10:11pm September 6, 2013

On violence, and gerrymandering, and murder.

I was a very violent person for a certain period of my life. I to this day don’t know why it happened, but I am pretty sure it was a reaction to a violent environment. I’ve read that such things can happen to children exposed to violence.

Before a certain point, I was mostly only violent towards myself. After being exposed to mental institutions for a short period of time, I became extremely violent towards other people. Enough that even though I was pretty small, I put an institutional staff person in the emergency room and damaged her back.

I can’t justify any of it. I can come up with explanations. But in order to stop entirely I had to convince myself that there was no justification. Other people tell me it was understandable for a confused kid in a scary situation. Maybe it was. But it continued into adulthood, although not as extreme, and in order to stop I had to tell myself I could no longer excuse it even if it once, maybe, was somewhat excusable.

Don’t ever. Ever. Tell me that I’m fundamentally different from autistic people who behave in violent ways. You don’t know what I’ve been through so how about not guessing.

But also don’t blame my autism for the violence. Autistic people are violent for the same reasons nonautistic people are. We just have certain things that cause it to happen in different ways, or in different circumstances, but we have the same motivations as everyone else in the frigging universe.

Don’t tell me that autistic people who are violent are violent because we are, essentially, mindless brutes who don’t know what we are doing. Or, alternatively, mindless innocents who don’t know what we’re doing. You can’t tell. Can’t tell at all. From the outside. Whether someone knows what they’re doing.

I sometimes knew what I was doing and I sometimes didn’t but KNOWING wasn’t the issue. The issue was that I had no CONTROL over what I was doing. Not until I painstakingly learned it.

When I was at my most violent there were two positions. One, that I didn’t know what I was doing and was not in control of my actions, and two, that I knew what I was doing and was in control of my actions. The reality was neither: I sometimes knew what I was doing, sometimes partially knew what I was doing, sometimes didn’t know what I was doing… And rarely in control of my actions, and never fully in control. When I was aware what I was doing, I was horrified and acutely aware of the hurt I caused.

But people certainly theorized about what the reason was. Most of them thought there was something wrong with my brain that caused me to either lack impulse control, get angry for no reason at all, act angry without being angry, or otherwise be violent got no good reason. Some staff actually deliberately set off my violence to aid in their own power games - such as one of them setting me off and telling the other, “see what you made her do?” I spent a lot of time in restraints. People tried two different forms of behavior mod, one involving poker chips, and the other involving a behavior chart. I got drugged until I could barely move, and my records state, with some puzzlement, that the amount of meds necessary to help me was the same amount that caused debilitating side effects (because the debilitating side effects were what controlled my behavior). And I am sure my violence played a role in the decision of a small group of staff to simply fail to treat a med reaction that was closing my airway.

There was a time period where any time anyone touched me, I’d jump on top of them and… I don’t even know the rest because my mind turned into a blur at that point.

There was a time when I slammed my head into things for pretty much the entire time I was awake and capable of movement.

These things are not diminished by the fact that I have what you call intelligence and the ability to write or do other things you equate with being generally able to do stuff.

The fact that I can do these things does not make me absolutely and fundamentally different from someone who can’t, and who also has problems with violence.

The fact I can do these things does not make me able to do lots of other things I can’t do. Things you probably think I can do.

I didn’t learn to stop because I can write. If that were only the case, I’d have never started. I learned to stop because I was taught how by other people (who actually, happened to be autistic) who stopped much worse violence than I had ever done.
I hate having to admit to this. I hate ever having hurt anyone, even when it was people who hurt me first (which includes the woman I sent to the ER, the fact she was generally evil didn’t mean she deserved it).

I’m not even sure I should admit it. I’m afraid what people will think, although anyone who knows me well enough, knows these things already. So does anyone who’s read enough of my writing.

I never actually intended to do harm. I never sat there and decided to hurt anyone. But it happened anyway.

There were fights when I tried to run out of our house in the middle of the night and my dad tried to get in my way and I rammed my way through him. He said I would’ve made a good linebacker.

There were times when I just randomly came at people, claws out, had no idea why.

I dislocated a good friend’s finger. I still don’t know why. I don’t even remember doing it, just an adrenaline filled blur. She was nicer to me than she had to be, she just pinned me to the floor until I calmed down, then gave me a really stern lecture.

Another friend I pinned to the floor. Again I don’t remember the beginning, only that I was doing a difficult writing assignment and suddenly I was on the floor on top of her. I will never forget the look on her face.

And the time I saw an autistic boy being restrained in a movie and suddenly was doing… Something… To my mother, with my hands, not sure if hitting or scratching.

I remember that there were people who developed weird emotional ties, as if a rope was connecting us right in the gut. I attacked them more often, driven by forces I couldn’t understand or control. They might be people I liked or disliked, it didn’t matter.

I remember the hurt in too many people’s faces and voices and bodies.

Don’t tell me I’m different. I know violence too intimately to ever be different. I can’t even engage in “joking” violence, because I can’t take the risk that I would actually hurt someone. In order to stay in control I can’t make those distinctions.

I haven’t hurt anyone since I was 24. I’m 33 now. And even at 24 I was well on my way to stopping, and hadn’t hurt anyone badly in awhile. I think the last time it happened I took a swing at someone who referred to disabled people as vegetables. They were not badly hurt.

I used to not mind admitting this. It was just part of my life, even if it was one I didn’t like. Now it feels weird and dirty and shameful and I fear how people will think of me. I fear they think I’d be capable of it now.

Because when you’re developmentally disabled, once a “violent client”, always a “violent client”, and you’ll never be trusted again.

I have just read a whole series of posts attacking autistic people who say it’s wrong to murder us, because of the attempted murder of Issy. Because if they’re capable of objecting to murder they must be high functioning and would never understand what it’s like to be one of those violent autistic people (who are apparently never high functioning, except when they are). So they should shut up. I was one of those people. I will not shut up. An autistic person having a violence problem neither justifies nor explains murder. (And if being violent justifies murder, why does murder not justify something as minor as condemnation?)

We are not less than autistic people without violence problems. We are not less than nonautistic people. We are not less than anyone. And many of us can talk or write, fancy that.

But this gerrymandering technique is an old one, and doubtless finer and finer distinctions will be made until the only people allowed to talk about murder of autistic people will be those who sympathize with the murderers. Somehow it always works like that.

Every time an autistic person is murdered, every time someone tries to murder one of us, I feel it from the autistic person’s perspective. So should everyone, autistic or not, but many people’s empathy seems to only be for those like themselves. I’ve even heard people say that autistic people are against murder of autistic people because we lack empathy. That statement shows the most profound lack of empathy I can possibly imagine.

Issy, there are people out there on your side. There are people out there who have also survived attempts on our lives, by parents or other caregivers. There are people out there who haven’t, but who are absolutely rooting for you. Hang on.