"Friends" abusing autistics reported to be huge problem

Post Reply New Topic

Mate crime' replacing hate crime as children with Asperger's and autism increasingly being abused and robbed by so-called friends - The Independent

Be prepared to be told it's your autism's or just your fault, or that you are making it up. Be prepared for speculation, excuses, compassion about the reasons why the bullies do it. Understand that far from everybody feels this way but those that do are can be the loudest and most persistent making it seem that everybody blames the autistics first.

Last edited by ASPartOfMe on 23 Nov 2015, 12:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Why would this happen on a forum where a very large percentage of the participants have either had a similar experience or had to help a loved one or friend recover from one? I don't get it. That's just sad.

I think he was referring to the comments to the article but I could be wrong.

The main thing on my mind was the thread on the mother that chained her kid. But that was not the only thing certainly various comments sections have this attitude. Many posters have thier claims rejected in real life for these same reasons. I have seen a number of news stories where the town rallied around the bullies of an autistic.

The last line about how it may wrongly seem everybody is against autistics because those that are can be persistent and the loudest was written specifically with Wrong Planet in mind. I have read thread after thread, post after post where it is claimed there is no hope the world is always going to hate us. I have read a number of news stories where the town rallied around an autistic.

I can understand using compassion and understanding as pragmatic approaches to find ways to change harmful behaviour. It makes as much sense to me to ask *why* a person is abusing others, as it does to tune in to an episode of My Cat From Hell to gain an understanding of why my cat has decided that biting me on a regular basis is a fun new habit. If you know what is driving the behaviour, then you have a better chance of influencing the perpetrator to change it.

However, it must also be recognized that there are a significant number of humans who enjoy hurting and exploiting the vulnerable, and who not only feel justified in doing so, but somehow vindicated. For these bullies, shaming them doesn't work, as they will move immediately into "poor me" mode and portray themselves as victims, and appealing to their empathy doesn't work either, as they enjoy or are indifferent to the suffering they cause.

Bullying is complex, as is all social interaction among humans. Not every bully is a psychopath, but conversely, not all of them will respond to a compassionate or understanding approach either.

It is first necessary to understand what is happening before applying possible strategies to change it. That is why I can understand and accept the call to see things as not all black and white, but also see that it is demoralizing to have all of the focus on the perpetrator rather than the target.

The main thing in life we have to do is figure out what causes things to happen to try and prevent it. Like a parent has to figure out what is causing the behavior issue to fix it, that doesn't mean they are trying to be passionate about the behavior, they just want to fix it. it's the same with bullying too, we have to understand why people do it before we try and fix it because all this anti bullying policy isn't working. What can we do to prevent poverty and homelessness? Why is somebody stealing? A woman is caught stealing $300 worth of groceries, why did she do it? How can we help to keep her from feeling she has to do it? She had hit rough times and her kids needed to eat so instead of arresting her, they tell her where she can get free food and the officer bought her some groceries instead of arresting her. There is child abuse, what can we do to help the abusers so it won't happen. Not everyone who abuses does it to be sadist or mean. Sometimes they get desperate and don't know what to do. What can we do to help the disabled so there won't be any neglect or abuse on them? What can we do to keep it from happening?

Obviously arresting a mother who was desperate for tying her son up wouldn't be the answer just like how arresting a mother for stealing groceries wouldn't be the answer or even arresting someone for being homeless.

It has to start somewhere to try and prevent things. My mom always had to figure out why I was doing bad behavior, she didn't just punish it to get me to quit because she had to figure out what was causing it. That didn't mean she was justifying it or making excuses, it's the same with abuse on the disabled and killing them. Even parents try and figure out why their autistic child is aggressive before they punish it out of them. But one thing that I don't understand is why is it okay to try and understand why aggression happens in autism to try and prevent it but it's not okay to try and understand why abuse happens in the disabled or murder to try and prevent it.

I think if everyone just opens up and tries to look at the bigger picture, then we can prevent things from happening because trying to punish the behavior it self doesn't work. That is like trying to lock up a homeless person for being homeless, that sure wouldn't stop homelessness would it? Or what if there was a lack of bathrooms in public, would arresting people for public urination do any good? Think about it.

I agree with this completely. However, sometimes when you find out that the 'why' really is something like everyday sadism, psychopathy, or system justification, the issue of punishment has to come back into the picture, because the 'why' is basically 'because we enjoy this and we get away with it'. As long as that is understood and accepted, the big picture can safely and reasonably be explored.

I think the book Bullied written by Carrie Goodman was very good. She explains why kids do it and how all the anti bullying policies aren't working and she also writes what can we do about it. She does not condone bullying or think it's okay and it was pretty clear in the book she doesn't like bullying. She also talked about stereotypes and her own daughter being picked on because she was a Star Wars fan. She also wrote how we can respond to bullying remarks and turning their insult into a positive one. For example, a bully makes a mean remark about your new haircut, you say to them "I see you had noticed my new haircut, thank you." But of course not every single method will work with a bully like not every bully will be amendable or be capable of having passion after being taught empathy and not every bully will back off after you do a comeback with them. It also wasn't surprising when she mentioned autism and she made it clear she isn't saying it's our fault we get bullied or that we cause them to do it, it's them that make the choice to bully. She also wrote how no one should change to avoid bullying. Her own daughter was deciding to not bring her Star wars water bottle to school because kids were teasing her about it and Carrie felt it was wrong what her daughter was doing.

Of course when I was a kid, it was about don't do this or that or kids will tease me about it. That was how my mother handled it. I think that is how lot of people handle it. If you can't stop the bullies, you have to try to avoid it. But what happens if the person can't really stop it to avoid it which is what Carrie wrote about in her book so she mentioned autism, sensory issues or poverty if I remember correctly.

In my opinion, more of this is needed. We need to know how that is happening, and what sorts of strategies can be employed to expand it to more communities.

Solutions for mistreatment of marginalized people must be built within the community, by all members of it. There seems to be a hyperfocus on tactics that targeted people can employ to deflect or avoid abuse. While knowing these skills is useful in the same way that knowing strategies and tips to avoid being a crime victim is helpful, providing advice to the person suffering abuse isn't a solution, it's a stopgap. The abuse must also be recognized and stopped, and that is the work of the whole community, not just the targets and their advocates.

Well I guess I am outdated, out of touch, inhumane, or just have flawed Aspie black and white thinking, whatever. I do think some of the problems we have these days are the result of failing to recognize anymore that certain people are just evil overall (Dispite the good sides most of them have) that we do not recognize certain actions are just hideous, there is no grey area or mixed good and bad thing about the action, it just bad and the person or action just needs to dealt with. You should start with that basic understanding then look at the mitigating circumstances and meet out the consequences based on that.

We just can't get anything right, we have gone from just looking at the action, deciding the punishment based on deciding bad action means bad person to an endless fascination with why. The "I don't approve of the action" often seems like an obligatory afterthought, definitely not the main focus of discussion. The other extreme caused a lot of problems. The current way of thinking is a problem and causing problems.

Changing the subject the anti bullying laws do not work because in some locations they
are not enforced. The people that are supposed to enforce them do not believe in them or the bully presents as not the type of person who would dunk an autistics head in the toilet, or the bullys parents are well respected or powerful members of the community, the autistic presents as somebody that deserves it etc.

Last edited by ASPartOfMe on 23 Nov 2015, 6:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I agree we need more of these stories. I purposely look for them to post here because so many people here do think the NT majority is hopelessly hostile to us. It does not have to be a news story it could be how you were understood and respected by an NT. As for finding strategies that is good to a point. What I have learned in life that dispite my Aspie nature wishing it were otherwise there is such a thing as paralysis by analysis, there are no explanations sometimes, things just are.

This past weekend, I stared down a bully and refused to back down.
Finally, her husband told her to let it go, and she left.
Do I know what her problem was?
No.
Do I care?
No.
I simply stepped up and let her know
that I was prepared to defend myself.

...

Yes, sometimes this is the best solution. Good for you.

I don't see anything wrong with your thinking. You have made several valid points. You are correct to assert that many people simply either do not care about, or actually enjoy the fact that they are causing pain and humiliation to someone who is not well equipped to protect themselves. This is a serious problem that ultimately degrades the community that doesn't confront it and deal with it appropriately. Nor, in my opinion, are you in any way wrong in observing that we aren't getting this right. It's going to take continual work to do so, and we need to muster the will.

Where I differ from you, is in the assumption that we can know just from a pattern of unacceptable, antisocial acts, that a person is evil. I think we are better off learning the various causes of this behaviour, because prevention or attenuation can only be effected if the root cause is addressed. Thus, ignorant or desperate people can be enlightened, and sadists and psychopaths can be confronted and convinced to stop.

I have to say that I have fallen victim to this this week. This guy who has been temping at my work chose to come and see me on reception, seemed like he was friendly but he started to ask to borrow money. First he borrowed some from Petty Cash to get to a surgery he was seeing patients at, and this was signed off by the boss. Then he gave the money back and and then he did it again twice. On those other occasions the boss wasn't informed and the money was paid back a few days later. On one occasion I padded it out because it was 30 quid and I couldn't justify the company lending him that kind of transport costs. We got that back too.

On Monday night he said that his wife was coming to pick him up from work in the car and that she had had the red light come on saying she needed fuel. He had a long way to drive with her back home and said he hadn't got a bank card with him and she had left without her purse assuming he had money to refill. He wanted to borrow company funds. I said no way, he'd have to ask my boss because this was not a company expense. He pleaded with me and I insisted that if I lent him the money I'd need it back today. Well this morning I asked for it straight away he said he wouldn't have it till 2:30 that afternoon that the money would be put in his account by his wife then. Then he went off to work in the community at 2:30 at a surgery and he had KNOWN all day he would be doing that.

I feel utterly taken advantage of and ripped off. I am the lowest paid person in my building and he chooses to come to me. He saw I was a sap and a nice person and I don't think he will pay me tomorrow. Tomorrow morning if he says he cannot pay me that day I am going to tell him I am going to my manager, not least at first he was trying to get it out of petty cash - which could have lost me my job.

What are your thoughts? I feel such a damn fool like I'm a target, a bloody moron.

I'm sorry this happened to you BenReilly. I would be fuming inside. You should definitely raise this issue with management, the guy seems to be a pathological liar (or have some other issue). Not really an ideal employee... Who knows what else he's going to try to take advantage of while he's there. If I were a manager I'd want to know that kind of thing so I can 'keep an eye on him'

--
Also wanted to say sometimes these kind of terrible things in the article occur because the autistic person is not aware they are being taken advantage of (social naïveté). But then I do wonder if HFA's are aware of some of the bad behaviour of their 'friends' and put up with it because we're so desperate to actually have a friend and have people like and accept us. I'm talking about lesser examples of bad friendship behaviour here - not the stuff that's in the article. Then again sometimes I AM the bad friend (not returning texts etc), because I'm unaware of certain conventions /unable to cope with so much interaction. Ok I'm rambling now... But friendship is complex