10:50am June 3, 2014

The thing that disturbs me about both FC and RPM.

youneedacat:

And I want to start out saying that I support the use of both FC and RPM and related methods, when done right, because when done right, they can help people communicate who would not have learned to type, or handwrite, in any other way.

But.

The thing that disturbs me about both is that the communicator feels the need to lavish praise on their facilitators and trainers. Like over-the-top praise. Of the kind that strikes me more as fear. ”Please don’t go away, please don’t make me go back to not being able to communicate, please don’t make me go back to that life.”

And with that fear comes the fact that their lives are not in their control. People whose lives are in their control are not in that kind of fear.

And the praise doesn’t look like fear to most people. But as someone who’s experienced that kind of fear, it looks horrifying.

To most people, it looks like “It’s amazing how gracious they are with their gratitude, it must really be that they have a higher spiritual awareness than normal people, or even than autistic people who can speak.”

It makes me want to scream.

Because that’s not what it is.

It’s not spiritual.

It’s terror.

It’s unreasoning terror.

And it has no place in a healthy relationship.

But they’re encouraged to pin their entire survival on the people who helped them communicate. They’re encouraged to see it that way. And nobody seems to see through all this.

(Full disclosure: Sometimes I need kinds of support that have been described by some as similar to FC. Not usually, not all the time. But when I need it, I need it. That’s why I know it isn’t just horseshit. But it’s also why I know a lot of the pitfalls up close and personal.)

Yes, this, exactly.

And I can see the terror there *even when they aren’t explicitly talking about gratitude*. There’s this pattern. Do you know the one I mean? There’s an aesthetic of profoundness that there’s obvious pressure to conform to.

I don’t mean that I find it suspicious that people say deep or wise things, of course they do, everyone has wisdom. But there’s a performance thing, about needing to Say Wise Words or something?

And just… I don’t see a lot of people reporting that their kid said something like:

I hate you and this is stupid

You’re not my real mommy

I don’t like Soma

Can we go to the mall now?

I want a new truck

Play with dolls now

Turn off the lights

I’m bored

Probably Australia

Yes, I absolutely see it.

It also has a really scary, disturbing underbelly that I’ve run into as a self-advocate before.

Many people believe that nonverbal autistic people, and even more so, nonverbal FC users, are telepathic and spiritually enlightened (and to them, telepathy and spirituality are identical). They expect such people to behave in certain specific ways. They expect them to utter profundities at every turn. And they expect them to never show a negative emotion, ever.

I’ve gotten questioned as to my legitimacy as a nonspeaking autistic person entirely because I get angry, entirely because I criticize things that people do, entirely because I speak up when things are wrong, entirely because I am not perfect and don’t act perfect and don’t sound profound all the time.

I’ve also heard a lot of parents of these kids say that basically, high functioning people aren’t as connected to God (or whatever it is they’re supposed to be connected to) as their kids are. And that therefore that high-functioning self-advocates want is tainted in some way, that they don’t understand some profound things about the world, that they shouldn’t be listened to as closely as we should listen to FC users because FC users are universally wiser.

I find this really disturbing and really sinister on so many levels I can’t even describe it. It’s actually evil, if anything deserves that word. And it’s connected heavily to some of the types of people who become facilitators. Some of them have a glow around them that I can see from across a room (inside my head, not with my eyes), and they convince people that a light-colored glow is a good thing – a light-colored glow like that is usually a really bad thing, but most people don’t know that, and… it goes badly. Because having something that extends so far outside of your body, involves how much influence you can have over other people, and I see people like that wandering around FC-heavy locations all the time and it scares me.

Notes: