April Wobken
ENGL 384
Foss
4/26/2019
The Network of Thought of Dax and Baggs
Selene dePackh’s Troubleshooting articulately brings the message of the Autistic interpretation that Amanda Baggs conveys in her piece, Up in the Clouds and down in the Valley. Baggs describes the typical Autistic interpretation as the absence of something important; the absence of speech, of language, of thought, of movement, of comprehension, of feeling, and of perception. Though there is an absence to most perspectives, Baggs insists that there is more to it than simply an absence, rather a different angle. Troubleshooting’s Dax represents Baggs’s Autistic perspective in the following scenes: Dax’s perception of language into patterns, Dax’s struggle with heavily structured tasks, and when describing other’s perception of her due to her Autism.
Baggs describes her process of understanding her surroundings as starting with sensory impressions repeated long enough for her to become deeply familiar with them. Once the familiarity is established, the concept forms into patterns that evolve into a more complex network of patterns. This method applies to her understanding of sensory impressions and language. She reflects about first having to match words to their responses before she was able to understand the meaning of the words and why (Baggs). This understanding of a pattern is the dominate way she and Dax both describe understanding language. When first interacting with Chill, Dax describes the process of unpacking his words, “He’d been talking for a few before the first information made it to the appropriate parts of my brain…His sounds and expressions were coming into focus. He’d begun rephrasing what he’d probably already said…I was starting to get him synchronized” (dePachkh 3-5). Dax does not fully understand the words Chill speaks until she becomes familiar with the pattern. Even though language is universal, speech has a pattern and people must adapt and get used to each individual’s style, people all do this without thinking most of the time. Unless someone may have an accent or different dialect, the adjustment period might be a bit more difficult. The Autistic cognitive process affects her socializing, taking her at a fundamental level with each interaction, having to pay close attention to words without even understanding their meaning and ciphering through the absence of information. Dax describes herself as having to do this adjustment for each new interaction until she adjusts, she will often miss many important details of a conversation. The process is very exhausting for her and forces her to be very alert when trying to communicate effectively with others.
Baggs’s describes the autistic experience of being in the valley and in order to understand other people she must climb mountains and reach the sky, this process does not guarantee her a similar experience to those in the sky once she gets there. “It’s hard for me to climb that mountain all of the time though, so they are more rarely my experiences than those of others. Still, so many people from the mountain describe the valley only by what is not there, and that is not anywhere near a thorough enough description” (Baggs). This different experience is shown by how the contrast of Petra’s experience of Dax compares to Dax’s own experience of herself. When she first confronts Dax about having Autism she comes from an angle of doubt, saying that she does not see Dax as disabled and that Dax’s tattoo is fake. There is a stereotype that autism looks a certain way and like most unaware people, Petra seems to think that Dax is not “autistic enough” (dePackh 78-79). When Petra spends more time with Dax she realizes how much help Dax needs to function on the level that society requires of her and helps Dax complete her To-Do List. Once Petra leaves Dax struggles with her task management and is only able to catch up on her list when “The Mistake” moves in and manages it for her.
Autistic people are diminished into fragments of people merely due to their different cognitive ability that has no effect on their sexuality or possession of a soul, yet these two factors seem to include in the “package” of having autism to outsiders. Baggs describes that some of her deepest and most profound experiences from her different cognitive perception are simplified into an insulting and demeaning explanation of simply lacking language, thought, and a soul. This is reflected when Dax’s mother receives the diagnosis that her daughter is Autistic and starts treating her differently. Autism is misinterpreted into sociopathy by her mother, which is parallel to Baggs’s description of the stigma that Autistics lack a soul. Dax also reflects that people with autism are not seen as being able to have sexual desire, yet she proves that bias wrong throughout the book with explicit details of her sexual interactions and desires with/for Chill, Petra, and Angela.
Many characters approach Dax as if something is absent and she is not adequate as she is. Even though many people autistic or not, have short-comings or flaws it seems as if hers are more apparent due to the fact of her Autism. Dax does not seem bothered by her condition; she seems to function contentedly in her own skin/mind unless someone else gives her reason to feel difficulty due to discrimination. Dax does not despair about having Autism and it is like Amanda Bagg’s said, “Focusing on absence is the easiest way to describe the presence of something much more important to me than what is absent. Many autistic people have even applied these words to themselves. Some of us do this knowing full well that there is so much more that we cannot say” (Baggs). Dax seems to understand her surroundings as well as other people. The Mistake” is an able-bodied man and yet he seems to be the most challenged of all the characters: between his violence, anger, mixed signals/feelings towards Dax, and abusive behavior towards himself and Dax he seems to be the most impaired character. These narratives prove that absence can be anywhere, not just in an official “diagnosis”.
A person that is different cognitively is not
seen as a human being. Hence, justifying the cruel and unusual treatment at
Thunderbird Academy towards their patients and the general treatment of Autistic
in modern day culture. They believe that once they have bee “treated” then they
will deserve to be treated and acknowledged like everyone else until then they
are not a complete human. Autistics are not offered self-agency due to the belief
that Autism is worse than diseases such as measles or other preventable vaccinatable
diseases. Yet Baggs and Dax show the readers that Autistics have the ability to
feel deeply, desire, think deeply and express themselves through their stories.
Works Cited
Baggs, Amanda. “Up in the Clouds and Down in the Valley: My
Richness and Yours.” Disability Studies Quarterly, vol. 30, no. 1,
2009, doi:10.18061/dsq.v30i1.1052.
DePackh, Selene. Troubleshooting . Reclamation Press, 2018.
I pledge; I hereby declare upon my word of honor that I have neither given nor
received unauthorized help on this work. – April Wobken
