#and then resent my cousin forever NOT forgiving them like it seems catventures is

[swordmunch]

You can be not ableist and still say ableist things.

I understand that this post may not seem ableist to you, and I don't dislike you or hate you for thinking in this manner. Even as an autistic person, I still have issues with ableism related to autism, myself.

Additionally, I do not expect you to read this or listen to this in any significant manner because it's your life, your cousin, and does not affect me at all.

With that said, my analysis:

I think the thing people take issue with—or at least what I take issue with—was this paragraph:

"For context, my cousin has EXTREMELY severe autism, to the point where he quite literally cannot form any connections with people and does not sit down at all. He is always running around, yelling in garbled speech, and doesn't understand words, sentences, or commands. He only responds to his name when his mother calls it. He isn't intelligent mentally, either. I do love him a lot in spite of how he has never paid attention to me or treats both me and everyone else around him as though they don't exist"

The biggest problem for me is the "quite literally cannot form any connections with people...I do love him a lot in spite of how he has never paid attention to me..." I understand the emotional frustration that comes with having an annoying younger family member with whom it feels you cannot connect with.

As someone who does not like children, I personally dislike my cousins etc "in spite of how [they have] never paid attention to me," to use your own words lmao. Completely understand this sentiment. The thing that bothers me about this is that you seem to be connecting the autism to this frustration. This is related to the first half of the quote:

This is not an attack on your person or your intelligence, but this idea that autistic people, of any level of functioning, "quite literally cannot form any connections with people" is false. I understand I do not know your cousin; I also understand that this post was probably written in a very emotionally charged headspace, but I felt like, for positive interaction going forward with your cousin, I should at least try to put in my two cents.

The biggest hurdle people usually have with really understanding and internalizing this idea is that, especially as kids, autistic people don't communicate in the same ways allistic people (people without autism) do. Additionally, a lot of autistic kids don't know how to...communicate the ways they communicate lmao.

This is a very complicated issue that cannot just be covered by "ew why are you ableist" because that is not the case. Even as an adult, I still face a lot of issues communicating with my parents and other allistic and/or neurotypical people.

In a way, I do agree with the people telling you to "better yourself" and "not be ableist" because, with the just despicable lack of education about autism and how to properly communicate and understand autistic individuals, everyone needs to "better [themself]" and "not be ableist". I had to do it—and I'm autistic!

I hesitate to call you, yourself "ableist" because it is obvious that you are not. However, at the same time, it is most impossible to not be ableist considering our lack of education around the topic.

I did vote YTA not because of this unwitting ableism—again, not because I think you're ableist, but because of the bigotry baked into our very social systems—but I voted YTA because of how you reacted—the screaming at your cousin until he had a meltdown.

However, I could really tell throughout the whole think that you were trying to respect your cousin, but had a very hard time doing so due to the heightened emotions.

You can feel free to stop here if you're still reading, catventures, because the next bit is more about linguistic peculiarities and facets of phrasing. I'm a bit of a nerd about linguistics (it's a special interest lmao), so the rest is just going to be me rambling on about linguistic peculiarities—if you're comfortable, I'd also really like to know what your mother tongue is so I can go wacko about linguistic differences. What that'll do is it'll let me inform myself about how colloquialisms work in your language, especially because I have comparisons!!!

About the "born wrong" thing—that struck me as bad because it is a really ableist thing to say. You addressed this in your follow-up, but it's not just that it sounds better in your mother tongue, as you said, but that it's an ableist phrase which implies that there is something broken about autistic people. Not sure if you knew that but I felt it was important nonetheless.

Again, another thing that's more of an English ableist phrase than an actual like...thing? I guess is the best way to phrase that... is this phrase in your follow-up: "We need to accept that some kids or people are simply like this." In English, this is also essentially saying that something is broken about autistic people (or whatever person/group of people this phrase is referencing, regardless of context). The grouping of "like this" or "like that" is the pivotal phrase here that turns the whole sentence into a derogatory one instead of a positive one. A minor contributing factor is the use of the verb "accept". These two groupings placed in the same sentence work to make it derogatory.

Congrats if you made it this far! That sounds really condescending, but I mean it very genuinely. It's always very hard to confront when you're wrong. It's even harder to confront when you're not wrong (emotionally) but took the wrong actions.

Already in your original post I see this—confronting the fact that you took the wrong actions. I feel as if I'm overstepping, especially because you're a stranger lmao, but I've very proud of you—this isn't easy! It's even harder when you're doing so with a younger autistic cousin surrounding an emotionally charged event. I

know I certainly wouldn't have had your composure—and that's like? What? What composure? But you really did, considering it seems like you made this post very soon after this event and were ALREADY confronting the fact that, though your emotions were valid, your actions were not (in my opinion, lmao).

Wow this is so long lmao sorry. I wish you well, catventures.

AITA for banning a child from my house?

It's not my child, btw- it's my cousin, an 8 y/o autistic boy. I am 15 and it's technically not my house.

For context, my cousin has EXTREMELY severe autism, to the point where he quite literally cannot form any connections with people and does not sit down at all. He is always running around, yelling in garbled speech, and doesn't understand words, sentences, or commands. He only responds to his name when his mother calls it. He isn't intelligent mentally, either. I do love him a lot in spite of how he has never paid attention to me or treats both me and everyone else around him as though they don't exist.

I have (had?) a cat. I have raised this cat for 3 years and I got this little furball when he was only 2 weeks old. I gave him milk and cared for him so, so much. He was a Persian-British mix and was, frankly, pretty dumb and sleepy all the time. Like a little doll.

My cousin also, apparently, decided that my cat, Velvet, was doll-like, because he grabbed Velvet and refused to let the cat go. I was in the bathroom at the time and only heard the cat's mewing. Nobody else was home. My cousin thought it would be nice to throw Velvet out of the window. Our 4th-story window. Velvet was a spoilt little thing and had never really lived outside of a house, and consequently, died. My cousin? Didn't care. Just went away from the open window and went back to running around the house.

I came out only a few seconds later and was very confused as to just WHERE was the previously mewing cat, and obviously I couldn't just ask my cousin, since he can't talk and wouldn't be able to think of it either. My mom found the fucking CORPSE when she came back home. I was horrified and, while I don't think this was the proper thing to do to a little boy who has absolutely ZERO awareness of his surroundings, I proceeded to absolutely scream my head off at my cousin while grabbing his arm, which resulted in an absolute meltdown from him and my aunt (who had also just arrived) having to physically pry me off him as I was crying. I don't think I can be really blamed for being upset over my cousin KILLING my BELOVED PET just because he was born wrong. I also sort of yelled at my aunt to never come here or bring her son here ever again. My mother has severely chastised me for that and had ME grounded. What the fuck. Mental illnesses aren't all sunshine and rainbows, y'all. Ugh. I feel like I AM the asshole, but honestly. Consider the circumstances. I hate it here and I miss my fucking cat.