#ableist abuse

[prettyasapic]

I know the discourse on Frankenstein 2025 is stone cold by now, but can we PLEASE take a moment to talk about how Victor’s treatment of his son (I’m always for “they’re both Frankenstein since creator= father” and if any version earns that, it’s this one, but I digress) parallels how abusive abled parents treat disabled -especially neurodivergent and developmentally disabled- children?

He immediately jumps to the idea his son was a mistake and created (ie born) “wrong”,

He never tries to met him at his communication level or give him accommodations to help said communication

He keeps him restrained “for his own safety and so he’ll leave less of a mess”

His lessons are more about punishing unwanted/“bad” behavior that understanding and growth

He gets mad when he doesn’t grasp new things/concepts fast (even though he doesn’t actually explain ANYTHING)

He gives him up as a “lost cause” when his methods don’t work

He outright denies his personhood when he thinks he “isn’t intelligent”

He tries to murder him when he can’t take it anymore

He hides his existence from society and family members out of shame

He freaks out at the idea of him having a relationship and producing “more like [him]”

Like, I know “monster as a stand in for disability” isn’t a hot take (especially for Frankenstein), but it really hit me in this version!

[flowercrowncrip]

I’ve just found and been going through my old scrapbook/ art journal from when I lost the ability to walk and it was so emotional to see what was going on for me during that time.

Going through it has also helped me come to the painful realisation that I’m probably not going to be able to process coming to terms with my disability separately from the trauma caused by my abusive relationship that started only a few months after my wheelchair use became full time.

Losing the ability to walk brought me lots of new worries and insecurities about my place in the world and how people would see me. I think that’s a fairly normal response to something so big and I’m sure that if I’d had the space to process it properly, I would have been able to come to a more balanced, nuanced view of what my new understanding of my disability meant for my life.

I would have eventually understood that yes, my life is different now, ableism exists and some people will see me differently, but also I still have a huge amounts of value and life to live, and there will always be people who will see me for who I am and value spending time with me, and a whole community of disabled people who understand

Instead I got my ex, someone I loved and trusted, slowly feeding back to me all these new fears and insecurities, and making them all so much worse. They used this to isolate me from my friends, and made me believe that my disability made me so difficult to love that no one other than my ex would ever put up with me.

And I’m so angry that I don’t even get to go through a process that is so personal to me without my ex inserting themself into it just like they did with everything else. They were at the appointment when I was told I wasn’t expected to be able to walk again – I don’t even get a fundamental memory like that to myself.

[vaspider]

Prefacing this ask with a warning that I’ll be elaborating on mistreatment of mentally ill ppl in different parts of the world. I don’t go into explicit detail, but if you’re in a bad state of mind rn, proceed with caution. I don’t wanna get in on that post you just responded to, but I do gotta say it feels weird to hear about the kind of medical treatment described under that specific framing when my country still uses a term for autism that was created as a tool for the genocide of mentally ill ppl and currently has a growing movement in favor of implementing ABA. A friend of mine in america who also has adhd has had pharmacists lie to her about being out of meds, because they felt her diagnosis was probably invalid. I have had psychologists lie to me and tell me it would be illegal for them to diagnose adhd in adults.

Another friend of mine who has bpd had to go off meds cold turkey after moving because she moved out of the area of the clinic where she got diagnosed and all the waiting lists of psychiatrists are so full that they don’t even put you on them anymore, but just tell you to try again in a year.

Meanwhile in spaces where ODD is treated as an actual thing, mentally ill kids are being diagnosed with “not a submissive little angel” disorder that sets them up for abuse by any authority figure by calling every criticism or attempt at protecting their boundaries a symptom of “child psychopathy”.

Ppl with addiction problems are imprisoned all over the world because their mental health is treated as a moral deficit. People with personality disorders, or psychosis are branded as dangerous at all times and basically subhuman, with every desire for autonomy being seen as a violent tendency. Being suicidal, or having eating disorders can have people instantly revoke your legal right to freedom and have you imprisoned in many places.

You can be given medication against your will if doctors deem you unfit to decide for yourself, and there is no obligation to care about the consequences. (I have a friend from the UK who could tell you so many horror stories about the shit that happens in mental institutions there especially).

Again, ABA exists and is wildly normalized and accepted in many places.

I could go on, but I really don’t want to feel like I have to. Abuse and discrimination do not abide by clear lines in target demographics.

Yes.

[xenodelic]

our system is from ABA therapy too

The harm caused by ABA is very real. For us, it was that we were intentionally exposed to sensory overload until we no longer showed signs of distress from it. I guess they assumed that meant we were no longer bothered by it, but really we had just learned to dissociate as a coping mechanism. I am almost certain that's how the traumagenic part of our system originally formed. ABA is the entire reasons why dissociation became our primary coping mechanism.

[vaspider]

I’m confused, I know the current discourse going on but I don’t know who Aktion T4 and Rosemary Kennedy are (based off a previous ask). Is it possible to explain what happened?

Aktion T4

Rosemary Kennedy

[autistickeely]

My sister is antivax, I'm autistic and she said "I have an autistic sister, I don't want an autistic child. " it just really hurt. I'm close to her.

Tw: Abuse, Death, Ableism.

That’s such a horrible and disgusting thing for her to say. She’d be lucky to have an autistic child because we are amazing, wonderful, lovely, kind people. It’s funny to me how neurotypicals think we’re the “broken” ones and yet they’re the ones that wish autistic people were not around. By wanting to “cure us” they’re wanting to erase the people we are, effectively killing us because we’d no longer be the same people. There are a lot of broken things in this world, views like that being one of them. The only thing that needs to be fixed here is the messed up view neurotypicals have about us and their want to erase millions of autistic people just because we’re different. The only way to cure us is to kill us and there are a lot of neurotypicals that would rather us be dead than autistic. Some neurotypicals are just fucked up and that’s the truth.

[autistickeely]

Being an autistic person does not make you broken or invalid. You are perfect the way you are and you don’t need to change yourself to please neurotypicals. The people who don’t accept you are really missing out on having someone as amazing as you in their lives! ❤️

[autistickeely]

This is a genuine question because I've never heard about this situation before, but could you point me in the direction of maybe a master post or somewhere that I can read about Autism $peaks is bad? My older brother is high functioning autistic and my mother is an advocate for Special Needs, so most of my life we have been supporting A$. I'd like to show my mother this too. Thank you for making these posts, I would never have known.

I'm really sorry, I just saw the post that (high/low) functioning is incorrect!

Hiya! That’s okay, thank you for listening to autistic people and what we prefer! Autism $peaks is a hateful organisation that tries to dehumanise autistic people. They spend their money on researching “preventions” and “cures” for autism and they don’t listen to actual autistic people when we say we don’t want to be changed. The majority of autistic people are against Autism $peaks and instead we support autistic run charities such as ASAN.

This Autism $peaks information sheet explains it really well: