r/evilautism

she’s applying to work with children with learning disabilities and it pisses me off that she gets to say she’s the mother of an autistic child when i got diagnosed in adulthood in a different country and she wasn’t around… i get that everyone lies a little and embellishes things in order to get jobs. like yes, technically, i am her child and i am autistic. but who figured that out? who helped me apply for disability? not her at all!

i guess its worse when she’s asking me to make her resume and her cover letter. she also asked me to replace “autistic child” by “daughter with ASD” (i am nonbinary) 🫠🫠

edit: i should mention that i’m not out to her, so she’s not actively choosing to misgender me, but it’s still unpleasant to me

Seems like more NTs/normies think as long as you can function in society that you shouldn't need any help and if you do, they say you're a lazy bum basically. That's basically what a landlord said to me when me and my wife were looking for a place to rent. Told him on I'm disabled and on disability and he said "So, like what? You in a wheelchair or something? You sound normal to me? The fuck you mean a disability?". Not suprised tho because I basically get this a lot. Also used to think it was just bigoted conservatives who thought this way but turns out it's people from all walks of life whether they're conservative, liberal, leftist, young, old, whatever. Majority NTs i meet seem to think that if you don't "look disabled enough" or "look autistic enough" then you don't need assistance and if you do you're lazy. They don't see our struggles cause our struggles are invisible to them. And when I try to explain, they still don't get it. 🤷‍♂️

✨evil autism laughter✨

Well guys I did it. I officially have Evil Autism.

I work in a bakery. I’ve worked at this particular place for almost 4 years. I am a skilled baker with a solid understanding of specifically bread. Bread is something I’m very passionate about, and I was excited at the opportunity to train new people. I have trained over 10 bakers at this place without a hitch, most of them grew to become core members of the team and told me directly they found my training helpful in developing their skills.

Cut to new people arriving. One girl, around my age (20s,) seems friendly and competent but shy. Struggles with certain aspects of technique and building speed, but I try my best to help and teach her while making it clear that I’m not judging her for being new. Offer constructive feedback when needed, without nitpicking too much. She seems to be taking it well and is slowly improving.

Other new person is an old lady. They’ve put her on the most physically strenuous shift and she is struggling to keep up, even after a considerable amount of time has passed. Constantly needs people to help her or else she gets out an hour late and expects us to pick up her slack even when we’re busy. Manager tells me that cleaning the mixers is now everyone’s responsibility (it’s not) and cuts an entire line of product just so new hire can get out on time.

I’m not going to lie and say I’m not frustrated. I am. But I try my very hardest to come across as warm and friendly at work using my limited social skills. For a while in the bakery I didn’t have to worry about that, because the team we had allowed me to unmask. But now most of those people are gone, and I went from the best manager I’ve ever had at any job to one that doesn’t communicate, doesn’t take us seriously, and is prejudiced against me for being trans.

Today I got called into a meeting with both of my managers and the manager of the entire kitchen. They said they’ve received several pieces of feedback from the new hires that my tone with them has come across as frustrated, impatient, and not welcoming. Sigh.

I’m TRYING y’all. So fucking hard. I care so much about this job and come into work every day, bust my ass, give 110% because I love bread. I’ve been working at this place longer than most of the folks in the bakery (including both of my managers!) and every boss I’ve ever had here has given me stellar reviews. I’m a good employee, a good worker, and I get treated like garbage because I don’t understand how to speak in Just The Right Way so that people won’t think I’m mad at them. All the feedback and advice they gave me were things I’ve already been doing. I tell them it’s okay to make mistakes. I tell them I was new once. I ask them questions about their process and give them constructive criticism as well as lots of positive reinforcement. I try not to overload them with information, as much as I want to. I truly don’t understand what I’m doing wrong other than being Autistic. I also wish the new hires would have talked to me directly instead of going to the managers so I could have fixed my tone in the moment.

Not to mention one of the complaints I got was about not saying good morning back to people… which I do, but my voice is quiet so they can’t hear me. Also sorry for not being awake after dragging myself to work before the sun is up… Christ.

I’m already looking for a new job anyways due to different reasons, but this whole experience is just making me want to quit and freeball it for a little bit. I’m only sticking around because I do have a few lovely coworkers left from the original “dream team.” Working in this bakery used to be the most fun I’ve ever had at a job, and now it just sucks… :(

I know I’m a talented baker. I’m fucking good at what I do, including training. If my coworkers could just be goddamn adults about this whole situation instead of taking my words in bad faith because my tone is off we wouldn’t be here. Sigh. Wish me luck on the job search.

Note: I'm oversimplifying my language for dramatic effect. I'm also playing up my attitudes towards neurotypicals for dramatic effect. I know the rules already indicate that this is a satirical and hyperbolic sub, but I feel the need to have this tone preface just to be extra clear because I know not every post on this sub is actually satirical.

What's become increasingly relevant to me throughout my graduate studies and experiences is that neurotypicals have no idea what the fuck is going on with us. Repeatedly, neurotypicals seem to be insistent that we simply do not have internal worlds despite us constantly telling them that we do. They trust their own observations of us more than our observations of ourselves. The problem with this is that neurotypicals are not us and cannot empathize with us in the ways that matter. Because they suck.

Why is every study about the observed effects of ABA on children and not how children actually feel about going through it and how adults feel about it after the fact? It's because fuck you, that's why. Depression therapies have qualitative and phenomenological research to guide the quantitative shit, anxiety therapies do, PTSD therapies do. Autism therapies (and also personality disorder therapies to be clear) focus almost entirely on therapeutic outcomes filtered through observer bias. Science has moved on in every other area of the therapeutic field, but because we are not people to them we cannot be trusted to have meaningful thoughts.

Neurotypicals think we can't experience empathy, can't have imaginations, can't experience certain emotions as intensely or at all. They think we take things too literally (that would be kleptomaniacs). They are content to generalize and categorize us for the purpose of our eradication. For every autistic person who experiences one of the prior, there is an autistic person who does it in excess. Our diversity is as massive as the ocean is. Our experiences are so paradigmatically divergent that their language can't accommodate us. If they can't put our experiences and behaviors into their words, it doesn't exist to them. But we know it exists. We have been feeling and living it this whole time.

Everything we tell them, they smile and nod and then fucking ignore while pouring money into therapies that drown autistic voices. They have a mountain of data that hinges on the fact that their observations of us at all match up with our actual internal realities. They don't. Oftentimes, they just pick a narrative and run with it. Every few decades some new bullshit theory of autism becomes popular as some grand unifying theory about how we're actually broken because we don't conform to some standard. The cold mother theory? Misogynistic bullshit. The mirror neuron hypothesis? Debunked! Synaptic pruning models? They rely entirely on the idea that the extra connections in autistic brains are "unnecessary" because they think autism is fucking unnecessary to human diversity. When we talk about monotropism or double empathy, they ignore us because those theories do not paint our existence as inherently inferior.

The idea that we can be just as good, even better than them, scares the fuck out of them. Good. It should.

To preface: I am audhd, and truly believed I was making a meaningful difference in the kids lives before I quit. I never did anything that I thought would be harmful, and it ended up being the reason I was put on a ‘professional improvement plan’ and quit.
I was a registered behavior technician for about 8 months at 3 different ‘neurodiversity affirming’ ABA companies. All three of them preached being ‘trauma informed’, ‘play-based’ and using more progressive ways of therapy. On some levels, they were telling the truth, in that they don’t beat kids or electrocute them to stop behavior. However, the issue lies within the fact that the basis of the therapy is to change behavior. While this can be useful in situations like elopement, self injury, or injury to others, many times I was instructed to disrupt stimming (which I NEVER did despite being told to) and other harmless behaviors.
Another issue I came across was every behavior needing to be ‘functional’ or useful. Who the hell is constantly functional? They’re kids! They deserve to play the way they want! Many MANY goals that I was instructed to work on was ‘imaginary play’. The way that you are instructed to teach imaginary play is by having them mimic what you are doing, instead of playing the way they want to play. How is that imaginary play?
These kids are also put through 6+ hour days, longer than a school day, and RBTs are expected to run ‘programs’ throughout the whole session. This leaves the kids EXHAUSTED, and often falling asleep during session. At one company I worked for, they even went as far as to forbid the kids from sleeping and making them wake up and do something else.
I deeply regret working in ABA. I am now preparing to go to school for occupational therapy, and am now a direct support professional instead.