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12:06pm September 18, 2014

realsocialskills:

Content warning: talks about abuse of people with disabilities in schools and other programs, and ways people rationalize it.
Anonymous said:
Thing about “last resort”- people will often make brutal things to do look connected to things they are not connected to. “You pinned him to the floor?” “Well, he throws chairs at people!” failing to mention that the pinning to the floor was actually because he threw a pencil. Even if it is factually true that the kid sometimes throws chairs at people.
realsocialskills said: 
 
Yes, absolutely.
 
Another thing that can happen is that someone will be described as “he throws chairs at people!” even if he did that one time five years ago.
 
Or if another teacher *told* them that he threw chairs at people, and they don’t ask for details. And maybe what actually happened is that he picked up a chair one time, and they decided that meant he was going to throw it. Or he habitually throws chairs, but never actually at people.

I just want to register how much I hate the “He throws chairs at people!” thing.  No matter where it happens, or why.

I’ve gotten penalized for things I either didn’t do, or did once, that somehow made it into people’s minds as a habitual thing because of how someone decided to describe it.

So like…

It’s the equivalent of, I picked up a chair and was trying to move it across the room so I could sit in it.  Someone knocked it out of my hand, started screaming at me about “throwing chairs”, and gathered a crowd to tell them all how I “was about to throw a chair at them”.  Four months later, “everyone knows” that I habitually (and yes, it becomes seen as a habitual behavior) “throw chairs at people”.  And I’ve become known as a “dangerous habitual chair-thrower”. All because I was moving a chair across the room and someone decided to flip out at me for it in front of a crowd.  Once.

That scenario has happened to me multiple times with multiple types of accusations and it really, really fucking pisses me off.

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    As a nearly nonverbal child, my parents found a special education day program for me. In my parents’ case, their...
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  21. autistic-mom reblogged this from clatterbane and added:
    I don’t think my childhood was BS because I do remember it, childhood and youth, but I definitely agree with all this. I...
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    When I got thrown in the hospital at 13, some of the notes the guidance counselor added to my educational file were so...