Samantha Meyers

Dis and Lit

05/02/19

Word Count: 1,242

Autism and Life

         In many instances, there are individuals who insert their opinions into outside narratives. While many have good intentions behind their desire to research, many individuals have difficulty realizing that certain things are not within their realm of understanding. Stuart Murray’s Autism and Melanie Yergeau’s “Introduction: Involution” from Authoring Autism”, show the dangers of depicting autism as a condition and how the abled speak for the disabled without completely understanding their experiences.

         Murray provides many details on why the public should be careful about how they depict autism and individuals with autism. The ways in which the medical community presently classifies autism is problematic. Murray states that, “the idea of improvement in the future automatically characterises autism in the present as first and foremostly a ‘problem’ and something that requires change” (9). This mentality is dangerous and implies that the present doesn’t matter if there will be a cure for autism someday. It can also be connected to how people see the everyday life of an autistic individual. When people demonize the concept of autism, Murray says that, “it also makes the idea of ‘everyday autism’, the daily business of a life lived being autistic, one that is difficult for any individual to sustain or justify” (14). The autism experience is one that many people believe individuals suffer from. Many don’t believe that autism is enjoyable for the person who has it and, in fact, the public tends to believe that, “suffering is integral to the manifestation of the condition” (21). The continual use of ‘condition’ perpetuates the stigmatizing belief that autism is something that a person suffers from.

         There are many dangers of ‘curing’ autism. Some people believe that autism is a separate entity stuck inside someone that can be flushed out through many different means. Murray says, “where those that champion curing are definitely in the wrong is in their idea that somehow the autistic and the human can be kept apart, and that to eradicate the former is to liberate the latter” (109). Not only does this dehumanize autistic individuals, but the people who think that they are freeing their loved one from autism are strongly misguided. Murray references another author and says, “to ‘cure’ someone of autism […] would be to take away the person they are, and replace them with someone else” (102-103). There is a large discussion about the ways in which people want to find a cure so that they can find the real individual within their loved one. This mentality is dangerous since this shows that people cannot accept autistic individuals without fixing them in some way. Murray tries to understand individuals who believe in this mentality and says, “maybe those who believe in curing will come to say that they actually mean ‘changing’, eliminating the worst features of autism to preserve the best, and that ameliorative treatment programs may come from this” (109). This, of course, is impossible and only serves to dehumanize autistic individuals when people aren’t able to accept them unless they are able to eradicate the horrible parts of the disability.

         Able bodied individuals tend to place a hero trope on people with disabilities especially individuals with autism. There is this belief that an autistic person cannot exist unless they have triumphed over their disability and has essentially assimilated into society. Murray shows this when he says, “the weariness comes from having to experience endless narratives in which autism, seen as a tragedy, is the subject of ‘heroic’ overcoming” (103). Media and news sources alike show this hero trope implying that the public cannot publicly accept a neurodivergent or autistic individual into society unless they overcome their disability through a heroic act. Time and time again, authors use this trope in many of their stories to display a disabled individual as a champion of their disability. This brings Melanie Yergeau’s personal experiences to the surface. Yergeau states that, “Media accounts of autistic people communicate the sensationalism of savant-beings who are at once extraordinary yet so epistemically distant and critically impaired” (2-3). Not only do people, especially autism parents, impose their own opinions onto autistic individuals, they make it known that this diagnosis is a horrible tragedy that they wish hadn’t happened to them. Yergeau says that, “many parent narratives echo this line of thought and speak of autism as something happening to them, as though their entire family had been struck by lightning” (7). This reaction to a diagnosis is all too familiar and, although the public has improved, there are still people who react like this. They believe that the person they could have known is lost within their autistic child or friend.

Within the heroic trope, both Murray and Melanie Yergeau mention the problematic ways that neurodivergence is displayed in the media. Murray gives reasons as to why Rain Man is a problematic representation of neurodivergence while Yergeau mentions it in passing and mentions other media representations that are improvements. Murray says that, in the movie, Raymond displays talented abilities which depicts autism as a ‘spectacle’. He says that, “this sense of performance, heightened by the fact that Hoffman was performing of course, connected autism to an idea of behavioral display” (75). When this movie shows Raymond essentially ‘performing’ and ‘rising above’ his disability, this shows that individuals with autism have to perform in order to be accepted by the general public. They have to suppress their true selves.

         The general public, as well as loved ones, like to generate inaccurate narratives for individuals with autism. Melanie Yergeau, an autistic individual, experiences this firsthand. She shows the ways in which people have projected their own definitions of autism onto her without much description about herself. She says that, “instead, my body is reduced. Erased. Medicated” (13). This goes back to the issue of overmedicating neurodivergent individuals in an effort to find a cure. Not only do abled individuals publicly push their own opinions of individuals with autism to the forefront, they do so while putting down the very people that they are pushing. Yergeau states that in her experience, “[they] are conditioned that [their] selves are not really selves, for they are eternally mitigated by disability, in all of its fluctuations” (10). So, essentially, she is saying that caretakers and the general public make autistic individuals feel that their disability will always interfere with them as a person. She goes on to talk about involuntary logics as people who are under the impression that autistic individuals cannot make decisions for for themselves so they do it for them. Yergeau talks about how these ‘logics’ forcibly removed her from high school and institutionalized her. She says that these people, “are the logics of overmedication, eugenic future, institutionalization; they are the logics that narrate shit smearing as brain gone awry” (9-10). This involuntarity notion encourages people to make decisions for autistic individuals based on the assumption that these individuals cannot voluntarily do so for themselves.

