#aba therapy is abuse

[hello-nichya-here]

What's wrong with ABA therapy? Genuinely asking.

It was literally created by a guy that did not believe autistic people were human - his words, not mine. It's not real therapy, it's just abusing autistic people (mainly children) until they associate doing any autistic thing (stimming, not looking people in the eye, giving only non-verbal answers, not being comfortable with hugs, etc) with stress and pain, so they "fix their behavior".

The entire thing is based on the completely bullshit assumptions that any trait of autism is inherently negative and has no real functionality, both to the person with the condition and to those around them, and that they can just learn how to do things "the right way" - hence the name Aplied BEHAVIOR analysis. It assumes we just "don't know how to act", like a little kid that hasn't learned to spell or how to eat using a knife and fork.

But the thing is autistic people behave the way they do for a reason. "Ordinary" things (like looking people in the eye, or always hugging their relatives and friends, or having to be in a crowded room, with a lot of people talking at once) are PAINFUL to us. Some of us can mask how much it bothers us, but it never stops being a problem. And on the case of stimming (saying the same word over and over, running around, flapping ours hands, biting on a toy, etc) that is what we do to self-sooth when something isn't going right.

ABA is abusive because it forces the patients to behave in a way that causes nothing but pain, just because that's how neurotypicals behave naturally. It's like punching someone in the face over and over, telling them that if they complain they'll just get punched again, and then using the fact that they're not complaining about being punched anymore as "proof" that you made them no longer feel pain - when it's pretty clear they're only not complaining because they'd be punished with more pain if they tried.

Not to mention: training a bunch of vulnerable kids, some of which cannot talk and don't even understand what's going on, that if an adult does something that bothers or hurts them, including touching their body without permission, it's their job to just sit there and take it and that if they turn to their parents for help they'll just get scolded for it because, again, the whole point of ABA is to go "This is all your fault actually, stop crying" is a HORRIBLE idea. It's practically grooming kids to accept that any and all forms of abuse (including sexual) are things that are supposed to happen to them.

That's why one of THE most repeated phrases by autistic people who speak out against ABA and organizations like Autism Speaks, an AWFUL hate-group pretending to be a charity and that adores things like ABA or trying to to blame everything from vaccines to milk for the "rise in autism cases" (which isn't actually real), is "Nothing about us without us."

The overwhelming majority of treatments and charities that claim to help autistic people are only doing things that are either useless or downright harmful to us because they all start from the basic misconception that we don't understand our own condition, that we cannot possibly know what would help us, and that we need someone else to "decode the mystery" that is autism to "save" us.

Entire decades of wasted effort and money, as well as abuse being pushed as a solution, could have been prevented if non-autistic people would fucking LISTEN instead of speaking over us just because we act "weird." It's all based on "Your condition bothers ME, therefore I'm the one who decides what is or is not a problem for YOU." It's the most condescending bullshit ever.

[wheelie-sick]

this is going to be a long post, it's kinda just me writing all my raw unfiltered thoughts on ABA therapy as someone who actually went through it

-> TW for ABA therapy, child abuse, suicide <-

I was functionally diagnosed with autism at the age of 3 but it wasn't until I was 13 that I was actually formally evaluated for it and given an official diagnosis. I was behind in social skills and developmental skills

[ID: "was also described as a sensory seeker. She does not currently have any friends and has struggled to make and maintain peer relationships throughout her childhood. Difficulties with social skills were initially noted when she was in preschool (years before the onset of clinically significant symptoms of anxiety and"]

[ID: "Social functions: [blank]'s mother also completed a questionnaire rating her social responsiveness. Her responses on the SRS-2 indicated that [blank] is demonstrating severe deficits in the areas of Social Communication (reciprocal social interaction and nonverbal and verbal communication), Social Motivation (motivation to engage in social-interpersonal behavior) and Social Awareness (perceiving social cues) and moderate deficits in the areas of Social Cognition (understanding social cues). Severe Repetitive and Restrictive Behaviors (stereotypical behaviors or highly restricted interests) were also reported. The total T-score on the SRS-2 indicates severe deficiencies in reciprocal behavior that are likely to result in interference in everyday social interaction"]

[ID: "%ile) are mildly impaired, while her social skills are moderately impaired (2nd %ile). By domain, demonstrates mildly to moderately impaired abilities in six adaptive skills areas, including self care (9th %ile), communication (5th %ile), home living (5th %ile), self-direction (2nd %ile), social (2nd %ile), and leisure (1st %ile)"]

and ultimately all this ended up with the number one recommendation after my autism evaluation being for ABA therapy.

[ID: "Recommendations: Based on the above results, the following recommendations are made for [blank] and her family.

1. ABA therapy: [blank] May benefit from an intensive treatment program to foster cognitive and communication skills, improve independence and adaptive functioning, and help manage interfering behaviors (i.e home-based, 1:1 instruction, task analysis, etc.) Most private and community programs are based on principals of operant conditioning and taught in home with 1:1 instruction"]

*I'm getting misgendered here. my pronouns are he/him

"operant conditioning"-- like a dog 🐕🐕. woof woof.

my mom didn't know any better so she put me in ABA therapy with the Center for Autism and Related Disorders. she regrets this. I regret this more.

my autism evaluation was cruel, it dissected all my flaws as if I was a bug under a microscope in a highschool laboratory. my evaluation was passed around to ABA therapists, a line of high schoolers peering through the microscope examining the most vulnerable parts of me.

and I choose the highschool analogy quite deliberately. most of the ABA therapists at my center were recent highschool graduates with no degree and little training. they knew nothing about autism and had no qualifications. you need more certificates to become a professional dog trainer than to become a professional human trainer.

"operant conditioning"

and I wish I could say it was just a poor choice of words but ABA therapy was dog training for children. my dad used to call me an "it" and somehow I felt less dehumanized by that than the entire experience I had in ABA therapy.

I was the oldest person at my center (I did not receive in home therapy) with the next oldest being approximately 3 years younger than me. at the time I felt babied. I was surrounded by 5 year olds and I was treated as if I was not just a 5 year old but an autistic 5 year old and anyone who has been a visibly autistic 5 year old knows what that feels like. I had escaped being an autistic child and now I was being treated like one again. The head of the program tried to console me by telling me adults received their services too.

[ID: "Following the principles of applied behavior analysis, CARD has developed a treatment approach for children and adolescents with"]

this was the first lie they told me. CARD does not work with adults.

I was not allowed the privileges of being a 13 year old. because I was an autistic 13 year old and therefore I was the equivalent of a 5 year old. I was in psychotherapy at the same time and I had grown very accustomed to some level of freedom in therapy. I was allowed to use the bathroom independently. in ABA therapy I was not allowed to use the bathroom independently. I tried once, me and my therapist were on an "outing" to the grocery store and I told my therapist I was going to the bathroom and walked off and I got a very stern talking to about how I needed to "stop eloping" and if I didn't stop it would "become a behavior"

eloping became a common theme used to control me and squeeze money out of my parents.

out of everything I hated in my life, including severe physical abuse at home (which they did not report), I hated ABA therapy the most. I would repeatedly make serious threats of suicide to try to get out of ABA. no one cared. everyone thought I was being dramatic but there were times I wrote out suicide notes and ABA was among the reasons I listed. ABA made me feel hopeless, depressed, revolting, disgusting, inferior, and less than human. between ABA, my home life, and my social life I had never felt so hated and it was boiling through my skin. I acted out, I was bullying people, I was behaving recklessly, I was starting fights, and all this only made the oppressive force of ABA crack down on me harder. I was a cat hissing in the corner begging to be left alone and ABA brought a net to try to tame me further. every time I scratched back it was listed as a reason I needed to be there.

I was "disruptive" and "rebellious" and "uncooperative" and "resistant to treatment" and no one could figure out why I was "regressing" despite me shouting the answer. I was screaming and no one was willing to hear me

I hated myself and my autism. my autism diagnosis made me want to die. I didn't feel freed by it or understood I felt ashamed and disgusted. I felt incompetent and like I had failed. I was ashamed to be at ABA, it was my biggest secret. I'd lie to my friends about why I couldn't hang out and I'd lie to people in public about who the woman I was with was and I'd lie about all of it to try to cover up my most shameful secret.

ABA therapy did nothing but foster this. In ABA therapy I was mocked for being autistic and what was happening only clicked when a young kid, maybe only 4 or 5, was flapping his hands and a therapist took out her phone and recorded him. we were circus animals. it was all an entertaining show to them while they poked and prodded at us with metaphorical hot irons to make us dance. the first time a therapist laughed at me for rocking back and forth I wanted to throw up. I almost did. it was systematic bullying of children I was forced to watch and experience.

my point is: the last place on earth I wanted to be was the ABA center.

so of course I tried to leave. my mom would bring me McDonald's and I'd beg, sobbing real tears, to leave early because only she could sign me out. every time I'd go to meet her I'd be marked as "eloping" and my hotel stay in hell would get extended.

my natural response to a stressful environment (leaving) was pathologized. I was eloping this way and that way and never once did I actually, truly elope. that word was a weapon used against me. they used my "elopement" to justify extending my stay to my parents. they ate it right up.

they argued I needed to stay there because I was making friends. this was true, I'm great at getting along with children it's part of why I want to go into pediatrics, but I had also made real friends with people my age at my highschool. ABA was getting in the way. I wanted to spend time with my friends outside of school but ABA took up all my time from the minute I left school to 6pm and all day on weekends. I was doing a full time job's worth of hours. I complained about how I was missing out on spending time with my real friends (as in, over the age of 7) and I was met with almost no wiggle room in my schedule. I was allowed to pre-plan time to spend with friends but every time my friend group wanted to do something spontaneously? I had to say no, and I had to lie about why. my friends would share stories about driving around town with 2 people in the group stuffed in the trunk, of hanging out in the woods together, of taking part in ordinary highschool activities as ordinary high schoolers and it made me cry because I was not an ordinary highschooler and I was not allowed to participate in ordinary highschool activities. I was one of those weird, unpleasant, socially awkward autistic people instead. eventually, they just stopped inviting me. I was forced into the out group by ABA.

I'll never get that back. I'll never get a chance to be a normal highschooler ever again.

when I did have time available to hang out with people I never had the energy to. at the time I was living with an undiagnosed physical disability and I was begging to see a doctor but no one would believe that it wasn't just anxiety. the people who believed me least of all were the people at the center.

I was constantly told I was trying to get out of therapy by "feigning" very real pain and fatigue. I tried to explain spoon theory, and that I had limited spoons, and in response they made a task for me to name things to "regenerate spoons" that's not how it works. I wasn't the only physically disabled person there. there was a wheelchair user who was constantly forced to stand for periods of time despite being in agony doing it. he wasn't allowed rewards until he did it.

rewards were used to train us like dog treats are used with dogs. sometimes the treats were fun! I'd get to cook, play Mario kart, and go on outings. other times the treats were "using the correct name and pronouns for me." I'd constantly be threatened with deadnaming and misgendering if I was being "noncompliant."

misgendering because of my autism was a theme in my life. my neuropsych evaluation report misgendered me. my parents misgendered me. the staff at ABA misgendered me. at one point the head of the program suggested that my "gender confusion" was because of my autism. my abusive father latched onto this and still claims that the reason I'm "confused" about my gender is because the evil transgenders tricked me into thinking I'm one of them because I'm autistic and therefore easily impressionable.

the two therapists I had were nice because I refused to work with the others. they weren't on a power trip and both eventually left because they realized the harm the organization was doing. other therapists were not so kind. other therapists were on a power trip, because in their mind lording over autistic 5 year olds (and autistic 14 year olds) makes them powerful and strong. occasionally I'd get stuck with one of the other therapists when my usual therapists were out. they would talk to me in a baby voice. they would make fun of me for rocking back and forth, for not making eye contact, for talking about Skyrim "too much" and generally just for being autistic.

I never really knew what I was supposed to be doing, just that I was doing it wrong. the therapists there rarely actually told me what my tasks were they'd just mark yes or no on them, judging me for something I wasn't aware of. I was never actually supposed to graduate, I was never supposed to get out, if they wanted me to succeed they would have taught and explained what was happening but I was intentionally left in the dark.

I continued threatening suicide to get out. no one took me seriously. I was seriously considering it. there's no happy conclusion where someone finally realized it was all wrong, or I figured out how to be allistic and graduated, or I felt more comfortable there. I only got out when covid struck and shut the center down. it's gone now, replaced by a family advice center. I hope their advice for autistic children is to never put them in ABA.

there is no grander message here just suffering. I'm sorry if you were expecting some sort of great point at the end of this. there's not one. it happened, I wish it didn't, and I hope no one else experiences what I did ever again.

okay to reblog

[five-thousand-loaves-of-bread]

asking in good faith, i remembered you once posted about having nuance about ABA and i want to understand what you mean by that because i know you post from a non-western disabled perspective.

is ABA something other than operant conditioning in other places? if not, shouldn't we be listening to the ABA survivors who call ABA abusive and dehumanizing? if something is abusive to some but happened to help others, isn't it irresponsible to say that ABA is good for anyone just because it helps some people and has hurt others, like the psychiatric system?

asking because i want to understand what nuance there is, because the only people i know who have had to endure ABA therapy in their life have survived really horrific, dehumanizing abuse like being treated as a dog by their ABA therapists. is there nuance to this?

hornet nest. don’t really love talk about ABA but will answer this one. so

1) when talk about ABA, from western perspective. ABA here (<certain non-western country) even worse lol (would say newly introduced compare to say US… plus there not much of neurodivergent acceptance movement here & eugenics rampant people on social media proudly say classic eugenics stuff n admit eugenics good. like admit eugenics by exact word.)

2) important correction that never said ABA good for anyone everyone. never said ABA not abusive never abusive. because ABA often is abusive. would say such vast majority abusive. some more subtle and or not all encompassing in practice than others but vast vast majority use harmful ideology or methods in some way (90%? higher?not scientific number by any mean, throwing it out there based on observation, more illustrate point of how high than Actual Accurate Number). if any time you (general you) got from my post about ABA think am arguing ABA never abusive then you definitely understand something wrong, or am didn’t communicate right. despite what may seem like on this blog, anytime hear “ABA” alarm bell go off. anytime see “am ABA therapist” immediate distrust & avoid & rarely earn back.

with that out of way:

fortunately with neurodivergent activists & ABA survivors advocating, n neurodiversity affirming become more of a “good thing to describe self as”, some ABA clinics trying/say they trying change. try more natural learning, try more strength based techniques, less drills, less DTT, less force eye contact, less force mask, less punishment but more reward, less food motivators, less planned withholding… we at very very beginning of this

unfortunately “neurodiversity affirming” becoming buzzword. can slap it on anything. include “at first glance look all good person have fun smiling but if know what look for, harmful practice glaring at you” ABA. people can say they do nonabusive ABA n do harmful practices. n sometimes it people genuinely trying take abusive part out of ABA but not realize some aspects still… harmful. still coercive. still take away autonomy. (ETA n of course there many places where unchanged)

operant conditioning… hard one because. n this maybe out of topic or nit pick. give self shiny gold star sticker for monkey brain (reward) whenever finish task (goal behavior) technically operant conditioning. not abusive. but ABA abusive because… “only look at behavior ignore internal, smile mean happy eye contact mean better milder” operant conditioning. “‘tantrum’ undesirable behavior attention seeking so not reward behavior need extinguish behavior by planned ignore (who care why they meltdown)” operant conditioning. “food rewards you earn eat only when you good, you earn comfort only when you good” operant conditioning. “stop elopement by physically block them from leave n once they learn stop elope they better (actually just replaced physical flight with dissociation freeze)” operant conditioning

& sometimes it not that “ABA not abusive”… but more not believe ABA more abusive than say. police that kill visibly autistic people especially visibly autistic Black people. or more serious than “put your autistic child in therapy or we take them away. n by therapy we mean ABA.” or “am single parent work multiple jobs child keep get sent home mid day bc behaviors which mean interrupt work less pay more likely get fired. struggle pay bills cant afford childcare but insurance cover 40 hour ABA idk what to do.” or “get kicked out of 7th school 937473th SLP OT because behaviors” ETA (forgot to retype when draft got deleted so add back in) this not saying “ABA abuse okay bc other abuse exist.” but more of ABA not exist alone & ABA exist because other things exist & cannot get rid of ABA alone without get rid of system that produce it

know people who went through ABA as child n not feel traumatized n actually found it help (n some of them may be traumatized just not realize it but there people who thought about it a lot & still conclude not traumatized). know people who went thru ABA found it both help n abuse. know ABA survivors who “maybe did help but abused by it don’t want the help if mean abuse.” know ABA survivors who just. abused. of course ABA survivors who abused by it should be prioritized. people who went thru ABA who not traumatized very minority & at least huge bit of luck. n often times also with some mix of privilege (location eg state with better healthcare more up to date healthcare cities at blue states etc, financial, etc.). hence why never say “ABA never abusive.” n why don’t feel comfortable call self ABA “survivor” because. well. not traumatized by it. don’t feel right

all of this (n tbh anything am saying abt ABA) more said towards non ABA survivor audience (specifically those who hear like third hand fourth hand fifteenth hand information n never actually read anything official about ABA & can’t tell you what it does beyond “promote masking” (often true… but how?) & when asked for more, no clue. am firmly believe you need know enemy to criticize & defeat enemy.). it more of way ask them talk about ABA with more nuance n more knowledge. no interest “educating” ABA survivors on what ABA is & how it work. not my place. they not need it.

^ because right now “anti-ABA crowd” turned kind of into joke in some people eyes because some people who say “ABA abusive” keep saying same thing as eachother n can’t tell you what ABA actually is beyond “masking & eye contact.” n also poorly done studies (that ABA PTSD study that anyone can just say they went thru ABA & no verify… there difference between letting survivors exist online without interrogate & demand for proof papers, versus published scientific papers). yes many most ABA abusive harmful yes no doubt ABA survivors gotten PTSD from it etc. but if in role of advocacy, neeeeeed be able talk about it with knowledge & nuance (ETA & good evidence). because most impacted are gonna be ABA survivors & them not be taken seriously (already happening).

would love world where. autistic people with serious behaviors that danger to self or others get help they need. without be kicked out of multiple services. without be abused. be treat as human. be treat compassionately. for help be freely available. n their caregivers have respite. n not need work 9 million jobs just to pay bills n not have time be around child. unfortunately we not there yet. n take long time get there. n people struggling now. so need something for now. need harm reduction. so will try take as much harmful stuff out of ABA as possible while we work on new thing.

very bad TL;DR: are there any nuance? ..yes? but when say that people tend think mean “ABA never abusive.” so also no… not in that way

sorry kind of went off tangent. but no short way talk about ABA nuance

potential context for other people? one two three four

though PLEASE. DON’T reblog these ^ posts. don’t want them get revived n have to Deal With That.

[clownrecess]

(TW: Talk of ABA, trauma, abuse, self offing, etc.)

ABA is abusive whether you want to admit it or not. It just is.

It doesn't "depend on the therapist", it is abusive by nature. The abuse and trauma inducing experiences are deeply rooted in it.

"Oh, well ours is basically just some OT and speech", that's not ABA, then. Whilst yes, OT and speech do very much have the ability to be abusive, ABA always is. A combination of some in home OT and speech is not ABA.

So what is ABA? ABA stands for applied behavioural analysis. It is a "therapy" that parents of autistic people are usually pushed to do. And often times, the parents agree! Whether that's because the insurance covers it, or because the school told them to, or whatever, they tend to accept it.

I was one of the people who's parents accepted it.

I was in ABA for a little over a year, I would have been in it much longer but eventually I was taken out because I threatened to off myself if I remained in it. And this didnt work immediately, I had been threatening this for months. I'm not sure why it finally worked.

ABA likes to trick you at the start. My therapists in particular referred to this tricking as the "honeymoon phase". In this phase, they would act like my friends. They made me trust them.

We would talk about our interests, and play games together.

It felt safe, and I liked it!

Until it changed, that is. About two months into ABA, they stopped being like my friends.

It went from me happily playing chess with him, to him yelling at me, a child hiding under a table, because I didn't say what he wanted me to say.

And this of course evolved too. And I was further traumatized.

I was tricked, and then abused by the hands of so called therapists.

It has been around 2, almost 3 years since this. I am still extremely frightened by anything remotely related to those experiences.

I had a panic attack in a water park because somebody looked **slightly** like one of them.

Please don't put your kid in ABA. I don't care how helpful you think it'll be.

[b00knerd1o1]

The person who started Conversion 'therapy' was a student of the man who created ABA 'therapy' and borrowed many ideas from it.

[babyspacebatclone]

I had one of those realizations about ABA today.

This is very much a “needle onto a mountain with a camel underneath” thing, but I’m vaguely surprised I never personally made the connection before.

I dissociate. Very mildly; when I’m stressed, the part of me that’s “me” is up over there while the rest of my brain and body and pain is down there.

One of the things I have learned to do with this is to - physically do stuff, step by step, maintain the outside, keep the body moving while over here I’m trying to cycle through the trauma/rage/exhaustion/whatever and here there’s a little ambassador in the middle in case the body needs higher brain functions for a second.

And I can run this state for - well, with no additional trauma input, as long as it takes to complete that task. Whatever I have decided that task to “be,” I can complete it.

Then, hopefully, smile and politely remove myself from a public situation.

And then go have a meltdown.

Now, I ask anyone else* who has studied behavioral principles, specifically ABA…

How would you record that behavior???

(I took 3 undergraduate courses in ABA for my Community Psychology Bachelors. I do bot profess to be an expert, but I am at least competent in the subject)

TL;DR: Fuck anyone who tells you “only external behavior matters.”

Edit: I was aware of the implications of this for the victims of ABA “therapy.” This is more me internalizing my own experiences in contrast with the bullshit core philosophy of ABA.

[enbycrip]

If any parents of autistic kids are reading testimony from autistic adults about how damaging ABA is, and wobbling because their doctor told them “ABA is the best ‘evidence-based’ therapy”, then please feel free to read this collection of peer-reviewed scientific sources, testimonies from autistic people subjected to ABA, and former BCBAs who have realised how abusive their practice actually was, on how deeply damaging and abusive ABA actually is and how it increases CPTSD and suicidal ideation in autistic people.

https://neurodiversenby.wordpress.com/2021/04/30/aba-is-abusive-evidence-and-testimonies/

We know there are parents in awful situations from courts etc who have no choice in their child being forced into ABA, and that BIPOC parents are terrified their autistic child will be killed by law enforcement if they are not compelled to mask.

This is not intended to add additional guilt to people in survival situations. It is a fact of the intersectional disableism our society is full of that the more marginalisations anyone has, the more likely you are to have less choice in what happens to you and your kids, and to face choices between awful situations.

It is there to give everyone *more* information to combat the deadly misinformation that the *very* well-funded ABA lobby pays to entrench within the medical-industrial complex.

To give you information if you are a parent who has money and privilege to choose services for your child. And to bring to a doctor or a court who has not heard or considered information from survivors or the growing body of scientific evidence about the long term effects of ABA if you do not have these privileges. Especially for BIPOC parents, for autistic parents, for female-read parents in court situations, who are already marginalised and need all the extra “weapons” to fight for your child’s safety you can get.

There’s also information in there on the links between ABA and “LGBTQIA2S+ conversion therapy”. Yes, they were created by the same person and are basically the same thing. They are both *incredibly* abusive and incredibly dangerous for long term mental health. Autistic folk are more likely to be queer, particularly trans umbrella, than the rest of the population, so if you are the cishet parent of an autistic child you need to be aware of this in advance and be ready to support your kid in who they are.

[the-unlucky-trevor]

So I have this headcanon post for Kaleena. Be warned, it's REALLY long, and woobifies Esme a little more. My interpretation of the Page parents is that Kaleena's motives were her children while Gorman's (yes that's actually his name) motives were money and potentially his kids as well.

//CW: GROOMING, MURDER, PRISON VIOLENCE, ABA, CHILD ABUSE, SEXUAL HARASSMENT, SELF-TERMINATION, SWEARING//

Ever since Kaleena became pregnant with Reggie and Esme, she made it her mission to protect them with all she got. It was to the point where she hit her would-be carjacker with her car while she was 8 months pregnant.

However, when it became apparent that her two children were squibs, she became stricter on them, especially considering she barely got enough sleep because she'd just given birth to Daniel.

Despite this, she still had the mission to protect her children with everything she could do. When she found out that Daniel was being abused in his ABA clinic, Kali wanted to KILL one of his so-called “therapists” for hurting her favourite child. She ended up holding back and was one of the many parents that bankrupted the clinic. It was to the point where Esme and Reg got Daniel a Super NES for Christmas.

Enough rambling, now to the part where Esme started to distrust her own mother.

When Esme was about 14-15, she was being groomed by an older man, so she told her mother about it, as she'd also experienced sexual harassment from a classmate when she was 13.

Kali took this very seriously.

So seriously, that she took a gun, found the address of the man grooming her daughter, and shot him, making it look like self-termination.

The next day, she told Esme “You don't need to worry about him again.”

Esme felt relieved, thinking that her abuser got arrested, until her mother continued her sentence,

“I shot him.”

This horrified Esme.

So much so that she wouldn’t even come near her mother because of this. As in, she would rather read Twilight than be in the same room as her mother.

Eventually, when Esme was 16, her father and brother were arrested and her mother ended up locked up as well for trying to get them out, and by God, poor Dani boy being absolutely miserable was an understatement.

However, despite this, Kaleena still had a desire to protect her children, to the point where she straight-up KILLED Gridley once he got into Azkaban for using her daughter as extortion (sorry gridley stans, but if you fuck with the cubs, you fuck with the bear)

Sometimes, Kali could feel herself going insane from isolation when thinking about her being separated from her kids, especially Daniel. Aaand that's it. Don't say I didn’t warn ya

[spacephobos]

tua having a nonverbal autistic character is so cool their next step in autistic rights and representation should be publicly sacrificing tom hopper

[random-dragon-exe]

I just attended my first class which was online. It's a great psychology class and it's titled Abnormal Psychology. It's really interesting and I can't wait to get further into it.

Thing is, there's a TA there and she's a part of this organization that fully supports and uses ABA therapy on autistic people and kids.

I'm well aware of the horrors that autistic people have faced from it, and to see not only the TA in it, but also to actively promote it towards the students just leaves a sour taste in my mouth you know?

I just feel very icky about that small part of an otherwise fascinating class.

[eternalsailormom]

Make sure the therapy is actually therapy and not ABA in disguise. You want your kid to get therapy, not training on how to mask

[lunathewafflelord]

Y’know, the “just because it didn’t work for you doesn’t mean it won’t work for others” argument really doesn’t work for treatments that involve physical and psychological abuse towards children

[five-thousand-loaves-of-bread]

my post: here is nuance to ABA

someone’s reply in the same exact post answering another person’s question about what is ABA: torture! cure! evil!

🫠

[clownrecess]

If you don’t mind I have a few questions for you, if you’re uncomfortable answering for any reason you can ignore this. I read that you have been to ABA before but I would like to hear about your experiences in more detail. I am writing a story with a character that gets sent to ABA around the age of 2 and it becomes one of their major traumas. You mentioned being forced into over stimulating situations. What were they like? How long did you have to stay in them? How did you cope with them?  What kinds of things did you have to do? How did these things affect you? I’m sorry if this is a lot of questions. Have some frogs for your troubles.

First off, thank you for the amazon milk frogs!!! Did you know they have blue bones?? AND guess why they have blue bones? Because their blood is copper based, rather than iron based! Interesting stuff! Amazon Milk Frogs are probably my favorite frog. /pos

Now for the other stuff.

I was regularly told to make decisions of which place I would go (both of which were overstimulating and scary places), and when I couldn't decide I was yelled at. A frequent phrase used for this was "That's not the right answer!". I was yelled at repeatedly until I would make a choice. In this example, the choice I chose was the park (specifically a park that I had a lot of anxiety around due to high quantities of people walking, baseball games being played there, etc.). I stayed there in an excessively anxious state for about five minutes, and I then asked the "therapist" if I could leave the park yet, to which he told me no. I stayed another few minutes, and then asked again if I could leave, this time he said "No, we aren't leaving!", I was quite literally about to have a panic attack so I just got angry and said "Well I am!" and then began to leave the park, and he followed me. He began talking about how we would need to do this again, and how I was being rude. My panic attack eventually evolved into a meltdown in which I repeatedly hit myself, bit myself, and ran into the street. He let me. When we arrived back at my house he laughed about how he "Sees it all the time.", and how it would "Stop when we stop entertaining that kind of behavior.". He went to go talk to someone and write stuff down, so I went and hid in my closet. Eventually he sent a different "therapist" up into my room who invaded my space inside the closet, and she told me that she is "Sorry you had a bad day, we will try again tomorrow. Bye.".

There was no way for me to cope. There was no way for me to calm down. I ran into the actual street and they didn't care because apparently they "see it all the time".

To make matters worse, I originally was extremely fond of these people, especially the man. He would play chess with me all the time, which I loved. Chess was my special interest at the time, and he was great at it, so he helped me improve. I trusted him. There wasn't even a build up into the abusive part, just one day he stopped being nice all of a sudden. It confused and scared me deeply.

[chronicfatigue-silverflame]

I've had therapists reinforce this. I've been told that my boundaries are too hard, I need to soften them. I've been asked "what if you were poor?" when I asked for food that I could eat. I've been told that I'm making people sad when I call out their abuse. All by the people who were supposed to help me.

because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.

you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.

you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.

don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.

if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.

you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:

how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!

aren't you happy yet?

[the-unlucky-trevor]

Elliott's Lore post

//CW: UPSETTING CONTENT, CHILD ABUSE, ABLEISM, ABA THERAPY, RACISM, HATE CRIMES, BITTERSWEET ENDING//

Part Two: Applied Behaviour Analysis

When Mr. and Mrs. Mason-Buchls had their daughter Elodie, they noticed she was reaching her milestones on time and she had above-average intelligence. However, around toddlerhood, little Elli started crying more often if taken into loud or crowded rooms, preferred her toys to playing with other kids, and went mute.

They didn’t know why she went mute, they didn’t know how she went mute. It was almost as if her vocal cords were removed somehow, so after a week, they took her to a child psychologist.

After some evaluation, she was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, and their psychologist recommended applied behaviour analysis to try and put her in the right direction, so the worried couple did what she recommended them to do.

That was the worst mistake of their lives.

Even though most of Elli's peers were nice to her, their so called “therapists” were AWFUL. They emotionally and physically abused them if they did something that wasn’t normal, one example being yelling at a student for bouncing in their chair, or hitting a student for mispronouncing a word.

They were especially mean to Elli and another girl whose name “she” couldn’t remember. It was mostly because they weren't white, but they were too young to know.

Their parents eventually caught the bruises, and took them out, one by one. They'd also find their children actively avoiding school or finding their lunches uneaten due to their teachers withholding it from them.

So, understandably, they sued, and they won.

The ABA clinic went bankrupt, the teachers were arrested for hate crimes, and the children went to a better school, one without abusive treatment from teachers.

However, their scars remained.

So much so that they would find themselves subconsciously hurting at things that reminded them of their past abuse. (e.g, Chapter 7 of the Giver, The Invisible Child, etc.)