1:07pm July 23, 2013

➸ Social skills for autonomous people: "I would never abuse anyone!"

This kind of conversation is a major red flag:

Bob: I’m going to go to the mall.Stan: Don’t go to the mall. I want you to stay home.Bob: Um, why not? I need new trousers.Stan: Why are you taking that tone?! Are you saying I’m abusive? You wouldn’t be upset if I wasn’t abusive, so you must…

Very agreed.

In this institutional rec program I was in…

They jumped on me for even hinting that I could be triggered by what they were doing because of a past in institutions. And that was me trying to give them every benefit of the doubt, mind you, because they had so much power I couldn’t speak openly.

But they actually took even the slightest suggestion that they had a little bit of power, or that I was triggered, as an accusation of being evil incarnate.

And then they turned in me and told me I saw the worst in everyone and stuff and saw things that weren’t there.

Another time someone else’s staff took a swing at me when I told her that withholding food from a disabled person in anger was an abuse of power. Then she told the agency that I was a paranoid idiot who called her a power monger who loved hurting disabled people for fun. And even though she swung at me and screamed insults at me in front of a witness, they treated it as a personality conflict.

(The screaming insults started when we told her to please get away from a section of the house, and she wouldn’t, so I physically got in the way so she couldn’t go there, and she fucking exploded with rage and threatened to withhold dinner if we wouldn’t let her in that part of SOMEONE ELSE’S HOUSE. Which we did because she was rearranging stuff without permission, in fact with anti permission. Any time you told her not to do something she’d laugh and do it anyway.)

The people at the rec program, when I tried to report actual dangerous life threatening abuse, in the form of not letting me call a doctor when I showed clear pneumonia symptoms and I have bronchiectasis, which means TREAT INSTANTLY.. .

I was treated to a litany of non sequiturs about all the wonderful things they did so they could never hurt anyone not even by accident.

Like they delivered babies, had degrees in special education, and all sorts of things that guaranteed they were Good People Who Could Never Hurt Anyone.

To add insult to injury, the “she delivers BAAAAAAABIIIIIIES” comment had an entire manner of speaking behind it that said, as clear as if it was words, “this retard will trust anyone who did THAT…” that made my blood boil. That’s how she saw DD people. That’s how she controlled us, with a horrible condescending smile. I bet she called us retards when we weren’t around, or at least thought the word.

Anyway these people both became incredibly abusive about the mere thought they could ever do wrong. Which convinced me instantly that they were truly and deeply abusive.

But what can I expect at a rec program where the ACTUAL POLICY EVERYONE WAS INSTRUCTED TO FOLLOW was to scream at an old woman every time she fell, call her names, say she was a faker, and refuse to let her sit even when others were sitting, and refuse her any physical support to prevent falling. Why? Because her abusive parents said so so it must be okay. When she was retching in the night, we got a staff person, who glanced at her, told us she was sleeping so she couldn’t be retching (she was totally covered by a blanket so this was impossible to determine), and sternly tell us to never get out of bed again or tell them anything about her being sick.

I know she will die of an undetected medical ailment. She’s in tremendous obvious pain and they treat her like she fakes things. They don’t even notice the pain or the obvious illness.

Anyone who condones that can’t possibly be anything but severely abusive. Which explains why I literally wasn’t allowed to contact a doctor or my power of attorney, when I belonged in the ER. I left with THREE infections and a terror of not being allowed to contact the outside world.

Anyway. Absolutely these are warning signs. So is demanding trust instantly and accusing people of having character defects if they don’t instantly trust you. And I mean trusted with power. Not trusted in the ordinary ways it’s customary and polite to trust people who haven’t done anything wrong.

Notes: