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11:35am June 20, 2012

➸ Just a blog.: (tw ableism, dehumanization, denial of treatment) People with Down Syndrome Can Be Jerks, Too

disabledtalk:

(tw ableism, dehumanization, denial of treatment)

People with Down Syndrome Can Be Jerks, Too

My Aunt Sandra has Down Syndrome, and she can sometimes be kind of a jerk. That’s a legitimate thing to say, I think. There is little that makes me more uncomfortable than when…

Very important thing to say. Sometimes it felt like it went too far the other way though. Like I have an autistic brother and I really see him as just a person. Like the real thing. And because it’s the real thing, there isn’t this edge of resentment I sometimes see seeping into the article and comments. And certainly none of this “This is what it’s REALLY like to have a disabled family member” shit.

Because what it’s really like… I’m starting to wonder if there’s anyone else in the world who experiences that like I do. Where there’s no sense of putting them on a pedestal, but nor is there that weird sense of built-up resentment, the blaming bad things on their disability, the overcompensation in the opposite direction, the real way it is… I don’t know how to describe it.

In fact I’m reluctant to describe my relationship with my brother because other people would slot it into the idea of innocence or that weird resentment thing that often goes along with the “they’re not really angels” thing.

Like my brother molested me. (14 year age difference is relevant here.) People have told me that since he’s autistic he must not have been able to understand what he was doing. Or that it proves you can’t leave Those People at home or they’ll molest their sisters. Or see, that’s the real hidden story of life with a disabled sibling, that too few people are willing to be honest about.

No. No. No. It had nothing to do with autism. Nothing to do with the above tangle of ideas and agendas people have about disability. He did it because he was an asshole at the time. And sometimes I feel like I’m the only person able to see him as having been an asshole rather than tangling it up with disability prejudice.