Pat Condell is an entertaining atheist widely followed on Youtube. I like most of what he publishes but I do cringe when I hear him use certain words like "idiot" and "moron", which aren't necessary to make his point. I also don't always feel comfortable with his certainty about religion because I'm an agnostic. He often makes blanket statements about religion and religious people as if they were a monolithic group. However, I do agree with so much of what he says that I can't help but enjoy listening to him.
I apologize to any believers out there that this video may offend. I don't like it when religious people quote scripture or prosletize to me. I post this video only as an offering of entertainment with some ideas in it that I share so people will understand that my widely known screen name has nothing to do with a religious belief, because I have none.
I do believe though, like Pat, that scripture has and is used to marginalize,codify and legitimize bigotry for some people that already have these beliefs to begin with.
37 total website visits today, and some of those were my own! That 37 includes people looking for the infamous "this is sparta" video and people looking for a BCBA. I need to go back to youtube:-( At least on Youtube I could get 5,000 video views a day without doing a thing. I had fame, I had fortune, I could justify $20,000 in video equipment to my wife, I coulda' been a star! Instead I'm a guy with a blog. Good grief. Take a look at this funny video while I wallow in self pity. I don't agree with some of the adjectives but I agree with the sentiment.
Sometimes interpersonal relationships can be difficult when one person requires a lot more than another person is able to give. Autistic people have been described as being "in their own world". My sister has said this very thing about me.
Before I met my wife, I had a number of failed relationships, mostly because of communication issues between me and my partner. However, the failed ones weren't always caused by my failure to communicate. Sometimes the relationships failed because I felt the need to control the other person. I don't mean control in a physical sense but more in a psychological sense. I had the need to control how that person felt about me and if I was really infatuated with them, I would "test" their love for me because I had this need to constantly receive reassurance that they did indeed like me as much as I liked them. At other times, my partner felt as though they had to constantly test me in the same way I had the need to test others.
When I turned 30, I finally figured this pattern out. I had this history of unhealthy relationships and one day it all just crystallized for me. Life and relationships are a series of interpersonal compromises. I had been attracted to women from a purely physical presentation. Whenever I dated, I was either pretending to be someone I wasn't or they were someone that wasn't healthy for me. So one day, after many years of solitude, I asked someone out that I thought would be good for me but this time, I decided to date someone I really would have had no interest in otherwise. She was bright, well educated and came from a background of struggle (much like me but much different than what I was normally attracted to).
Because I made the choice, to go outside my comfort zone, I married a woman that allows me to be myself, completely. She has never put a demand on me that I felt was unfair. She has never asked me to talk about things when I wasn't feeling up to it. And most important of all to me was she allowed me the solitude I need at times, with no "strings attached".
Many times, people are suspicious of someone that needs solitude and silence at points in their lives. The freedom to be alone at times is very important for me as this is when I can collect my thoughts the best and when things "crystallize" for me. But, for some reason, some people are very suspicious of this need and believe that there are other reasons for it other than what it is, a need for solitude. I believe autistic people do best, at least this one does, when their partner can recognize this need and still feel secure in their relationship.
The recognition for the need of solitude also extends to parents as well. I understand that there will be times when my son will not want to be around me but may want to be by himself and I don't worry about this nor see it as a sign of "regression". There are times when we need to be alone, and it is during this time that we can process our thoughts without distraction. When we are ready, we'll be back, refreshed and ready to exchange.
Below are some of my favorite quotes about solitude. Whenever you feel frustrated about an autistic person in your life, try to remember some of these quotes, which capture in beautiful words the inherent human need for solitude.
"What commentary on civilization, when being alone is being suspect; when one has to apologize for it, make excuses, hide the fact that one practices it, like a secret vice."
"Language has created the word 'loneliness' to express the pain of being alone, and it has created the word 'solitude' to express the GLORY of being alone."
"Solitude shows us what should be; society shows us what we are."
"I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers."
"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured, or far away."
"Inside myself is a place where I live all alone, and that's where I renew my springs that never dry up."
Written by Ed from Eds autism page
Thanks to CS for allowing me to post here.
One of the ways that many people who hold political high-ranking offices within the United States are found out as behaving inappropriately is by the way they are divided into groups. The two major current political parties or groups in the United States are Republicans and Democrats. The way that we (the public) know that Republicans are behaving inappropriately is because Democrats reported or make sure that it gets reported. The way that we (the public) know this about Democrats is because Republicans make sure of it. Without this competition how would we know?
But not all politics are divided this way. The reason that some violations of public officials who aren't a part of the Republican/Democrat system are hidden from the public for a longer period of time is because those who set regulations and are thought by the public to be enforcing those regulations choose to conveniently ignore or look the other way. They also often knowingly contribute to the problem and are in positions to set and enforce regulations for the very purpose of protecting the violations and the violators within their same (or a similar) branch of government.
Many who do this don't start out this way at all. First they must be tested by a particular branch of state or federal government to see whether or not they're willing to "play along" and accept the rewards of being a team player and move beyond (what is then considered) the naïve fulfillment of the responsibilities for which they may have been interested in when they entered the field.
The transition from being governed to being in charge of governing others seems to keep many in positions of being over governed (and given little if any opportunity to voice their view) which I see as contributing to an ugly and seemingly unending cycle of abuse.
I often hear typical standards for the responsibilities of adulthood described as this: At around 18 years of age a child/young adult is expected to move from their home and work towards securing an education job status and family. My view of how this becomes a standardized test is that the biggest barrier in securing this for many children/young adults is the abrupt, disconnected, over simplistic, unrealistic, and irresponsible nature of how the standard makers and enforcers operate. When kids don't make the shift early enough from knowing they will be trained to seeking training the whole system of these expectations and standards crumbles. No matter who people see as the victims of this system I rarely hear anyone say that this system isn't broken.
Maturity and responsibility are often discouraged by society because it's more convenient than encouragement and this becomes a very expensive habit.
Whether authority comes from parents, teachers, or someone who is granted this authority by the public, what should be responsibility is too often seen as entitlement. Direction and guidance too often becomes unnecessary control and manipulation when regulators don't get regulated.
What happens is we have generations of people within all age groups who were given few opportunities to take responsibility and learn the benefits of that responsibility getting treated for what they're doing wrong for so long and in such intense unnecessary ways that they never have the opportunity to see the benefits of what they can positively express.
When every behavior is seen as an emotional response and gets critiqued as unsophisticated, populations of people have their values made obsolete. If on the other hand behavior is seen as the result of a mental or spiritual defect it may become more convenient to dismiss that very same population of people as deserving of being ignored and other more severe types of punishment. The result is the same. They are branded inconvenient and ultimately obsolete.
Belittling Our Experiences and Silencing Our Voice by the Use of Terminology we are not familiar with.
I've noticed that oppressed groups are often taught that they do not and cannot understand the sophisticated language of their oppressors. I've seen that often when people were taught that something is beyond their capacity for learning they don't put many efforts into finding out whether this is true or not. Sometimes people's liberation is really not as far away as they are taught. I have also noticed that people who are caught up in the oppression of others sometimes have little understanding of what they do and how it is oppressive because their scope of understanding is limited to a realm where oppressed populations are not allowed to express their experience.
The places where I know this dynamics to be very true are within mental health agencies and institutions that accept funding from state and federal resources. The understanding of this dynamic begins with the acceptance that the US Mental Health System was never intended to provide for the needs of its consumers. It was designed to meet the needs of the public. It is a type of corrections Department where punishment is the primary method of enforcing behavioral standards.
I am writing here for the expeditious benefit of those people who do not require an explanation or proof that this is the case.
This is some of my experience
I have been in many mental institutions throughout my lifetime and have experienced as well as seen many atrocities. My first documented major period of regression began in 1974 when I was 11 years old, and it lasted for two years. I was not able to attend school during almost all of that time. My treatment included behavior modification by a specialist who worked with autistic people. What I have learned about behavioral psychology (including what I consider the worst aspects of it) is something that I see as playing a major role in all of what has been considered modern psychology throughout my lifetime.
I began taking psychiatric medication at age 11 and continue today to take these medications mainly as a result of how I have been given massive doses of ugly old anti psychotics (not because I ever needed them but because they are used in such places on everyone for restraint purposes to prevent problems and not because of them) along with receiving ECT treatments in places and at times when it was the treatment de jure. Such things cause interference with how the body uses dopamine (my neurologist recently told me) and are eventually just prescribed to people like me to prevent the pain and other problems that result from stopping them. People (me included) are expected to stay on them for life.
I think it's also important to remember here that along with other populations of people that were considered more disposable, autistics were tested with LSD during the early experimental phases of testing the drug. My experience with being tested for safety (efficiency is hardly an issue in such testing) of other medications is that there are few restrictions for how much of these medicines are given in cases where those who receive them are seen as the least likely to recover and the least likely to tell about the inappropriate ways they are treated.
It's also important to remember that the current estimate is that people who use psychotropic medication are seen as dying 25 years younger than other people. My experience is that most die even earlier of health issues related to these drugs. Very few advancements are made in reducing the side effects of the drugs as compared to medicines that treat more popular populations of people.
I believe behavior is seen as the cause of (or what needs fixing in regards to) learning disabilities, psychological and psychiatric problems, and certainly many neurological problems as well. I believe that one of the main reasons that autistics are treated more severely within all these classifications (which I have been described having all of them at different times since birth) has a lot to do with how what is all too quickly determined as misbehavior is treated with the worst forms of punishment. In a typical institutional environment, I think autistics are the least adaptable to these harsh environments which can lead to a cycle of gross misunderstandings and the worst kinds of treatment.
Rather than referring to the critical nature of how any type of behavioral treatment for autistics is being overly generalized and ambiguous, I believe there it is instead more of a problem that there is an over generalization of how autistics are seen as well as a bigger problem with how really bad punishments result from peoples lack of willingness to understand.
My experience has been that this is worse in (what I call) mental warehouses where everyone gets treated in the worst way, and is given the least opportunity to express any of their needs (the most of which is often protection), and is discouraged in the most extreme ways from even seeing or referring to themselves in anyway as targets of abuse when that challenges the authority of where they are or the staff there.
I have chosen some parts of the following articles that best represent my points. I have also made personal comments that I thought relevant. My comments are in bold.
It's likely that the staff was trained to see such expressions as over reacting or "faking it" and so they ignore what they would claim was inappropriate behavior. I have often seen people much sicker than was thought be ignored by staff.
In addition, the organization said, hospital staff falsified Green’s records to cover up the time she had lain there without assistance.
People have to be trained to hide what is relevant to an investigation which to me means that they knew how and that they probably had done such things before....but ooops, someone must have forgot about the camera.
The hospital, the suit alleges, lacks "the minimal requirements of basic cleanliness, space, privacy, and personal hygiene that are constitutionally guaranteed even to convicted felons."
I've often heard it said by fellow patients within state mental institutions where I've been that jail is better. Mental patients don't need to be seen as bad or wrong in order to be punished because it's already assumed that our behavior is the result of a defect. Our need for punishment doesn't need to be justified as anything more than routinely necessary to deal with people who can't do any better. No outside sources have ever asked me or anyone that I know inside of one of these hospitals what the conditions were like a weather abuse was happening.
If someone is released they often very quickly learn that outside sources that are said to listen to reports of abuse are paid for silence and talk to discourage, intimidate, and ignore if possible, any reporters that they see.
Continually failing to address hospital fatalities and violence, the letter said, caused similar deaths to multiply and left patients vulnerable to sexual assaults and other attacks.
Federal investigators, the letter said, found that medical and nursing care "substantially depart from generally accepted professional standards." They also determined that the hospital provides inadequate psychiatric treatment; uses seclusion and restraint, including sedatives, inappropriately; and fails to "adequately protect its patients from harm."
"The harm," the letter said, "can be fatal."
Seclusion, restraint, and sedatives are often linked to fatalities both investigated and uninvestigated as well as often being justified as necessary. I rarely if ever see staff in places as bad as this accept the responsibility of looking for other options and spend most of their time putting out fires that they are involved in starting by either aggression or neglect .
The department's letter, obtained Wednesday by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, resulted from an investigation that began in April 2007. The inquiry's findings - unnecessary patient deaths, abuse by staff members, uncontrolled fighting among patients, overuse of medications, poor planning for patient care after discharge, shoddy or nonexistent investigations of serious incidents - echo a series of articles in the Journal-Constitution, "A Hidden Shame," published in 2007.
The newspaper reported that at least 136 patients died under suspicious circumstances at the seven state hospitals from 2002 through late 2007. In addition, the newspaper said, state officials substantiated nearly 200 cases of patient abuse by hospital employees during that period.
136 patients died under suspicious circumstances and in addition to hundred cases of patient abuse by hospital employees.... In five years.... Once it is seen how much effort is actually put into looking for this abuse it's hard to see how this much smoke would not indicate a much bigger fire.
Investigators said they found "troubling patterns" of patient aggression on adolescent and adult units: repeat victims, repeat assailants, multiple assailants ganging up on a single victim. Assaults frequently caused serious injuries that required emergency room treatment, the letter said, including broken bones and head wounds.
"The repeated and significant level of violence on the units suggests a fundamental failure to address the root causes of patients' aggression," the letter said, "and demonstrates a failure to intervene adequately to prevent future incidents."
In many cases, investigators found, hospital officials simply don't investigate incidents - or, if they do, they conduct woefully inadequate inquiries.
Most cases is probably more accurate.
AND
The hospital failed to react when staff mistakes resulted in patient deaths, the letter said.
It cited the February 2006 death of Sarah Elizabeth Crider, a 14-year-old Cobb County girl whose case was highlighted in a Journal-Constitution article. The day before she died, the letter said, Crider complained of stomach pain and had nausea and vomiting.
Most rather than many anti psychotic medications have this side effect.
Three days later, the letter said, a 33-year-old patient died at the same hospital after his "medical concerns were mishandled," including the failure to monitor his bowel functions. And that December, 59-year-old Michael Webb died after more than two weeks without a bowel movement - information never flagged on his medical chart, the letter said.
Since an enema is considered medicine, a nurse must "administer" it which can discourage some patients from asking. Administering them when asked is whats called "monitoring."
The hospital's staff, investigators found, "often fail to provide even the most basic care, opting instead for a reactive approach in which patients' medical needs are addressed only after problems develop."
Uh huh.
Investigators said they found "troubling patterns" of patient aggression on adolescent and adult units: repeat victims, repeat assailants, multiple assailants ganging up on a single victim. Assaults frequently caused serious injuries that required emergency room treatment, the letter said, including broken bones and head wounds.
"The repeated and significant level of violence on the units suggests a fundamental failure to address the root causes of patients' aggression," the letter said, "and demonstrates a failure to intervene adequately to prevent future incidents.
"In many cases, investigators found, hospital officials simply don't investigate incidents - or, if they do, they conduct woefully inadequate inquiries.
Uh huh.
In one case, investigators found documents had been removed from the medical file of a patient who had attempted suicide. The documents described irregularities in the patient's care: Staff members had failed to watch the woman as a doctor had ordered, and one had gotten into a shouting match with the patient shortly before the suicide attempt.
Removed documents from yet ANOTHER facility.
Removing the documents from the file was "highly irregular," the Justice Department letter said. "Equally disconcerting," the letter added, was hospital officials' failure to investigate why the documents were removed.
Highly irregular huh? I imagine it's not in the employee handbook.
Repeatedly, investigators documented situations in which hospital employees violated standard procedures. They cited the case of a patient who has been admitted to Georgia Regional 107 times; her treatment plan has rarely varied, and no one has assessed why she repeatedly returned to the hospital.
107 times the woman was readmitted. At least the justice department knows what is Highly irregular. :0
"Patients routinely are discharged to places such as homeless shelters, motels and bus stops, the letter said, noting that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 1999 case that shelters, for instance, were "inappropriate.discharge locations."
The hospital offered assurances about its treatment of its patients, both those youths placed in DCFS custody after being abused or neglected and patients with violent histories and mental problems.
and:
In all, records indicate at least 10 mentally disabled children were assaulted at Riveredge during the last three years, six by other youths and four by adults.
In one 2007 incident, an alleged rape of a 19-year-old by another teen in a bathroom was not reported to police and the alleged victim was not treated, even though workers found drops of blood in the bathroom.
and
According to government records, the attacker allegedly raped the same victim again the next day.
whom should she tell? whom might she believe is listening?
Attorney General Beau Biden said DPC failed to prevent physical and emotional abuse of patients by employees and other patients, failed to correctly use chemical and physical restraints, neglected patiens and used "unjustifiable force" against patients, in addition to other violations.
In July 2007, DPC patient Preston Hudson's jaw was broken on both sides of his face. Hudson told his family that two attendants had attacked him.
My experience has been that very few people who are highly regarded in society as living in civilized environments have any idea what degree of extreme abuse is routinely described as "justifiable force."
Below is the real life consequence of hate speech masquerading as a religious/political/personal belief:
By DUNCAN MANSFIELD, Associated Press Writer
Knoxville's police chief says the man accused of a shooting that killed two people at a Tennessee church targeted the congregation because of its liberal social stance.
Chief Sterling Owen IV said Monday that police found a letter in Jim D. Adkisson's car. Owen said Adkisson was apparently frustrated over being out of work and had a "stated hatred of the liberal movement."
Adkisson is charged with first-degree murder. Police say a gunman entered the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church during a children's performance Sunday. No children were hurt.
The church is known for advocating women's and gay rights and founding an American Civil Liberties Union chapter.
Similar to autism, no single gene has been found to identify homosexuality. However, to say homosexuality or autism is a choice (see Michael Savage on autism and brats), seems to rely more on religious and or political/personal beliefs than a scientific belief.
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