#autismeowing

On December 7, 2020, Yale released a research article, where they detailed a study done on autistic 2-year-olds. I don't even think they had actually turned two yet. They did this study to find out if autistics feel fear, and how they express it. That already sounds ridiculous, right? Of course autistic people feel fear. We are human beings. In fact, we often feel fear even more intensely than neurotypical people. Why did they need this study? It's already known that autistics feel fear, and often express it differently. Any autistic person can tell you that.

But wait - that's not all. In this study, they took these autistic toddlers and put them in a room with someone who was not allowed to speak to them. They repeatedly terrified these babies with mechanical spiders, robots, and grotesque masks, giving them between 30 and 70 seconds to respond. Autistic people do not process emotional information this quickly, so they absolutely were not given adequate time to recover.

They scared them over and over, to the point that parents were begging to have their children taken out. This part I can't verify for sure, as it is something I heard from multiple other people and haven't read elsewhere, so take that with a grain of salt.

What the hell? How is this okay? How did this study even happen? Things like this have long been considered unethical. It's 2020. Not 1820. This is abuse. It is so wrong on so many levels.

Even that isn't all. Yale University has social media pages, of course. And, of course, autistic people are understandably angry at them. Many people have been asking them to speak on this. To explain why they did this. To admit they were wrong to do this. Yale has been blocking these people. I've seen multiple screenshots proving this.

As of today, I saw their Instagram has been replying to comments, giving them a link to a statement they finally made, after being battered by comments that I guess they couldn't keep up with. In this response, which I read, they reiterate the study and what was done in it, and say that the children were only experiencing mild distress. But, with breaks that short in-between scares, and the nature of the study in the first place, this still seems wrong to me. It sounds like an excuse.

Just because children would "encounter these in everyday life" doesn't mean they should have those things repeatedly thrown in their faces in the name of "science". They didn't have to use babies, who don't have any understanding of what's happening to them. And why block so many people, who are all asking valid questions? Why ignore them, only until you can't handle the criticism anymore? There are much better ways to study fear in autistic people. Especially when this information is already known.

Here is the link to the study: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/aur.2448

Here is the link to their statement: https://medicine.yale.edu/news-article/29344/

Unfortunately, you have to pay to read the study. But you can read the description, and if you are in a college or university that has it in their databases, you can read it for free.

If you have Instagram, @actuallyautistictiktoks has a story highlight with videos from different people in the autistic community talking about this. At least one video shows screenshots of the paper.

As you can probably tell, I and many others are very upset about this whole situation. I don't think their response way okay or enough. They shouldn't have started with blocking people. They should have been upfront. Everything they say about it sounds like excuses to me.

Read it and interpret it however you want. You are allowed to have your opinion, and take the evidence however you want.

Autism is a spectrum of many different traits, which means that there are people in both groups - extremely empathetic autistics, as well as autistics that have lots of trouble with naturally feeling empathy. There are also plenty of people in-between. I think with advocating for ourselves, a lot of times, we focus too much on pushing only one idea, when we should be making sure everyone is represented - not just one group (the empaths, for example).

If we keep pushing just one idea, sure, we will definitely change peoples' views. However, we're leaving out the autistic people who don't experience empathy, and we need to make sure they feel seen, too. We need to make sure neurotypical people understand that autism is a spectrum, with every single trait varying from one person to the next. We are not all the same. We don't want to create a new stereotype in place of an old one, right? That would cause plenty of new issues.

This is the same with pushing that we are all filled with emotions, all the time. I am on the hyper-empathetic, hyper-emotional side, but there are so many people who are not. Many autistic people have something called alexithymia, which affects their ability to recognize their emotions. This is common in people who have low introception (the ability to detect physical needs). There's a misconception that it means they don't have feelings, which is not true at all. It just means they have trouble recognizing what physical feelings mean in relation to emotions, causing them to have trouble identifying which emotion they're experiencing. Someone with alexithymia might be really sad or really angry, but aren't able to tell. They just know they don't feel good.

If you want to read more about this, @pixiesbigwhy on Instagram recently made a great post about autistic people and empathy. Pixie does lack empathy, and has trouble with introception, so they are more qualified to speak on that than I am. They also have many more very informative posts on many different subjects.

so. my boyfriend broke up with me. after 2 years and 8 months, he decided he no longer feels anything for me. he disappeared for several days, saying he was taking care of his mom's cat, before that almost constantly with his friends or elsewhere. He showed up briefly with my girlfriend (who also broke up with me, and our other boyfriend) and then promptly left. I had one of the worst meltdowns of my life immediately after, but I managed to separate myself from the situation and go into a bathroom before it began. I still have bruises all over.

I haven't seen him since.

I feel like I never got a chance to talk to him. to make things right. not because I didn't try, because I tried so hard to be respectful of him and also communicate with him. it was because he isolated himself from me and hid the truth constantly. I thought he loved me, but I guess he didn't love me enough to try and repair things with me.

he and my girlfriend told me they just weren't feeling an "emotional connection" anymore, and that we never spent enough time together. which isn't my fault. I was nearly always available, and my boyfriend was always off with his friends or somewhere else, and my girlfriend spent over half of her time at another boyfriend's. my other boyfriend and I were the only ones who were sleeping in the same bed. they both chose to sleep in different beds for months (occasionally together), and whenever I tried to cuddle, I was told I was "pushing them off the bed" or they didn't reciprocate. they made me feel like it was my fault and like I was the one who hadn't tried. I tried my absolute fucking hardest to repair the connections that were breaking, apparently even worse than I thought. even my therapist was fooled. she basically agreed that I was over-thinking things.

turns out I wasn't. I wish they had talked to me before dumping me. I wish they had listened to me when I tried, and reciprocated when I offered affection. They tried a little, but not nearly as much as with each other, and I felt like I was the fourth wheel of my own relationship. and there was absolutely no communication on their parts. I guess I wasn't imagining it after all. It was real.

I won't say I was perfect in the relationship. I've fucked up, too, plenty of times. but never intentionally, never to hurt anyone, and I always apologized and tried to repair things afterwards. I feel like neither of them made much of an effort to understand me or listen to me. my boyfriend in particular used to be much better at it, but one day he just stopped trying. and he stopped telling me his feelings.

If I can pinpoint a time where it began, I'd say around the beginning of the pandemic. I definitely think that helped to affect our relationship. it certainly didn't make things less stressful.

I lost my best friends. I lost the first person who made me feel like someone truly cared about me. I never thought I would. but I especially don't know if I can even try to be friends with my now ex-boyfriend at this point. I feel so confused and so hurt. I feel betrayed.

it's been 8 days since this happened. I am already managing to distract myself and move on better than I thought I would. I think it's because of how many other terrible situations I've managed to get through. The trauma I have experienced has both somewhat numbed me and made it easier to remember that even the worst things will end. that doesn't mean that this isn't destroying me inside and fucking with my mental health (I was already in burnout and now it's even worse, for example), but if there's one good thing I can take from this, it's that I have grown and I will get through this. even though my heart is broken and I am in intense pain, it will be over eventually, and it'll be easier not to think about them. I just have to keep reminding myself of that.