last chapter of a very long story

Dear L,

I need to tell you something. I never completed the staff review form this summer because I was afraid that it would be obvious who I was even if I mailed it in anonymously, and that if I said what I thought, I would not be asked to return to camp. This winter, when I realized that I had not been asked to return anyway, I decided that I would probably write to you and tell you this.

I don't expect you to answer this but I do ask that you read it carefully and think about what I have to say, because I think that camp will be a safer and better place if you read it. I know you're busy with work and preparing for the summer, and that you may not get to it right away. But I have faith that you will read it. Thank you.

As you may or may not know, I was born with a disability. When I was growing up, I never went to a camp like [name of camp] and there were not many social groups for kids with my disability. When I came to camp in 2010, it was the first time that I was able to meet and get to know people with disabilities and this is one of the reasons that camp has been so important to me. Both summers, I told some other counselors that I am disabled and they were supportive, but I generally do not like to tell employers this for fear that they will assume I am not able to perform the functions of a job because of my disability.

In the first session of camp in 2011, a fellow counselor told me that he considered our young campers to be "brats who needed discipline," and that when his campers were annoying him, he wished he could hit them. He was angry with the campers for doing things like becoming upset, crying, being mad at him, or not responding to commands. I tried to defend the campers, but he said that he didn't see why I liked them so much because they were "just brats," and implied that I was bad at my job because I didn't share his views on how to discipline campers. (Through other staff, I later found out that this counselor would do things like bringing food to his cabin that the campers were not allowed to have, and eating it in front of them.)

After having this type of conversation with him a few times, I felt so scared by him that I no longer wanted to be around him. Given the attitudes he expressed toward people with disabilities, I didn't feel safe telling this other counselor that I am disabled. We had become friends during orientation, and he didn't understand that (from my perspective) we could no longer be friends. He expected that I would still want to spend time with him during breaks, but I now tried to avoid him, though I tried not to offend him or make it obvious what I was doing.

I found the situation so upsetting and awkward that I didn't know what to do. I strongly considered quitting camp and leaving immediately. It was hard to stay, but I chose to stay because I cared about my campers and because of the effects on the workload of other staff if I were to suddenly quit. When other staff would have conversations about this counselor, I would participate in them because I was so upset by the situation. I know that this wasn't a good course of action and I'm sorry for talking about another counselor when he wasn't there. It was wrong.

But, when I was able to talk to an authority figure about what happened, I felt like I was in more trouble than the person who had expressed a wish to be violent toward kids with disabilities. I had actually imagined that this counselor might be fired, but my concerns were not even acknowledged, and I did not get the impression that he was ever told his behavior was wrong. Instead, I was told that I shouldn't have "talked about him behind his back," as if it was just an issue of the two of us not getting along. (In fact, we had been friends up to that point. I didn't have a personal problem with him.) I was also told that I should have confronted him directly about why I was upset--but as a person with a disability, I don't feel safe confronting someone who acts so hateful about people with disabilities, and besides, I had already tried to talk to him about it several times.

This was a tough experience that I was really disappointed by, but I got over it and had a great time at camp. I worked hard and dealt with some challenging situations, like being a float in session three and being given responsibility of a very high-need camper in the middle of session four, when D quit. I think that I dealt with these challenges well; even when I was stressed, I never let it affect my positive relationship with my campers. I think this is the most important part of working as support staff, especially with vulnerable populations.

However, I felt like I was seen as a troublemaker after the incident in first session. Several times I was told off for supposedly doing things that I hadn't done, like smoking in camp buildings and disregarding the safety of campers. These things were not true, but the conversations about them always occurred in a public place and were very brief, so I rarely got a chance to explain. I didn't want to arrange a meeting with you to explain why I felt I was being held responsible for things that didn't happen, because it seemed like making a big deal out of nothing. But I knew that you were probably forming a bad impression of me, and I wasn't surprised to learn that I am no longer wanted at camp. I'm incredibly sad to get confirmation, but I am not surprised.

I know I am responsible for what happened because I should have addressed this while it was going on. I can't change it now. But it would mean a lot to me if you would keep my comments in mind when dealing with other staff and campers in future summers.

Thank you so much for reading all of this.

Sincerely,

Amanda

okay so this is something I wonder about all the time.

whenever I read any mainstream media article about verbal people with autism, the people with autism are so rude! well not necessarily rude, but just really really insensitive to other people's feelings or to being polite.

obviously there are people with and without autism who sometimes make me go, "you're so fucking rude/insensitive!" and I'm sure some people think the same about me, but it's never to the degree portrayed in these articles. like when I'm going to hang out with a friend and I take FOREVER to get ready and delay the whole thing. not nice. or when someone goes, "it's nice to see you, you're not the person I was most looking forward to seeing, but it is nice." (yes I know someone who said this) or even just when you make an effort to do something for someone and they don't say thank you. or when someone doesn't ask how you are doing and only talks about themselves. or interrupts all the time.

stuff happens! people are rude. maybe us more for the sake of argument, but not on the dramatic level portrayed in these newspaper/magazine articles. those articles never look like me or anyone I know and I used to always be like, damn my autism is so fake! all my friends' autism is so fake!

but sometimes I wonder if it just the point of view of the article and I'm wondering if anyone else thinks that might be true. could I make people in my life sound like that if I wanted to?

the long version

I was a very small boy when I received the bite. My parents tried everything but there is no cure.

Dumbledore said that as long as we took certain precautions, there was no reason I shouldn’t come to school. Once a month I was smuggled out of the castle, into this place, to transform. The tree was placed at the tunnel mouth to stop anyone coming across me while I was dangerous.

I was separated from humans to bite so I bit and scratched myself instead. The villagers heard the noise and the screaming and thought they were hearing particularly violent spirits.

But I sucked it up because that’s what you do, and I was happier than I’d ever been in my life, because I had three friends.

Interestingly when I got older they still didn’t trust me and thought I was a spy.

Probably because it was really cool that I wasn’t human, when they could make jokes about it and use our friendship as an excuse to do something rebellious and exciting. They used to ask me to share my painkillers and my other meds. The tranquilizers were strong because they were made for a werewolf and Sirius especially loved to get out of his mind. It was also cool when they figured out how to use me to scare someone they didn’t like who then hated me for the rest of our lives.

It was pretty cool how I was so intimidated by them, too, since I’d never had friends before and everything.

This didn’t mean that I could be trusted to protect their family. I’m a fucking werewolf, guys. Clearly I eat faces.

Awesome.

Also I know this seems self-indulgent and more suited for tumblr but a while ago I took the Meyers-Briggs personality test and I did not get one of the stereotypical autism results. (I think it's INTJ? I got ISFJ.) It might just be one of those things where you interpret the results to fit you, like with horoscopes, but the description of my type seemed to fit me really well.

I'm not sure why, but I found that really comforting. I think if you have a mental disability you get used to hearing yourself described in a way that doesn't fit you at all. Well, at least I do. It's been really cool to realize that I can identify as having autism without having to try to change my personality or values to fit a stereotype of what that is supposed to be. I feel like I've only recently come around to be able to do that.

pink-collar jobs and autism

I take it really hard when I see someone defending the ability of A/autistic people to work or more generally "contribute to society" (not an idea I'm fond of) by saying things like:

*we can hyperfocus on something and do it really well.
*we might seem rude but if we work in a geeky environment, like if we are video game programmers, this won't matter! And if we don't our coworkers can learn to understand and forgive our rudeness because we do a good job.
*we may have more needs in some areas but we have fewer needs in other areas because we don't party/spend time on Facebook/care about fashion/play sports/something else stereotypically non-autistic. (It's too bad because the blog where I read this had a good point about "special needs" not always meaning "more needs" but I thought it wasn't helpful to rely on stereotypes this way.)
*we might have special interests in science or art that lead to us being amazingly skilled in those areas./We might have "splinter skills" or "savant skills."

People with and without autism say these things and they mean well. But I don't like it, not just because I am offended by stereotypes or something, but because it is personally threatening to me.

Every job I've ever held, and probably every job I've ever even applied for or been interested in, has been a pink-collar job.

I feel a little weird using the term pink-collar because it was coined for kind of a critical use--it refers to jobs usually done by women and the reason these jobs are in their own category is because they tend to be lower-paid than traditionally masculine jobs that have the same workload and educational requirements. But pink-collar is the only term I can find that easily covers the sort of jobs I am thinking of.

Some examples of pink-collar jobs are hairdressing, nursing, teaching, and waitressing. These jobs are a bit different from the kinds of jobs people are usually thinking of when they talk about how Autistic people can succeed in the workplace, because a lot of the job is about interacting with people other than coworkers. These don't all apply for every pink-collar job, but some of the requirements for a pink-collar job might be:

*treating people courteously and being friendly
*not hurting or abusing people
*being well-suited to working with kids
*remaining polite when someone gets mad at you
*being able to put someone else's well-being ahead of your own
*doing everything you can to fulfill someone's request

It is probably apparent that none of these qualities are stereotypically Autistic. I even see comments to that effect thrown around without much thought--that people with autism aren't good at customer service, or that we don't like kids. I'm not just trying to be all, "I'm good at customer service and I like kids, your argument is invalid!" but to point out that when even "positive" descriptions of Autistic people's work imply that we can't do certain kinds of work, it makes it harder for us to get jobs, or be open about our disability if we do get those jobs.

I know I'm not a super rare exception in a world of Autistic people who want to be electrical engineers, because I know lots of Autistic people, especially women, who want to work in special education. Special ed is a really good example of a field where, if you were applying for a job, you would want to convince your potential employer that you had all the qualities on that list. Which is to say that if your employer has been fed stereotypes of what Autistic people are like and what kind of work we can do, telling them you have autism could really hurt your chances of getting the job.

I know some people who will be open about their autism when applying for a job. I would never, ever do this. Right now I am looking for a job in healthcare and it scares me a lot to know that my disability label is associated with being violent, rude, and uncaring. I really love having this blog because I always wanted to write something that people liked and got something out of, but I regularly consider deleting it because it would be so easy for anyone who googles me to find out I have autism.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that even though my disability doesn't make me better at doing pink-collar jobs, I don't think it makes me worse at them, and I would like my suitability for them to be judged by who I am as a person instead of my disability label. I feel that even when people try to talk positively about what Autistic people can do in the workplace, they often ignore the fact that some Autistic people don't want to work in an office or in a stereotypically un-social field like science. So they don't defend us against some of the stereotypes about what we can and can't do, and sometimes they even reinforce those stereotypes by implying we are best at certain kinds of work.

I'd also like to point out that while my family was able to pay for me to attend college and I was (barely) able to finish my degree, a lot of people with autism don't have the option of the white-collar jobs we're supposed to be so good at. If you spend all your breath arguing that we can be engineers or architects, that doesn't help people who don't have the money or don't have the ability to get the education to do those kinds of jobs.

(NB that this post might not be relevant to people with autism who can't work, and some of it might be relevant to people with other disabilities like mood and psychotic disorders and intellectual disabilities.)

I also think you could write an entire gender studies textbook about the dynamics of ABA.

I mean, quite a lot of the time it boils down to a bunch of young, idealistic women trying to control the bodies of little boys--and getting bizarrely affronted when the boys resist.

I am working on a post about how much I hate this (not this particular post, but the whole discussion), but I got sidetracked by thinking about a particular intersection of sexism and ableism.

I don't think I'm the only person to have witnessed this series of events:

A young woman in a staff role encounters a developmentally disabled guy who "accidentally" touches her breasts, jokes about her being a stripper, jerks off in front of her, etc.

The woman is upset. She talks to a more experienced staff person, or to her supervisor, and is politely told to get over it.

Don't be upset, it's funny. He can't hurt you.

Don't be mad at him, feel sorry for him because he doesn't know any better.

When I talk about this I don't mean to imply that men with developmental disabilities sexually harass women more than other men. I'm also not sure that people's reactions are that different when it comes down to it. The staff/disabled power dynamic is just stacked on top of the idea that men should probably get to do whatever they want, so that both people are getting a shitty consolation prize for not having power.

I mean, what you tell a woman in this situation basically boils down to, "Why not be a good sport and let him have this one thing? At least you're not disabled."