10:47am January 5, 2012

Would someone say this, in this way, to someone they considered an equal?

So… I’ve been lying on my right side a lot more than usual. Because if I lie on my left side too long I get really horrible back pain. (Unfortunately I still spend too long on my left side because my movement disorder can make it hard to switch position. Even if I’m in so much pain I can literally not concentrate on a single thing, communicate, think, read, etc.)

So lying on my right side means facing the wall.

Anyway so the other day my case manager showed up for the meetings we have twice a week.

And I was lying on my right side. But I was still responding to her in all of the same ways I usually do.

But apparently that wasn’t good enough because of the next thing she said.

Like usual I noticed tone first, words later.

The tone was… hard to describe. Brisk, fast, expecting a response (almost as in expecting obedience), slightly more monotone than usual for a nonautistic person, impatient, slightly irritated.

The words were “Are you going to sit up and meet with me?”

Also keep in mind I never sit up to meet with her. I never make eye contact. The only change in position or behavior from usual was that I was facing the opposite direction.

She did not go back to normal until I told her why I was lying on that side.

(And GAAAH right now I’m on my right side and things still hurt almost as bad. This is a problem.)

Anyway I kept thinking that if I had been, say, another case manager, the way she talked to me would have been considered wrong. But I can’t pinpoint the exact thing she was doing that would make it that way. I think it was the expectation that I would and ought to automatically respond by doing what she asked. I’ve heard that tone before but only between staff/case managers, and disabled people. Never between staff among themselves.

And yet there was no way for me to say anything about it because it’s not like she’d admit to it or probably even understand what I was talking about.

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