Be Truthful In Your Dealings With Autists

Older entry 4/07

My memories are mostly bad as a child. All the time, life was a fight. I was subject to a fix-it mentality which translated to you are bad to me. It caused me to view life as a fight where everyone was my enemy. I fought others. I fought myself. I fought to fight. Anger and anxiety formed my identity .... To not be their puppet, to not be a person in trouble because of who they were, to not be because of what others taught.

I honestly thought treatment was meant to torture me. Lots of anger it created. All my energy went to visiting my home place. In your terms I was disassociating. I would call it meditation to the point of exclusion of the physical world. As a young child I could do that. I realize that is a bad thing from your perspective, but it was not bad to me. In my world I had form. When you block out all of your senses you are left with just yourself, the purest sense of being.

Medication blocked my ability to disassociate. After the accident I started taking Tegretol for seizures, then they gave me Zarontin. I hated, truly hated for that entire year after. Everyone was my enemy. Without the escape all my senses were in constant overload; like sitting perpetually in loud noise. I would fight at school, kicking and flailing, even while they pinned me down. It felt good and bad all at once; good in the physical release of the pressure, bad in having others see it. To hear their thoughts hurt. Even now it hurts to think on it. All the while they are thinking angry thoughts while telling me they were trying to help me. I know in my head I can not blame them. It was hard for them to be kicked. But, emotionally it still hurts. I stopped wanting to read people after that - with exception of Mom. She is the only one I am not afraid to read. She is honest in her feelings even when they are unfair. She says “I am mad at you, but I will help you anyway”. That I can understand. It is the deception I hate, the appearance of kindness when you are not thinking kind thoughts at all. Telling this is with a point. Be truthful in your dealings with Autists. If the autist is a literal learner, it will tell him directly what he might otherwise miss. If the autist is a thought reader, it will cause a trust to develop. As to all others it is only fair.