Daughter of the Ring of Fire » Blog Archive » The Marked Case: Autism and Violence

Mar

2009

The Marked Case: Autism and Violence

Posted on 17:41, March 26th, 2009 by EKSwitaj

Read my latest story, "The All-Nighter", at 52|250.

If you felt caged and demeaned and telling people that you felt that way didn’t do a thing to change it, how would you react? If you ran out of ways to try to change that situation? If you felt hopeless? I think most people, regardless of whether their neurology is typical or labeled disordered, would answer that they would lash out (if they were being honest). This was my first thought as I read this tragic (for all involved) story by Ann Bauer in Salon.

Autism, being the marked case, gets blamed when something goes wrong. Similar lashing out from a neurotypical young man who could not be diagnosed with anything would not be blamed on his neurotypicality. The Stanford prison experiments screened participants so that only “normal” volunteers could be included, but you hardly ever hear anyone referring to them as the “dark side of normalcy” (only of the human psyche). (Given the tendency of well-known groups like Autism Speaks to portray the spectrum in negative terms, I have a very difficult time understanding why Ms. Bauer seems to think that discussing a “dark side” to autism is somehow transgressive.)

But what is the actual relationship between Andrew Bauer’s violence and his autism? Living in a society that does not have appropriate spaces for you makes it likelier that you will feel caged and humiliated. Autistic individuals, barring extensive educational interventions, typically have fewer tools to allow them to protest treatments that make them feel this way.

This leads to frustration which, intensified, can lead to violence. In some cases, it is internalized and leads to depression or self-harm too.

ETA: Lisa Jo Rudy also discusses this article on examiner.com