         Stuart Murray and Melanie Yergeau show the dangers of depicting autism as a condition both through research and personal experience. While the public still has varying opinions of autism, there are many who are cognizant of their impact on the community and the ways in which they can help. There is still a long way to go with showing people the autism community’s agency, but these two writers helped to display the dangers of handling autism the wrong way even while doing so with good intentions.

Bibliography

Murray, Stuart. Autism. New York, 2011.

Yergeau, Melanie. Introduction: Involution from Authoring Autism. n.d. PDF.

This event was empowering and eye-opening. For many people, domestic violence and sexual assault is something that should be hidden from the public. The speakers did an incredible job with showcasing the ways in which sexual assault and harassment affect each and every one of us even those who have not personally experienced it. Some of the speakers came from dysfunctional family environments where healthy relationships weren’t displayed very often. The first woman who spoke talked about her own personal experience with domestic violence. She was a marine who married another marine and she had what seemed like the perfect marriage. She grew up in a small town where things like sexual assault and domestic violence weren’t talked about or acknowledged. She told us that her breaking point was when one of her kids saw her husband lay a hand on her and that that was the last straw. She asked herself who would take care of her children if something happened to her and she didn’t want to put her kids through that. Another girl shared her story about having to see her abuser at school every day and how painful it was for her. I know all too well how that feels and her words helped remind me that I’m not alone.

            Throughout the event there were repeated messages of acknowledging the hurt and knowing that there will never be another one of ourselves. That we are strong and that we need to take back our power for ourselves and never let it go. There will never be anyone like you because there is only one you. They also mentioned that these things take time and that going to therapy is not a sign of weakness; it is a sign of strength.

            Natalie Illum, the keynote speaker, talked about her experiences with both assault and disability. She told us that one of her friends was assaulted too but she didn’t find out until much later which is usually how these things go. Natalie read us original poetry that showed her disbelief at how people tend to distrust victims of sexual assault. She wrote a poem about a poetry slam event that she went to. She wrote about 9, 10, 11 and 12 year old’s who read their original poems about their past sexual assaults. They were so very young. At the end of all of this, she said that she believes us and that it is time for us to own ourselves and what has happened to us. Even when and if perpetrators are not caught, the important thing to know is that it is not our fault nor was it ever our fault.

This event was empowering not only as a woman but as a human being. It is helping us take one more step forward in the effort to get rid of the stigma surrounding sexual assault and domestic violence. The speakers at the event helped remind me that I am not alone in what I, and many others, have experienced. All of these speeches resonated with me because of not only my experience but because of the experiences of all the strong women around me and the ways in which they were able to pick themselves up and start again.

Oscar Wilde’s tale offers a depiction of otherness that challenges us to scrutinize how we view and treat individuals that are different than ourselves. Wilde shows the cruelty and ignorance of mainstream society and how it affects allies of the community through the Dwarf’s ridiculed performance and the events that follow.

            The story starts and the nobles find the Dwarf and buy him for the Infanta’s birthday. It is disgusting, though not surprising, that the audience reacts to the Dwarf’s performance by laughing at him and insulting his physical appearance. Describing the Dwarf, Wilde writes, “when he stumbled into the arena, waddling on his crooked legs and wagging his huge misshapen head from side to side, the children went off into a loud shout of delight…” . In this section, he is defined by his appearance without knowing what he looks like. This can be connected to individuals with disabilities who don’t know that they have one and aren’t able to pick up on the ways in which they are treated. When the Infanta throws a white rose to the Dwarf as a joke, the Dwarf, “took the whole matter quite seriously, and pressing the flower to his rough coarse lips he put his hand upon his heart and sank on one knee before her, grinning from ear to ear, and with his little bright eyes sparkling with pleasure”. It is easy for people to hide their cruelty with subtle gestures. The fact that the Dwarf was not aware of his appearance made it easier for the Infanta to get away with her taunts and for the Dwarf to remain oblivious to it all.

            What’s interesting is how nature interacts with the Dwarf. The flowers mocked him by saying, “he should drink poppy-juice” and “if he comes near me I will sting him with my thorns”. These are violent threats and it is plausible that individuals with disabilities have heard variations of these phrases directed at them. Contrary to the flowers, the birds and lizards accepted the Dwarf. The birds said that, “they did not mind his being ugly, a bit” and “he had been kind to them[…] but had always given them crumbs out of his little hunch of black bread”. This shows that they saw the Dwarf as more than his appearance and saw him as a caring individual. What’s interesting to look at is how the flowers have a negative opinion of the birds and lizards simply because they don’t mind the Dwarf. The flowers say that, “they are mere vagrants like the gipsies, and should be treated in exactly the same manner”. They demonize them and loop them in with their hatred of the Dwarf because the birds and lizards are not ridiculing him. This shows a bit of the mob mentality and how being an ally to individuals with disabilities can be frightening.

            What’s so disheartening about this tale is the moment the Dwarf sees what he looks like. While trying to find the Infanta, he accidentally sees himself in a mirror and says, “it was he who was misshapen and hunchbacked, foul to look at and grotesque”. He is physically pained to see himself and realizes that the Infanta was mocking him with the white rose. What’s even more gruesome is the fact that the Infanta was only thinking of her own wants because at the end, when the Dwarf dies she says, “for the future, let those who come to play with me have no hearts”.

            While I don’t have personal experience with this, I feel like there is still a stigma surrounding people with disabilities. Even though this is a fictional tale, it reminded me that people are still capable of treating others like this.         

Word Count: 623

Bibliography

Wilde, Oscar. “The Birthday of the Infanta.” 1891. Wikisource. 28 January 2019.

I hereby declare upon my word of honor that I have neither given nor received unauthorized help on this work. – Sammie

My name is Samantha Meyers (I go by Sammie) and I am happy to be here! I love everything that has to do with music and also anything that looks cute/happy. Please enjoy this wholesome meme: