5:29pm July 24, 2014

I want a movie where…

youneedacat:

…a disabled person’s anger at their caregivers is viewed as justified, rather than displaced anger and self-pity regarding the fact that you’re disabled at all.

Yeah, I’m lookin’ at you, Passion Fish.

Which, by the way? When I complained (years and years ago) about caregiver neglect/abuse/incompetence on an autism forum where most people did not have caregivers? A “helpful” person recommended that movie to me, told me I’d like it and find it useful.

The basic story is about a paraplegic woman who keeps having problems with caregivers and firing them, until she gets one caregiver (a Magical Negro, IIRC) who “sees through” her anger and recognizes it as self-pity over being disabled, and then proceeds to get her to quit drinking and become a happier person and all this shit.

This is what I was recommended by my fellow auties when I complained of caregiver abuse and neglect and incompetence.

This is what I was recommended by my fellow auties when I complained that I was only getting two meals a week.

One autie, who had never seen me in my life, proposed the idea that I passed as neurotypical (I don’t and to my knowledge never have). And that the reason I was being neglected was that I “didn’t look like I needed help”. And that I should look at it from the perspective of a hard-working, working-class caregiver who has always had to work for everything they’ve got, who has to come into the house of someone who “doesn’t look like anything’s wrong with them” and is getting something for nothing.

I never did get an apology from this woman when she saw exactly how autistic I look.

Not that it should’ve mattered. Even if I’d passed for NT, my caregivers were literally starving me. They were not following their own job descriptions. And when they did actually cook for me? Sometimes they were so incompetent that they’d put large chunks of rock salt in my rice, or for “beans and rice” they’d give me rice with entirely uncooked, rock-hard beans. So even when I was given food, it was often inedible.

The recommendation that I watch, and gain ‘wisdom’ from, Passion Fish, under the circumstances especially, was insulting and offensive. Fortunately I didn’t actually see it until years later, or I’d have been so furious I’m not sure what I’d have done.

So I want a movie where a disabled person’s anger at their caregivers turns out to be justified because of abuse or neglect or something along those lines. Not one where it’s just displaced anger that is “really” just anger because they’re disabled, or something along those lines. (Because you know that when disabled people get mad, it’s really because being disabled makes us angry and bitter and self-pitying, and what we really need is a good kick in the ass from an abled person to help us see what we are doing in a new light.)

Also just the fact that I was on a mailing list for autistic adults where I was the only regular poster who had caregivers, said a lot. As did the fact that people who’d never been in the situation felt perfectly justified lecturing me about it, based partially on really bad movies they’d seen about disability. I did try to tell them “I heard that movie was full of really bad disability stereotypes,” only to be told something like “stereotypes have to come from somewhere, it’s a good movie, you’ll really relate to the main character”.

Yeah I’ll relate to the main character who is painted as too picky about her caregivers and too angry at them for no reason, while I’m starving, and being fed literally inedible food, when I get fed at all. And I’m supposed to “understand” how these “hardworking” caregivers see me, which this person is only guessing (badly) at anyway. (From what I could tell from actual conversation with caregivers, most of them assumed I had serious brain damage, if they weren’t told my disability. So, no, they weren’t thinking I was nondisabled.)

So. Again. Movie where at least some caregivers are abusive, neglectful, incompetent, or some combination of the three. Because that’s not rare, but is rarely portrayed. And where the disabled person or people get angry about this. And where the disabled person’s anger is portrayed as justified. And not as displaced anger at their own disability. Maybe their anger even makes them do something like file a successful APS complaint or something. This would be wonderful.

Also knowing more autistic adults with (formal or informal) caregivers would be wonderful. I know there’s at least more of us here than there were among the active members of that list all those years ago. If there had been people with a lot of paid caregivers coming in and out a lot, there would’ve been someone who related to what was going on with me, because you can’t have more than a certain number of paid caregivers without running into some who are either neglectful, abusive, or incompetent. Sometimes all three at once. I’ve got a really good set of caregivers right now — utterly wonderful people — but I never take that for granted.

Oh, don’t you know the “abuse” is just your caregiver being stressed out over the burden they have sworn to do and it would be nice if you cut them some slack and stopped being so damn difficult.

(The above was complete and bitter sarcasm.)

Yeah, I was such a stressful person to be around, given that I was either hiding in the front yard or hiding under blankets for most of the first year I had paid caregivers, and therefore barely interacted with them at all unless they were doing something that directly involved me. :-P

But yeah. I actually posted a long blog entry about caregiver abuse one year for Blogging Against Disablism Day. And got a lengthy reply about how much caregivers get “abused” by clients and we should understand when they snap and abuse us instead, and that maybe if I was just a little more grateful and thanked people more often (this person didn’t even know me) I wouldn’t get abused.

I actually had a very good relationship with my caregivers at the time so that was particularly puzzling. (In general, the past few years I’ve had excellent caregivers and an excellent relationship with them. The only exceptions have been temporary people who didn’t last long, or caregivers at places other than where I live normally.)

Notes: