6:05pm September 6, 2013

There was a time when I could easily admit to having once been violent.

Now that I haven’t taken a swing at someone in nine years, I feel weird and dirty and ashamed to even admit to it. And scared that people will see me as once a violent client, always a violent client, and treat me accordingly. .

(It’s happened. I once got threatened with residential placement entirely because of a PAST HISTORY of violence. Used as an excuse for retaliation against me for something I did that was not even close to wrong or dangerous.)

But. Um. I was. And not just a little.

And yes I knew that I was violent. I couldn’t control it for a long time, but the fact that I couldn’t control it did not make me unable to understand it. Don’t ever assume that just because a DD person is violent that we just “don’t know our own strength” or some shit. Knowing is not the same as having control.

And being DD and violent doesn’t mean being DD causes violence. Being DD can affect the context but aside from epileptic seizures and such, we are motivated by the exact same feelings and impulses as anyone else. I don’t know exactly why I was violent towards other people but given that (aside from the very occasional impulsive meltdown) it happened after exposure to mental institutions, which are highly violent environments, I think I must have absorbed it there.

I’m not going to give details right now. I’ve written something much longer that gives details. But I still feel too weird about giving them.

But don’t ever. Ever. Assume that just because someone can write or do other “intelligent” things then we can’t have ever been violent. Or that we are fundamentally different from DD people who can’t write and are violent.

And don’t assume that just because some DD people are violent then developmental disabilities cause violence. They can affect many things about context. But they don’t cause violence.

We are more likely to be subject to violence than to be violent. But being more subject to violence makes some of us react with violence. Just as others would. And being treated as if we are incapable of comprehending or being responsible for our actions doesn’t help either. And when we are violent, the situations that provoke it can be different than what would provoke most people. But that doesn’t make us more violent, that makes the provocation different. Worse, not all the violence done to us is recognized as violence by others, so when we retaliate it’s seen as “out of nowhere”.

Now I’m going to go hide or something. Weirdly afraid of being seen as horrible. But still want to say this, after seeing a few other autistic people being “not like my childed” over the issue of violence. Because they can type in the Internet ask they have no idea what it’s like to be a “violent autistic person”.

And. Um. I don’t know if they know what it’s like or not. But I do. And I can type on the Internet. And I really don’t think that you have to have ever been violent in order to discuss autism issues.

And the simultaneous “poor innocent who doesn’t know their own strength” and “scary brute who doesn’t know their own strength” crap? Makes me want to barf. It’s the assumption that autistic people who engage in violence are just mindless or something, that makes people think that those of us they consider intelligent are fundamentally different and have never been violent or never seriously violent.

And please understand I feel horrible about it now. I felt horrible about it then. But it was part of my life for a decade. And it was real. And I didn’t intend it, ever, but it still happened.

Notes: