I’m a pacifist by nature. And I used to be a pretty dedicated one. I have sat there and fucking taken a beating that sent me to the fucking hospital, from bigots I had reason to believe were armed with lethal weapons. And that wasn’t the only such beating by a long fucking shot, just the worst one.

I know nonviolence, I’ve practiced nonviolence, is what I’m trying to say here.

But— here’s the thing. You know what happened? They learned that they could beat on me with impunity (and I learned I couldn’t trust authorities to keep me safe). The beatings kept escalating. The next one, in all likelihood, would have killed me - I was lucky to escape that environment before it came.

You know the one thing I have ever seen that shut down violent bigots? When the fucking Heritage Front - actual, literal flesh-and-blood Nazis with a history of violence - held a rally in my city, and a bunch of angry young antiracist punks declared “not in our fuckin’ town” and broke it up. And, to my knowledge, they never tried anything here again.

It worked. It actively reduced the amount of racist violence my city was exposed to.

(I’m pretty sure I remember reading an article about an antifa group somewhere in Scandinavia that did similar things to extremely effective results; if anyone remembers, can they link it?)

So yeah. It works. It actually is how we make a better world, if “better” includes “people who aren’t white not having to live in fear and being subjected to violence.”

I know people right now who are prepared to flee depending on how things go. Not “haha I’m gonna move to Canada,” but “I have a go-bag packed and a mental list of what I can afford to leave behind if I have to disappear quietly in the night and run for the border.” Because their families have been through this and it really is that fucking scary out there.

You can fight speech with more speech - I heartily recommend this! But fascism isn’t just speech. It is violence. It is founded on and built from the dead and broken bodies of everybody who is insufficiently white and loyal. And the only thing - the only thing - that I have ever seen deter bigoted violence is direct action and violent defense of the targets.

So yeah, if you want to do something about it, bring a fuckin’ bat. If you don’t, get out of the way of the people who do.

hey there! i have a question i'd like your input on, if you have the spoons to discuss these two topics. (trigger warning: harassment, violence, fasc*sm.) i know you have policy of no harassment, no verbal violence, etc, against people who have done horrific things or have dehumanizing and violent opinions, on tumblr. but i also see you endorse physical IRL violence against fash. this is a duality ive struggled with- how to justify "do not engage" and also "fight them off the street". (1/2)

(2/2) (cw: harassment, violence, fasc*sm, cont’d); im going with “engage offline if Very sure, and if its safe to do so andor if consequences seem worth bearing” and “do not engage online” as a compromise, since i can’t be certain online most time. or else, “do not engage online unless absolutely sure, witnessed with own eyes or ears, that this person is Active threat” but with that, theres risk of creating “acceptable targets”. inb4 slippery slope, but im legit worried. (ok2 publish if u want)

Okay. SM here. I’ve gotten special permission to answer this one, since it’s really more in my wheelhouse overall.

Well. To begin with, we’re in the kinda unique position of having dual policies on a lot of things. I endorse the “bring a bat” mentality— from a distance, but it’s Ashlyn who would actually show up with one. (We’re still negotiating boundaries on who wins in conflicts like these.)

But speaking more generally? The key questions to me as regards morals and ethics are “What impact will this have,” and “How do I win?” I want to see a world in which marginalized people are less marginalized, where we’re accepted as full and equal members of society as we are. How do I bring that about most effectively?

Hate-mobbing has a lot of black marks against it from this angle. It’s an escalation - responding to speech with violence. It makes people miserable and harms their mental health. It more often than not makes them double down on hateful politics. And it’s poisonous to rational thinking and winning strategies.

To expand on that last part: The fundamental problem with saying “But this time I’m right, so the hateful tactics that oppressors use on me are justified here” is that, by and large, the oppressors are saying the same thing. The Slymepit, Gamergate, Swarmfront? They all think of themselves as oppressed by a conspiracy of marginalized people. They think that justifies the shit they do. They’re sitting there going “Well, sure, it’s evil when those uppity SJW types do it, but this time I’m right!” And frankly, it feels really good to say that, to engage like that. it feels like vindication, like justice. Revenge usually does. So it encourages you to think a little less about it and lash out a little more.

But revenge isn’t justice. Revenge doesn’t actually accomplish our goal of making the world better for marginalized people. And it does make us gloss over an important question, one that requires the exact sort of difficult and careful and considered thought it discourages:

How do you know that you’re not falling into the same trap as those guys?

Finally, particularly here on tumblr, it fails the “winning” test. A lot of people spewing bigoted rhetoric - a lot of them - are kids just making their first forays into forming political opinions. They’re going to fuck up and do/say/think something wrong. Sometimes it’s going to be terrible. But if we respond with a hate mob, not only are we bullying a child, we’re making sure that kid’s first exposure to us is a rage-filled mob that wants them to die because they said the wrong thing. These kids could have been talked around or educated, but now they’ve seen that and they know we’re The Enemy. They’ll always be looking for the knife in every word we say.

When we’re talking about fighting fascism, though, we’re looking at a different situation. We’re looking at people who have already been hardened. There’s no talking someone around or educating them by the time they’re ready to engage in actual violence against you. They won’t listen to a single word you say - if you’re an Acceptable Target for violence, then they already see the knife in everything you say or do, whether or not it’s actually there.

(And yes, this should be taken as a general warning against Acceptable Targets, because you’re not immune to this way of thinking either.)

So with words off the table, we’re left with the question: how do we actually stop the violence? Police and authorities aren’t going to help - they’re complicit in it, when they’re not actively engaging. The only people we can rely on are our siblings in this fight. And the only tool that has been shown to get the job done is violence.

I know this seems like I’m just going back on the Acceptable Target principle above, but— well, to me, at least, there’s a clear line. You can’t turn to violence as an acceptable tool without endorsing its use to resist your violence. And yes, that works both ways - if you’re going to engage in antifa action, then getting hurt might be the cost of doing business, and you have to be willing to pay that cost when it comes. But frankly, sometimes that price is worth it.

So it seems that the only point of confusion remaining is “Why is fascism categorically violence?” And sure, a lot of it doesn’t look like things we associate with the word ‘violence.’ A lot of the time it’s holding rallies, distributing leaflets, etc.

But every one of those leaflets, every one of those rallies, is a veiled threat. The core of fascism is and always has been “surrender what we want or we will take it by force.” And people who have been targeted by it know this. They see that, and they know that they can be hurt or killed anywhere, at any time, by someone like that. They are less safe, and their mental health is directly impacted, long before the first blow lands.

Fascism is violence against marginalized people for simply existing, and the tool that stops it is violence against oppressors for harming innocents. And y’know what? All things considered, I’m okay with that.

in response to this post

The issue I have with this post is that for the purposes of who it’s appropriate for you to be dating you’re 30, not 17 ,always. To go ‘oooooh which is the age you should be judging the morality of my relationships by 30 or 17 it’s impossible to say!’ you’re implicitly telling people that there’s some ambiguity as to whether having headmates who are minors as an adult means your relationships should be judged as a minor’s relationships. There is not. This is the main point of this reblog and tbh it’s something you need to speak on. Arguing for age gaps between adults being okay shouldn’t be done in ways that could be used to justify child abuse, and that’s a responsibility you take on when you speak on the issue.

We have spoken on it. Repeatedly. And— no, you’re dangerously leaving out an important nuance there: A system member who is a minor, even in an adult body, is still a fucking minor and so probably should not “have their relationships judged as an adult” - they shouldn’t be entering into adult relationships at all. Yes, this leaves an awkward spot where there’s basically no ethical way for some system members to date at all. Again, we’ve spoken publicly on this very issue before, including in direct response to this post.

.You’re not allowed to ignore age completely whether you’re a singlet or not. The age of your body absolutely determines, at least, the minimum age of the people it is ethical for you to date and I don’t know why you continually dance around whether or not you agree with that because you have made it unclear.

.”mental age” is measured in a lot of different ways by a lot of different people, unlike chronological age which is objective and it’s often used to tell disabled people what they can and cannot do so I think it’s up to her to decide the age of the people she is comfortable dating, depending on what exactly she is using the very ambiguous term “mental age” to convey, and her chronological age.

.It’s actually pretty dangerous to a wide variety of people to respond to people saying “23 year olds and 30 year olds shouldn’t date” with but ‘I’m a system and therefore using age as a measure of the morality of a relationship is flawed.’ Like were the “antis” you’re discussing even talking about a relationship that involved systems in any way?

.Also “think carefully about your answer” look it’s so unsettling how you’re conducting this conversation like SEE IF YOU CAN SOLVE THIS PUZZLE I”VE CONCOCTED like people are trying to talk to you about how something you said had some really uncomfortable implications and you should at least try to treat our concerns in a way that’s honest and self-critical and not be trying to like get us to say something wrong so you “win”that’s not how this works.

What SM was arguing in the OP - what we have argued consistently - is that chronological age does not equal narrative age for multiples. SM split in a trauma event 17 years ago. So yes, it is 17 years old. But believe it or not, we aren’t born quite like you. It didn’t need to learn to walk and talk and use a toilet again. It came into existence as a teenager, in a teenage body. It continued to age in real time, so despite having existed for 17 years, it has a narrative age in the mid-30s.
This information has already been explicitly provided to you.
So— your argument is that a system member with a narrative age in the mid-30s, with a body in the mid-30s, is the victim of a gross predator— because she’s in a consensual relationship with someone younger. Because you are utterly fixated on dictating to multiples instead of listening to us about our experience and how your rules get really fucked up and ableist when you apply them to us unilaterally.
What’s even more fucked up is that you’re making this argument after repeatedly arguing that a system member with a narrative age of fourteen should be allowed to date adults because they happen to be in an older body.
Like. Do you have any idea how many different levels of fucked up you’re being here?
Re: mental age: If you know that, then maybe you know better than to apply it to other DD people without their consent? No? What a surprise, consideration for other people’s boundaries and differing situations is not your strong suit.

You seriously could have just said that you’re 30 and your girlfriend is 23 and it’s a healthy relationship without doing all this bullshit
.‘checkmate people who disapprove of relationships between 30 year olds and 23 year olds, I’m also 17’ is an inherently dangerous sentiment, deflecting criticism of your relationship based on the age of your body by bringing up your chronological age of your alter absolutely cosigns some pedophiles’ justifications.

2. Well, there’s the aspect that we’ve brought up repeatedly and you literally just acknowledged: Basing your decisions solely on the age of the body opens up two loopholes for the abuse of children.

I have never seen someone so determined to allow for the abuse of children in my life.

2.5. They weren’t just calling it “inherently predatory,” they were calling it “pedophilic.” That is the absurdity I was responding to. There is no, repeat no, way for a relationship between two adults to be pedophilic.

3. I could’ve done a lot of things. I chose to write a quick snarky post to vent some of my frustration. This is just tone-policing a mentally ill woman for not responding to ableism politely enough for you. Fuck off.

4. “Your expressed policies paint me as simultaneously predator and victim of the same person, this is absurd” is not an inherently dangerous statement. I wasn’t deflecting criticism of my relationship - I was responding to criticism of a fictional relationship and the fact that it leaves zero room for me to exist. And I wasn’t bringing up the age of a system mate. I was talking about myself. I am an adult who happens to have existed for 17 years. This is a thing that happens, and maybe if you could stop being an ableist fuck for like half a second you’d be able to understand that.

This is not cosigning anybody’s justification for the abuse of children. This is saying “Your rules have a blatant and ugly failure case; better rules are needed.” I have, repeatedly, offered better rules which - unlike yours - do not simultaneously paint someone as predator and victim or allow for the exploitation of children.

Seriously. I said “Hey, there’s a problem with your policies, here’s a policy that better protects children.” And you are trying to pretend I am cheerleading for child molesters, like the ones who fucking raped us, because I did so a bit snarkily (after already having been the target of multiple smear campaigns by antis for daring to actually listen to experts and evidence).

No part of this is honest disagreement. You are doing exactly what I have always objected to in the Anti Squad - reaching as hard as you fucking can for any excuse to portray anybody who disagrees with you as a supporter of child molesters. You are actively harming CSA survivors and mentally ill people and allowing child molesters to go unchallenged, and that is beyond disgusting. Get the fuck off our post with that shit.

keep in mind that this person is actually physically in their mid-late thirties and is talking about their multiple personalities or "headmates"/"alters" . The word "system" in this context refers to people with multiple personalities/"headmates"

I am 17 years old. This is not an age regression thing or anything like that; it is “I literally did not exist before a specific incident in 1999.” My body, however, is twice that age. I am the closest thing to a Responsible Adult in here; I am the voice of reason and restraint and caution and the one who tends to take care of adulting.

If I am in a relationship with a 23-year-old, is that gross and predatory? If so, who is abusing whom? Show your work.

This is common logic used by predators and pedos. You’re 17, but then use ur “physical age” to prove how ~wise and mature~ you are? If you mentally think ur 17 ur not a responsible adult then lol ur really not if ur mentally 17 like most of the other discoursers. Stop trying to act like ur some authority bc ur actually 30, but think ur really 17. A relationship w a 23 yr old obviously is not predatory on their part as ur not actually 17, and ur brain physically is developed past that point/you aren’t in highschool anymore. There’s a difference between you being actually 30 but mentally 17 and dating a 23 year old vs a real 17 yr old dating a 23 year old.

Are you also trying to imply that it’s fine for 23 year olds to date 17 year olds, like actual 17 year olds

oh ok yeah just checking. And yeah that's a problem in the u.s. too. Its really messed up. In some states kids can be taken away on the presumption of neglect even if literally nothing has happened and they're fine, just because the parent has a diagnosis. Anyway I'm sure you're a great parent, I hope the government never fucks with you or if they have they lose.

Yeah, it’s— kinda terrifying, and it’s already impacted me in a major way.

For the past couple months, I’ve been going to a therapist, who has the authority to refer me up to a psychiatrist if I need more help than she can give me (spoiler alert: I do.) I was very interested in this; in particular I really wanted to try medication for ADHD in hopes that I could get over some of my memory and executive dysfunction issues.

Then that story dropped.

You can damn well bet that I haven’t made a single peep about anything that might get me that referral since. My mental health care has gotten worse - in turn impacting the level and quality of care I can provide my child because if I get what I need she might be taken away.

Since conversion therapy is looming in everyone’s consciousness right now:

This is your regular reminder that ABA, the generally-recommended therapy for autistic children, is literally conversion therapy with an extra dose of “auties aren’t even real people” thrown in for good measure. It was conceived by the same people, from the same research, for the same ends: To brutalize and torture children into a narrow range of “acceptable” behaviour.

And it is considered totally legitimate and valid and even preferred by the overwhelming majority of the medical industry.

Do not leave disabled people out of your activism

I never cease to be frustrated by anti-self-dxers, and how they seem to have literally never heard of someone like me - someone who is an adult, has consulted to the best of their ability including speaking with professionals without the authority to enter a diagnosis, cannot under any circumstances get a diagnosis, because I will (not can, but absolutely 100% certainty fucking will) lose important legal rights such as access to my fucking child, and a huge amount of my trauma centers around institutionalization and the fear of going back.

These circumstances are— really not that uncommon among self dx folks?

But sure it’s all just kids making shit up for attention

Yyyyyyeahhhhh somehow I REALLY doubt that you’d lose your kid if you got a professional diagnosis. On the contrary, if you keep self-diagnosing, you probably WILL lose your kid.
Not to mention you could self-Dx yourself wrong, and guess what? It could be something totally different and ten times more/less harmful.

When I wrote this, it was a couple weeks after the highest court in my province put two kids in foster care because their parents were autistic, and that was deemed sufficiently dangerous to warrant removal.

And, y'know, I was almost killed by professional misdiagnosis, something it’s taken me the better part of twenty years to get past in any way, and which still haunts my nightmares.

But, y'know, I highly doubt real, lived experiences matter more than your strawmen. So whatever.

Yyyyyyeahhhhh somehow I REALLY doubt that you’d lose your kid if you got a professional diagnosis. On the contrary, if you keep self-diagnosing, you probably WILL lose your kid.
Not to mention you could self-Dx yourself wrong, and guess what? It could be something totally different and ten times more/less harmful.

Me: “Professional DX could cost me my child.”
Some asshole: “Doubt it.”
You: “That dude’s right.”
Me: “That literally happened to people, in my city, just before I said that.”
You: “But that was because of professional diagnosis! Go see a doctor!”

Like. Do you even logic? You’re literally saying that an incident in which people had their kids taken away on the basis of a professional diagnosis shouldn’t count as a reason not to be professionally diagnosed.

You: “Self-dx could be harmful, maybe! I can’t point to any actual cases of this happening, but this is my theory.”
Me: “Here in the real world, professional dx lead to me being mismedicated, attempting suicide, and going through the most traumatic experience of my life. But I’m sure that doesn’t matter against your hypothetical dangers of self-diagnosis.”
You: “That totally wasn’t a strawman! Go see a doctor!”

Like. Yeah. That was fucking traumatic as shit. Yes, I’m in therapy that’s specifically helping me to address it. And yes, my therapist has extremely strict instructions to never refer me to anybody with diagnostic authority - a policy she understands, accepts, and supports. How am I gonna get medication without a diagnosis? I’m not. I’m gonna have to cope using what non-medicinal tools are available to me. Because that’s how I keep my child and my life and my freedom.

But self-diagnosis is so incredibly harmful! I should totally trust a stranger on the Internet about my mental health needs, rather than myself and my actual fucking therapist, right?

As for the “you can’t rely on yourself” shit: That is the literal, textbook definition of a strawman. It’s one you fucks always trot out, and I’ve literally never seen a single case of it being true. Self-diagnosis is generally an intensive process, involving months of research, talking to people who have the condition, seeing how relatable their experiences are to you, trying some of their coping methods and (in my case, because I was incredibly lucky) consulting both officially and unofficially with people who work professionally with patients in a non-diagnosing and non-prescribing capacity.

Finally: Even if I were to take your advice, even though why should I— Who’s gonna cough up the $2000? Because I’m sure as fuck not taking it out of my kid’s mouth. Or mine.

Think for half a fucking second about this before you condescend to me again. And maybe don’t compare an autie to a movement that would rather their children die than grow up like her?

I’ll say this again. I’m a Behavioral Therapist for children with autism and much of this information is highly inaccurate.

Every single one of the parents that I work with love their kids so much. They listen to them, they are kind to them, and they treat them like REAL PEOPLE. They listen to them when they say they’re sad. They comfort them and love them and care for them just like the do with their other kids. The parents I’ve seen care about their kids possibly more than any other parent I’ve ever seen (including parents with neurotypical children). These parents are willing to do whatever it takes to make their children be their unique selves and 100% HAPPY with themselves as well.

ABA therapy doesn’t tell kids to look happy when they’re sad inside, it teaches them FUNCTIONAL communication. Aka saying “I’m sad because—” rather than screaming incoherently. It teaches them to communicate with people by verbalizing their emotions rather than acting them out in forms of stereotypic behavior (tantrums, self injurious behavior, elopement, etc).

And for your source about the JRC. Those places are terrible. THOSE places are shit. They HAVE tortured people with disabilities. But there are companies and organizations that have paired together with places like the JRC that you SHOULD avoid.

The link to the people who have experienced ABA therapy MOST LIKELY experienced it from those places similar to JRC.

I have NEVER restrained a child. I am NOT allowed to restrain a child (with the exception of emergency situations like a child is about to run into a street or something). I do NOT teach my kids to hate themselves. I do NOT believe in negative reinforcers. I have NOT ONCE hit, yelled at, verbally abused, physically abused, emotionally abused or even electrocuted any of my kids.

I have to shadow one of my clients at his school and his teachers are completely rude and treat him like a literal piece of shit. But you know what happens when they’re rude to MY client?? I call them the fuck out for it. I tell them that they wouldn’t say rude shit like that to their other kids, so why this one? I make SURE that people treat my kids LKE REAL PEOPLE. And if ANYONE dares to even think about disrespecting any of my clients they will definitely be hearing it from me.

I love EVERY SINGLE one of my clients like they are my own children. I would literally risk my life to save theirs if the situation ever occurred. I can’t believe that this post is going around spreading information like this. It literally hurts me to believe that people think I ELECTROCUTE my kiddos.

Yes there are really REALLY shitty places that do evil things to people with disabilities.

But there are places that take care of them and love them as well.

OP, I am not trying to speak for you. I believe that your voice SHOULD be heard. But please be specific and do no generalize the therapy as a whole. Call out places like the JRC, but do not blame it on ABA. Speak about your experiences and WHICH SPECIFIC places other autistic effected families should avoid. But also, please do some research and spread information about places that are beneficial to kids with autism.

ABA is not bad. The way certain places use it are.

All right, here we go again. Warning: Shit’s gonna get real and pretty dark here. TW for abuse and rape.

First: “much of this information is highly inaccurate.” Citation sorely fucking needed. I sourced all of my shit in depth; exactly which of these sources are you claiming is lying, and on what points?

Second: Either you live in a blessed land of fairies and unicorns, or you’re making shit up. It is the extremely painful experience of literally thousands of auties - no small number of which have spoken about it at length - that people are only willing to listen to us when we speak in ways that they are comfortable with, expressing thoughts and feelings that they are comfortable with. This all too often includes our parents. Hell, “Autism Parent” is a fucking meme in autistic culture.

The fact that you don’t know this speaks volumes about your willingness to actually listen to us.

Third: I’m a little less concerned with what any individual parent - hell, what any individual therapist - might think than I am with the foundation and structures of the practice. And guess what? That foundation is in a view that we are not people. (Did you even click the links?) It is built on abusing children into feigning normalcy. The seed of modern ABA practice was literally the same doctor bringing the same mindset to the “problems” of “making auties into Real People” and “making gay and bi boys and trans girls into Real Men.”

It has, as its explicit stated goal, the elimination of behaviours deemed “unsightly.” Do I need to quote the fucking defining papers? You say “verbalizing rather than stereotypic behaviour,” and we hear “force you to communicate in our language, no matter how difficult that is for you, instead of taking the time to learn yours.” We hear “prevent us from stimming, no matter how important that is to us as a regulatory tool.” We hear “Quiet hands.” You want to know why places like the JRC happen and keep happening? Why this is a huge, widespread fucking problem? It is because one of the core tenets of ABA is that you do not and will not listen to us unless we communicate in the ways you deem fit. And that doesn’t just mean “use your words,” it very often means “tell us what we want to hear.”

You do not know whether you are teaching your kids to hate themselves. You do not and cannot know that, because what ABA teaches us is how to recognize and present the expected signs regardless of what is happening in our heads. What it teaches us is how to mask and cover like abuse victims. And you should take a really fucking good look at why that might be.

You say “There are ABA centers that love their patients and take care of them.” You say “I love every single client like they are my own children.”

I hear my mother, desperately trying to make sure I would grow up happy in a world full of cruel people, telling me not to fidget, glancing around to see if people are giving us That Look again. I hear “something is wrong with your body language; hide it Or Else.”

I hear my mother, my loving mother who is trying to take care of me, telling me that I need to stop talking about my special interests because I’m boring people. I hear “Nobody cares what you have to say.”

I hear my mother, trying to keep me from having problems, telling me it can’t possibly be that bright and I need to take my sunglasses off or people will make fun of me. I hear “Your pain is less important than keeping up appearances, and literally anyone and everyone will punish you if you don’t comply.”

I hear my mother, my sweet loving mother who wants what’s best for her child, going about her business as though everything is perfectly normal while I’m dying inside, because I no longer have any way to tell her what a hellscape my head has become. My ways of conveying this are Unacceptable and Lashing Out, not Communication, and I might have been taught the words for “I’m sad,” but not for “Everything is Too Much” or “nothing makes me happy any more” or “I hate myself and I don’t want to.” Eventually, she will see the scars left by what coping methods I have. She will put me into well-intentioned but misguided psychiatric care. They will listen to what their forms tell them over what I am saying - because I still don’t have the words - and medicate me into a suicide attempt. This will result in traumatic institutionalization, and I will restructure my entire life and personality around the core tenet of “never let anyone see the pain or they will hurt you worse.” I now have people who will provide what comfort I need when I need it on my terms - but they still have to learn to read from the tiny cracks in my many, many masks, because over 90% of the time I still cannot bring myself to say “I need help.”

I hear my mother, speaking over me countless times without noticing, teaching me that she (as the Authority Figure) always knows best even when it makes no sense to me. I hear “You just don’t know any better; what the authority figure says is correct.” Later, when authority figures blame me for basically being weird enough to get beaten, I learn that violence is an acceptable response to failure to conform and comply. When my rapist tells me that a vague unspecified They will hurt him if I don’t do what he says (even though it feels Wrong and Bad), I believe him, because this is the world I have come to know.

I hear my mother today, so many years later, responding to any attempt to explain any of this by crying and telling me what a horrible parent she was, and lamenting how she could have done things differently If She’d Only Known. But she never listened.

I hear myself consoling her, reassuring her that what she did to me wasn’t so bad, that she acted out of love using he tools and information she had. Because by now I have well and truly learned that my pain will never matter as much as anybody else’s.

That is what I hear when you claim to love your clients as your own children. And while the details of my story might be unique, the general arc of it is not. That is what thousands of us are hearing. We are hearing all the people who claimed to love us over the years, bending and sawing and chipping and breaking us so we fit into an Acceptable Mold.

And when you tell me that it is our fucking job to find ABA centers that are somehow - despite the entire thrust of ABA - not doing this, and spread the word about them instead of about the countless places that have done this to us?

Well, that’s an outright demand for “Hey, it’s not so bad. You’re doing the best you can with the tools you have.” It is yet another in the endless series of demands faced by autistic people - say what I want, not what matters to you. It is an outright and explicit prioritization of the appearances and reputations of allistic people over the ongoing pain of autistic people. It is the latest chapter in the story I just told.

It is not our job to reform ABA. It is yours. Autistic people are not the ones responsible for how allistic people treat us. My voice is my own, and I will speak the truths I want to speak - not the kind, soothing lies that absolve you of all responsibility to do better.

I know this is going to make me sound heartless, but I do revel in the fact that the nasty, cisphobic trans people are often those who are totally paranoid to the point where they feel completely unsafe in the world. It cracks me up to think of you toxic pieces of shit suffering in an eternal hell caused by forces that you have little to no control over. It’s hilarious how many more people would want to fight for you if you weren’t so unpleasant.

At the same time, I would never wish it on you. If I did have some control, I’d have things change for you. Sure, I wouldn’t give you everything that you want— because that would be totally unreasonable. What I would give you is the equal rights you desire and I’d strip from you that crippling fear that burdens your life.

Violence is something I wouldn’t wish upon anyone who wasn’t a mortal enemy. I just think it’s fucked up how you’ve let it corrupt you. Because of this, I have no real choice but to laugh. Because you were bullied, you became a bully yourself. You’re dead inside.

To the trans people who are good, respectful people:
I salute you. We may have very little to nothing in common, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that we have a general respect for each other and wish to co-exist in this cold, uncaring world.

I wish you all the luck in the world.

Mitch, the reason this makes you sound heartless is because it is heartless. Based on what I’m seeing here, you’re a pretty horrible person: You’re wishing horrendous suffering on people who say mean things. People who say mean things in reaction to vast amounts of systemic abuse, which you’re contributing to here.

You’re drawing an equivalence between you being insulted, and horrifying levels of violence, murder, and denial of basic medical care, among other things

I am not drawing an equivalence at all, that was never my intention. Also, I fail to see how I am contributing to systematic abuse in any way. Feel free to explain yourself.

The only reason I’m responding to you is because you actually reached out and made an effort, even if I think you essentially missed the entire point of everything I said.

you actually said “Because you were bullied, you became a bully yourself.” That’s painting a very false equivalence between silencing, employment and housing discrimination, violence, and murder on one hand, and mean words on the other. It’s pretending that trans people could ever “bully” cis people the way cis people have “bullied” trans people.

Whether or not that was your intent, that is what you did.

You’re contributing to systemic abuse by trying to silence us - by insisting that we’re only worthy of any sort of consideration as human beings if our response to the abuse is to smile and take it. This is directly enabling abusers, because it allows them to say “It can’t be that bad, nobody’s complaining.” Anger is not just a valid response to oppression, it’s the only one that gets things done. If you insist on taking that away from us, you empower the abusers and prevent us from ever getting any sort of justice.

Finally: I didn’t miss the point of what you said at all. It was just— a misguided, malformed argument. If you truly want to end trans people’s “hateful” response to their abuse, end the abuse. Blaming it on trans people is just counterproductive and shows us that you won’t stand with us no matter what we say. You’ll insist that we stand with you, even as you enable our abusers.

James Baldwin was right. The mainstream “LGBT” movement is, at its core, a reaction by cis white gay men who are confused and infuriated at being denied the privilege that is their birthright.