It feels like it’s telling of something that autism’s become more well known but if you look into ABA tags on tumblr the majority are filled with ads for ABA, and if you look for research most of it is shit like measuring caregiver satisfaction after stopping stims, and if you try to talk to someone about how shitty it is or any of its history most people don’t know what ABA even is.
Autism itself may be more well known, but expecting people to act normal and not need accommodations and just stop looking autistic is still just as prevalent as ever
Open up NPR first article praises ABA, bemoans funding cuts for it, makes no mention of its heinous origins or modern criticism. Second article says artificial wombs are ethically a "slippery slope," quotes from someone who thinks embryos are people, fears the possibility of growing of growing fetuses for donar organs (that doesn't make sense. That would be baby-size organs.) (I guess we would save babies with bad organs' lives then? Wow, that sounds pretty great! Classic would rather having a viable fetus than a living baby crowd)
What the fuck is wrong with NPR. The journalist who wrote the artificial womb one in particular is evil. It would be hard to find a MORE misogynistic angle than that garbage piece of shit article
Thoughts on ABA therapy?
Especially personal experiences I'd like to hear if anyone's comfortable
I don't actually know much about it... all I know is I went to an ABA therapy for several years and it was "fine" except for the fact I can barely remember anything from that time but I DO know (...not really remember) I would beg not to go every single day. And I also know a lot of people say it's bad. So uh
Mom says most are bad which is why it gets all the hate but not all are bad and that's why mine was "fine" But... eeeuueh idk about that anymore!! ;w;
Anyway. Yeah just asking for thoughts/experiences and stuff with ABA therapy because of uhhh the little I can remember about it
...Also unlikely but if anyone who sees this happens to have experience with/know a lot about LBC (Learning and Behavioral Center) specifically that would be really helpful
So, basically, eye contact can feel uncomfortable for an autistic due to an overreaction of the subcortical system.
This system reacts with everyone, but goes haywire for Autistics, creating the feeling of discomfort that we get.
And since it's a reaction in the brain and not a learnt reaction, we cannot become habituated to eye contact and continued and forced eye contact (such as that is done in some forms of ABA therapy) can cause anxiety.
Individuals with autism spectrum disorder often find it difficult to look others in the eyes as they find eye contact uncomfortable or stres
Annoying Head Twitch [cw/tw: rant, discussion of anti-autistic ableism, ABA, and psychological abuse, broken foot]
[cw/tw: rant, discussion of anti-autistic ableism, ABA, and psychological abuse, broken foot]
I don't know if anyone's gonna see this, but if any of you here do, it's great to have you here.
I hope you don't mind me ranting here on something that's been really bothering me recently, but I've been having this thing for a while where my head twitches uncontrollably on occasion whenever I'm distressed, which is very often due to having my psychologically abusive parents constantly trigger my autistic burnout. It's completely involuntary and it causes me a great amount of pain whenever it happens.
The uncontrollable nature of this is the worst part about it because it can happen anywhere at any time and there seems to be absolutely nothing I can do about it. It even happened in the Modern Dance class that I have this semester, and not only does this hurts me, it's really embarrassing when it happens and I'm always afraid that it, along with my already-existing shakey hand stims (which I don't have a problem with at all and don't want to have to hide if I don't have to) that came out of me since my recent college-era efforts to unmask my autistic traits, may possibly detriment my grade, but maybe I'm reaching here, though I have my doubts as my college has given me a hard time about my Autism before (I'm not comfortable disclosing specific events or details at the moment, so please do not ask about that).
The thing with my hands hasn't really been much of a problem at all so far as everyone on-campus seems to be fine with it and pretty understanding.
It's just that my distressed uncontrollable head twitches, which I remember had developed within the last year (2022) at around Fall, after my recovery from my now formerly-broken foot (I had broken it by accident at home on March 16, 2022 when I slipped down the stairs like an absolute imbecile), have become a really big problem for me and, if possible, I would really like some advice on how I can make this head twitching stop because it's really bothering me and I know that the more I force it to stop, the more it will happen.
Do not interact with this post in any way if you are only here to try to pressure me into ABA again. It is an abusive practice that has been confirmed to increase likeliness for suicidality and post-traumatic distress within autistic individuals. (Cassidy et al., 2018) (Kupferstein, 2018)
Cited Sources:
Cassidy, S., Bradley, L., Shaw, R., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2018, July 31). Risk markers for suicidality in autistic adults. Molecular autism. Retrieved January 31, 2023, from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30083306/
Kupferstein, H. (2018, January 2). Evidence of increased PTSD symptoms in autistics exposed to applied behavior analysis. Advances in Autism. Retrieved January 31, 2023, from https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/AIA-08-2017-0016/full/html
I am autistic but have severe trauma due to masking (I’m an ABA victim) and so unmasking has been difficult. Lately I’ve been more open and learning that I don’t need to respond to something if I don’t know how to respond to it. A lot of times it’s “I apologize your words affect me deeply I just don’t know how to respond to that :(“ and I genuinely feel terrible that I can’t find my words or find the way to appropriately connect my feelings to a response. Before this I used to be like “I’m appreciative of that, thanks.” Or “I don’t really like that…” but things have become more complicated and now I don’t want to use the default template response because it doesn’t actually connect to how I really feel. Is there some term for this? What is it? I don’t think it’s nonverbal or nonspeaking I mean I can talk and such, I just don’t know what to completely say to people or what genuinely feels ok to say that is satisfying to how I feel internally. A piece of me feels a little restricted with only learning one language (english) and I feel that other languages out there have better ways to articulate and connect how one internally feels.
I tried to reword your ask and if I understand you correctly, what you're basically saying is
"I used scripts all the time, and now that I'm not scripting anymore I realised that I don't know how to express myself and my feelings"
did I get that right?
If so, I think it's very common to struggle with that in the process of unmasking. Once the reliable scripts are gone, you have to figure everything out yourself, and of course that's confusing and frustrating. But I don't think there's a special term for that.
I'd like to hand this ask over to autistics with similar experiences, no matter if you're a follower or not, feel free to comment whatever comes to mind! ☝🏼
“@erikaheidewald @cstross Just look at this deviant autistic behaviour that must be stamped out at all costs... 😐https://t.co/Y3QuRRLuJ3”
Behold, the big problem with Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) "Therapy": So. Much. Time. spent on training kids away from perfectly innocuous behavior towards...not even common neurotypical behavior, from what I've seen both in real life and on the Internet instead of I don't know, actual social/life skills like asking for help, knowing when to ask for help, coping with stress(ful) situations, being a genuinely polite conversationalist/co-player, knowing their limits when it comes to what pushes them into overwhelm/meltdown mode, communicating those limits and dealing with them when they pose a possible issue, and not being a danger towards others.
A few years ago I had an idea for a Silent Hill game that I'm still pretty proud of. Obviously it was never going to get made, and frankly Current Events make it significantly less interesting than I thought it was at the time. But I feel like sharing it.
For the purposes of this idea I treated only the Team Silent games, i.e. SH 1-4, as canon.
Content Warnings: Disease outbreak, delusion, parental abuse, abuse of an autistic child in an attempt to suppress autistic behaviors, medical, antivax, quackery, cults both fantastic and realistic, recreational drugs.
Silent Hill: Pyrexia
Premise
After the journalistic exposes about the Order in SH4, and expanding upon the existence of the occultist fanboy in that game and the Silent Hill Historical Society in SH2, I decided that the community leaders of Silent Hill - which had after all always been a tourist town - had decided to pull a Salem and leverage its occult reputation as a tourist attraction. The result is a historical reenactment district called Old Silent Hill, and an annual summer festival called Silent Hill Days.
I had a great idea for a shot in the intro cutscene where Pyramid Head would be surrounded by awestruck children, raise his greatknife and - chop open a watermelon. Because it's not a supernatural manifestation of guilt, it's a summer employee dressed in a traditional SH executioner's costume as a gimmick, serving watermelon to tourists for $2/slice.
Every evening of the week-long festival, the performers put on a fake witch burning to cap off the day's festivities.
Obviously the Order has its paws all over this festival. All the sects are at least reluctantly going along with it, because the town desperately needs a shot in the arm.
Anyway. It's the ballsack of summer, Silent Hill Days is in full swing, and two of the tourists are an antivax "Autism Mom" and her unvaccinated, autistic child. Who happens to have a bit of that childhood psychic power that the town loves to amplify, and who happens to catch the measles, and who happens to start feeling delirious with fever during the mock witch burning.
The player character is an unrelated tourist who awakens to find themself trapped in a version of the town based on this kid's fever dreams.
Monsters and Themes
Horror & monster themes in the kid's levels include:
Fire, people being burned alive. This kid is burning up with fever and associates that fact with the mock witch burning they watched the night the fever hit.
Stimming and the methods used to forcibly repress it. Sensory organs covered, limbs restrained, rhythmic motions that the monster grabs itself to stop. The kid has been put through abuse to try to stop his autistic behaviors, and so the abuse and the idea that he deserves it for stimming loom large in his nightmare.
Medical. On top of being a Silent Hill staple, the combination of attempted medical and behavioral interventions for his autism, and the fears he's learned from his antivax mom. For example, one of the common antivax boogeymen from before covid, when the focus of the antivax movement was those vaccines given as part of regular early childhood care, is the "ninja nurse" who stealthily vaccinates their children without parental consent or knowledge. I don't know about you, but I really want to see a faceless Silent Hill nurse wearing a black ninja outfit and wielding a giant injection syringe like a spear.
The kid's special interest, to be determined. My initial thought was bugs, because they're easy to turn into creepy monsters, but that was one of Alessa's interests-turned-monsters, so it'd probably be better to branch out.
Plot
The game starts with the PC exploring the festival. It is hot and muggy and crowded and a bit hazy. There's no danger here. This is just to set up the festival and let the player see the pre-nightmare version of the town, including some things that will become monsters - most notably the witch burning.
The next morning the heat haze is everywhere. The PC can't find anyone and there are monsters in the hotel.
The PC eventually runs into Autism Mom, who is trying to find an alternate way into the hospital where her extremely sick child is being kept by their "kidnappers." (These are just normal doctors trying to save their life, who won't let her in to see them because she's been trying to interfere with their treatment and wreck the equipment. But our character doesn't know that.) She enlists the player to go into the hospital and "rescue" her child.
When we find the Kid they look bad, covered in a rash, staring glassy-eyed and lips mouthing words we can't make out. The PC yells at the staff about how they can't just take this kid away from their mother and treat them without consent. The doctor starts to explain that the mom is interfering with treatment, and the lives of everyone in the town depend on getting the Kid coherent again because there's more than just a measles outbreak at stake here - but the Kid in their non-lucid state starts the sirens up and off we go to the other world.
This is as far as I'd finalized the PC's experience. Obviously the course of the game would follow the PC working through the kid's increasingly disoriented/delusional nightmares. The goal is to try to get to the kid, calm them down, and get them the treatment they need.
Through the power of the town, the nightmare and the disease begin to influence each other to create a Nightmare Plague (working name). Everyone who gets this strain of the measles begins to have their fever dreams affect the areas around themselves as well. Because the nightmare plague is ultimately one of the Kid's nightmares, they should be able to disperse it if they become lucid enough to do so - but it's unclear if it will disperse if the Kid dies. Silent Hill manifestations are brought to life from the minds of the disturbed and do physically exist in the real world, so a manifestation largely defined by its communicability has a very real chance of keeping itself going indefinitely. If the Nightmare Plague escapes inside tourists, it might spread its hosts' nightmares to places where the town would normally have no power.
The final boss would probably be the Autism Mom. Sorry Karen, you fought autism and autism won.
I had a few subplots I wanted to tie in. Here's the ones I remember:
The Order
Because this development was unexpected, the cult haven't properly prepared to take advantage of it. The Order had only grudgingly united before this emergency in the name of revitalizing the town and refilling its coffers, and this unplanned expression of the town's power has got them fracturing all over again. The two main camps are the Planners (working name) and the Opportunists (working name).
The head of the Planners is the guy who plays the head witch hunter in the mock witch burnings. We're alternately allied with him because he just wants the town to go back to normal for now, and working against him because he thinks the simplest solution is to just kill the Kid.
The head of the Opportunists never really approved of monetizing their faith and history, and would have preferred getting to work on another attempt at a god. They think the town going Spooky Mode in the peak of tourist season is god's way of saying that the monetization plan is unfavored and they have the go-ahead for trying to summon a god. These cultists are going around trying to purify the Order (Read: kill the Planners) and get an impromptu god-birth going before the town goes back to normal.
A Wellness Cult
A "spiritual, not religious" "meditation group" booked the campground on the far side of Toluca Lake for their annual retreat to coincide with the Silent Hill Days festival. I'm not sure if the Autism Mom was associated with them, but she definitely planned on attending a workshop or two.
By coming into town but not staying in town, and because of their opposition to "allopathic" medicine and preference for their cult leader's "holistic" approach, the meditation group becomes a reservoir for disease.
And did I mention that the White Claudia is in bloom?
The parts of the nightmare influenced by the wellness cult would include grotesque body horror up to and including a black salve monster; themes of deception, puppetry and control; and themes of sexual abuse. Because good people who have no intention of taking advantage of their followers don't, generally, become cult leaders.
Their otherworld would make a good contrast from the more industrial style that's traditional for the otherworld of the town proper. It's a festering jungle-swamp, dripping with rot and blooming with cancerous growths.
