Thought of the day: Autism

If you’re the parent / guardian of an Autistic person, and if you truly care about them, you do not inflict the horrors of ABA (“Appled Behavioural Analysis”) on them.

ABA, is the bastard child of gay conversion therapy, and was created by the same despicable individual. It causes untold and permanent psychological damage. Its long term aftermath includes chronic depression, anxiety, life-destroying levels of built-in people-pleasing, and a significant increase in suicide risk.

97% (!) of adult autistic ABA survivors surveyed want this barbaric practice ended. It is at best well-meaning but harmful incompetence. At its worst, it is psychological (and in some reported cases, physical) child abuse. It is legal only because autistic people are valued so much less than the appearance of “normality” in our society.

Autism, like ADHD, for example, is a neurodevelopmental condition. It is a result of the way our brain develops, before we even leave the womb. Thinking of it as an illness or something to be “cured” is a tacit acknowledgment that you want to change us for your own convenience. This is who we are. Don’t try to change us, don’t accept the message of anti-Autistic hate groups like “Autism Speaks” that we need to be stamped out.

If you want to help us, campaign for access for us, for accommodations for us. Campaign for workplace protections for us.

Know that “light it up blue” and other such nonsense does nothing for us.

We don’t need empty awareness campaigns that make non-Autistic people feel better about themselves.

We need positive action.