Hello family, thank you for clicking on this and taking the time to read. I am writing this on behalf of a member of one of our own, Miranda, known to a lot of the tumblr fam as @blindpandabear or even just lovingly as our very own Randa.
Some of you might be aware that back in March of 2017, Randa escaped from a physically dangerous and violent situation involving her abusive parents. She managed to get to NY where the promise of living with friends was an option, but since then those offers have fallen through and Randa was living out of her car on the streets until she was able to find employment and an understanding landlady to let her rent a room.
Unfortunately Randa was forced to leave that employment due to mental and emotional abuse at the hands of her employers, who also often failed to pay her on time and even asked her to commit insurance fraud on their behalf, telling her to doctor important forms involving a client through photoshop. Randa reported this to the relevant authorities and was subsequently forced to leave for reasons of safety. This prompted an investigation that is still ongoing and may be for some time, but still leaves Randa without reliable support or income.
To add injury to this forced departure, Randa tried to claim unemployment through The Department of Labor, which she was granted, until her former employer protested the claim, leading to a review wherein the Department sided with her employer and denied her claim. Insurance fraud, tax evasion and documented abuse with eye witness accounts and all.
We are attempting to appeal this sanction, but in the meantime Randa could really use help getting back on her feet and into a place of relative stability. She can and does do freelance work as a graphics designer (including designs for my own merchandise and the formatting of my cover work for my upcoming novel which I will link so you can see examples of her recent work) and is willing and able to take on work any of you might have, but until then she needs to be able to cover rent, food and medical costs for her extremely severe PTSD (diagnosed in July after a mental breakdown) and other health issues. Thankfully most of her diagnosis testing to find out why she is having blackout episodes (previously suspected to be seizures) is covered by Medicaid, but there are some things she needs to pay for on her own and they are vital towards recovering her health in order to better find more permanent work.
If you know Randa, you will know she is one of the kindest, most sweetest people there is to know, and is always first in line to help others wherever she can. We know $5000 seems like a lot, but we are hoping $5000 will be enough to bide her some time and pay off some of the more urgent debt, as well as help to keep the roof over her head until at least January when we hope to have something figured out. At the moment she’s living day to day with no money for food and relying on the help of friends to sometimes even eat one meal a day. Any help would be so very greatly appreciated, but please, only give what you can, and if you can’t give, please share. Thank you
-tumblr mom x
Apologies for the typos and double posting fam, if you’re not aware the youcaring page takes 5 minutes to update after you make an edit and I’m doing this in a blind panic trying to get Randa the help she needs so it’s a bit chaotic. If you can signal boost again with correct info and grammar that’d be fantastic. Thank you so much ❤
fight the australian government’s military violence towards refugees
The situation for refugees on Manus Island has always been pretty brutal but the Australian government has been ramping things up through military violence over the last few days and weeks and the situation is more urgent than ever.
As much as the new accomodation the refugees are being moved to is sub-par and unsuitable, this isn’t just about the accomodation. These people have been locked up and imprisoned for over four years for simply trying to flee war and persecuation (that the Australian government has often participated in) and want to come to Australia to join their families and be safe. This is about freedom.
Racism towards refugees has always been a particularly useful tool to Australian politians, providing a scapegoat while wages, education, and healthcare keep being cut back at home, and both major political parties have been perfectly happy to sit back and let these atrocities happen.
We need to continue to put pressure on the Australian Government and make this an issue that they can no longer continue to ignore and stand in solidarity with those who have been protesting for weeks and continue the fight for them.
What can we do about it?
If you don’t live in Australia: share this urgently and sign the petition
If you do live in Australia: come to the protests happening in every major city THIS SATURDAY AND SUNDAY (25th and 26th of November)
Sending out many good vibes to all those who have to endure emotionally abusive families this Thanksgiving. If they try to hurt you or gaslight you, please tell yourself that it is not you. It is them and their own issues. No matter what they say or do, the abuse was and is not your fault. It will always be theirs. Please lay the fault where it belongs–with the abuser. Also remember to check in with yourself and how you are feeling throughout the day. Give yourself permission to set boundaries, to say no, to leave early or walk away if you get triggered, or to even choose not to spend time with them this Thanksgiving. Let them get angry–that’s their issue. Please take care of yourself and your mental health. You have a right to make yourself a priority. ❤️
More commonly, repeated abuse is not actively sought out but rather is passively experienced as a dreaded but unavoidable fate and is accepted as the inevitable price of relationship. Many survivors have such profound deficiencies in self-protection they can barely imagine themselves in a position of agency or choice. The idea of saying no to the emotional demands of a parent, spouse, lover, or authority figure may be practically inconceivable. Thus, it is not uncommon to find adult survivors who continue to minister to the wishes and needs of those who once abused them and who continue to permit major intrusions without boundaries or limits.
I’m currently enrolled in an ABA graduate program, and I have learned a lot so far. My issue with the program is their stance on stereotypy.
We have a student who emits a lot of stereotypy–nothing self-injurious, but definitely present. He jumps up, shakes his hands/legs, and scrunches up his face. He does this while playing, eating, etc.
My problem is that I am instructed to tell him to have “quiet hands,” and to only give him attention/praise when he doesn’t engage in these behaviors. I reallllly hate this because it is a method of self-soothing, and he isn’t hurting himself or others.
Does anyone have any literature–or personal experiences–on the benefits of emitting stereotypy? I really don’t want to suppress his stimming because I feel that it goes beyond the realm of helping them socialize (such as teaching sharing and communicating with peers), and crosses over into the “making them seem neurotypical” side.
oh, hey, figured out how to make my browser show reblog buttons
Long story short: I know lots of adult autistics, and this crap is why they mostly regard ABA as horrifying abuse.
What are the benefits of adjusting to a comfortable position? Blowing your nose when it’s stuffed? Scratching at itches? They make you more comfortable and reduce stress and make you happier and more effective at basically everything. And consider the phrase “talk with your hands”, as applied to, say, different cultural norms, like people who guesture expansively while talking. (I’ve seen this in ads for Italian restaurants as a way they express the kind of atmosphere they aim for.) A lot of these are things non-autistics also sometimes do!
So basically, your instincts are right, your teachers are horrifying torturers, and I have no good ideas on how to suggest improving this situation. But also, be aware that in general, ABA’s entire model is based on… well, you know the myth that autistics have no “theory of mind”? ABA is based on having no “theory of other mind not identical to my own”. If a person isn’t just like us, they must not be aware or intelligent. It’s nonsense. The people I know who have had good results trying to help kids learn to blend in when it’s socially necessary do so by explaining the thing. “There’s a convention that people expect you to behave this way because if you don’t you seem different and they don’t like things that are different. So sometimes it’s useful to be able to stop those behaviors for a bit so people feel more comfortable.”
It’s a budgeting thing. I can totally act neurotypical-ish for quite a while, but it burns spoons and makes me less productive. I do it when it’s useful enough to justify the costs.
I broadly agree with this, but my understanding is that describing ABA — at least in the strict Lovaasian sense — is premised not so much on “no theory of mind not identical to my own” as “no theory of mind, period, except as a black box taking stimuli and contexts for those stimuli as inputs and generating behaviors as outputs.” Or, to put it another way, “no theory of phenomenal consciousness,” or “no theory of qualia.”
Because behaviors are observable by the practitioner and qualia are not, which makes attempting to produce joy orabout causing suffering unscientific.
Statements the subject makes about their experiences of joy or suffering are observable, of course, but those are themselves behaviors, and can be targeted for modification just like any other behaviors. Trying to make a child be happy is unscientific; trying to make a child smile, assert that they are happy, and/or tell their parents how grateful they are for the therapy they have received and how greatly it has improved their lives, on the other hand? Those are all perfectly valid goals, as success in achieving them can be assessed in an objective fashion.
It’s not that autistic kids (and gender non-conforming kids — Lovaas was also a pioneer in scientific conversion therapy) specifically are p-zombies. It’s just that anyone could be a p-zombie, and so there’s no reason to treat them as anything else.
So why modify a kid’s hand-flapping or feminine mannerisms instead of their parents’ attitudes toward those traits? Well, because the behavior that the practitioner wants out of the parents is for them to give the practitioner money and praise for their successful correction of the child’s deviance.
I’m not sure if this is really more or less horrifying than the version you describe, but it’s certainly different.
Of course, there’s the further complication that since “ABA” is considered to be an evidence-based treatment for autism, many insurance companies will cover “ABA” and not anything else. Which creates an incentive for people who are doing anything that could reasonably be described as analysing behavior and applying the results of that analysis to call what they’re doing “ABA,” even if their attitudes toward phenomenal consciousness are vastly different from Lovaas’s.
Which then muddies the waters further in trying to discuss how fucked up ABA in the strict sense is, since there are people out there who can honestly say “I received ABA, and it was nothing like what you were describing.”
OP, since you asked for references, here’s a few I dug up:
The other thing I’d add is that you’ve likely been lied to about the evidence base for ABA. Other people I’ve talked to who were trained in ABA were taught that ABA is the only evidence based treatment for autism, than ABA has been shown to be better than other things, and that ABA has a good body of high-quality evidence supporting it.
These, by the standards of any other disorder, are lies.
There’s a lack of RCTs in ABA literature. This means that when you have a group of kids, who have improved over the years they’ve been given ABA, you can’t determine causation. The RCTs which have been done are typically very small, and don’t show the huge benefits that low quality “studies” do. Standards for acceptable treatment are apparently lower for us than other people. http://autismcrisis.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/what-history-tells-us-about-autism.html
Also ask yourself, why, for an intervention that’s been occuring for over 20 years, no one has done an RCT followup – to show that ABA has benfits long term. If a treatment doesn’t have a benefit 5 years down the line, is it worth it?
Ask yourself why this method of treatment is acceptable for autistic children, but neither widespread or acceptable for other groups? What about us makes it ok to treat us like this?
You can show with ABA that it’s usually possible to dog train a child out of a particular behaviour. But you haven’t shown that it’s beneficial to the child. That’s an assumption in the “socially significant behaviour” thing, not a fact.
Also, our movements are atypical in lots of ways. For some of us, happy flapping is equivalent to smiling. Imagine someone trying to dog train you out of smiling. And – this is what you’re describing. You’re defining a child “scrunching up his face” as stereotypy?? That sounds like a slightly odd facial expression, which is what you’d expect for a child with a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects motor things. Because autism is not a behavioural disorder.
Imagine an adult has the power to decide which of your facial expressions they don’t like, and then spend hours every day bribing and punishing you until you don’t make it anymore. Would you look back on this fondly?
All the other good commentary aside, the face scrunching in particular also made me wonder about the possibility of tics. Which are rather common among autistic people, and too often get treated as something even non-autistic kids should be able to control.
(From one study: “Among individuals with ASDs, 22 percent presented tic disorders: 11 percent with Tourette disorder (TD), and 11 percent with chronic motor tics.”)
How well are these getting distinguished from “stereotypies” to be trained out? I’ve had to wonder this before.
(As someone who had enough trouble over tics which were treated as purposely disruptive, yes.)
so, me, my brother and my mother had to physically fight my dad back in september and have him arrested. he’s out of the house now, but he lost his job as a result of being charged with 2nd degree assault, and he’s also an abusive asshole, so we can’t depend on him for any help.
me and my brother are both on workstudy, so we’re only making enough cash to cover the basics. we found out that my dad hadn’t paid utilities (electricity, water) in awhile, and we have mortgage payments coming up at the end of the month. the car also refused to turn on until we got a jump, and we know that the engine already has problems, (and i’m praying that it’s not both, bc i’m already paying for the diagnostic). my mother is looking for work, but hasn’t found anything yet.
honestly, i could really, really, use the help. me and my brother are trying to support my mom and sister the best we can.
I was never ever allowed to say any of it was bad, and it led to me having a long string of…friends and acquaintances that I’d just put up with, because I’d been taught over and over that if you care about someone, you put up with abusive behavior.
Way too close to home, in multiple senses. I couldn’t even really start processing just how fucked-up some behavior was until I had been out of the situation for a few years. Had trouble even admitting how bad some of it was to myself.
What’s extra bad is that I don’t think my mother ever figured out in her own life that emotionally abusive behavior isn’t just something you have to put up with. Which really doesn’t excuse spreading the joy and taking out her own problems on other people, but yeah. Trying very hard here not to keep some patterns rolling.
(Disclaimer on some framing in the original linked comment. Not surprisingly, one of the big things that kept getting used against me was my own supposed craziness. And I really don’t want to turn that around on anybody else. How you choose to treat other people is the relevant thing, no matter what else is going on.)
We have government agencies providing resources for this initiative and they are now considering ongoing financial support, but it is critical that we show that this project has strong public backing.
All Donations Now Matched Until December 31st.
We have already raised $150K, half of our total goal. If our GoFundMe Campaign is successful, we can wrap up our fundraising by the end of the year and open Canada’s first Family Shelter for Abused Men and Children in 2018!
************************************************** Hello and welcome to the Canadian Centre for Men and Families. The Centre has become a place of hope and transformation for boys, men and fathers in our community who often come to us when no other support is available. And now we and they need you.
Since we opened our doors, every day we get calls from men desperately searching for a safe haven from an abusive partner. Many of these callers are fathers with children and they have no place to go.
Now imagine you and your child live each day in fear of violence, but no one believes you because you’re a man. That is the situation for thousands of fathers every year. Although it may be hard to believe, Statistics Canada data and sociological research is clear: men suffer domestic abuse at rates comparable to women, yet their access to vital support services including crisis centres and emergency counselling is almost non-existent.
The critical missing piece are domestic abuse shelters for fathers and children. Single father families are the fastest growing family form in Canada. Yet while the caregiving role of dads quickly expands, fathers who are suffering violence in the home still have no safe place where they can escape with their children.
If governments are reluctant to step up then it’s time for you and I to lead by example. That’s what an amazing team of philanthropists did when they donated $150,000 to build Toronto’s first Family Shelter for Abused Men and Children. That means we’re already half way to our goal. And now to help us get to the finish line, we have a backer who has stepped up to match your contributions – dollar for dollar – up until $50,000, only until December 31st.
This could be the game changer we’ve been waiting for, but only if we each take the initiative.
In the last few years, shelters for abused men and children have begun to pop up in small towns in places like Arkansas and Texas, but if we’re successful here we will open the first shelter for abused men and children in any metropolitan municipality in North America. If we’re successful we can be the lifeline for so many families in desperate need of help. If we’re successful the effects will be felt far beyond Toronto for we will have sparked a critical change in the conversation around gender and victimization, and that means more support for all vulnerable families.
This is is your chance to guarantee that success and to be a part of this landmark initiative.
The time has come for all of us to take a bold step. Your support is absolutely critical for us to capitalize on the foundation that has been built.
That’s why we are asking you to please make a gift at this time and to and work with us to bring the first shelter for abused men and children to Canada’s largest city. All donations receive a charity receipt, which means you could get up to 40% back in tax benefits.
We are offering a variety of rewards for different levels of contribution. Please note that you will receive all rewards both at your level and at all levels below.
Thank you so for your interest. We are eager to join forces with you on a special project that will greatly improve many lives.
BOOST THE SHIT OUT OF THIS!!! BOOST THE SHIT OUT OF THIS!!! BOOST THE SHIT OUT OF THIS!!! BOOST THE SHIT OUT OF THIS!!! BOOST THE SHIT OUT OF THIS!!! BOOST THE SHIT OUT OF THIS!!!
So Scientology has recently been purchasing ad spots on social media sites including Twitter and Facebook. Scientology has always worked hard to recruit young people it seems like they’re investing in social media as well now. I know most people think Scientology is a joke but it’s a seriously dangerous cult which uses fear, extortion, violence, vandalism and various other unethical actions against those who oppose them both inside and outside the church. Here is key information on the abuses committed by Scientology:
•Scientology uses a form of pseudo-therapy called auditing which focuses largely on embarrassing and traumatic memories. Scientology collects the information you share and uses that information to threaten you if you oppose the church. They also charge huge amounts of money for auditing sessions (which is why they really are doing all this).
•They are extremely anti-psychology and psychiatry and pressure you against taking any antidepressants, anti-anxiety medication or any other drugs for mental health.
•They believe homosexuality can be “cured” and are blatantly homophobic. •Enemies of the church are labeled “suppressive persons” and it is forbidden to communicate with such people. This isn’t just to limit the negative press they receive but also is a manipulative tool. If you are in the cult and decide to leave or criticize the church you stand the risk of being completely cut off from your friends and family. “Suppressive Persons” are often also harassed, stalked, or threatened.
•If you’re new to Scientology and your family or friends are worried about you being in a cult you’re instructed to cut them out of your life, increasing your reliance on the support system (though there’s nothing supportive about it) the church give to you.
•Scientology’s doctrine includes the concept of “Fair Game”. This basically says that those who are judged a threat to the Church can be punished and harassed by any and all means possible.
•Because of this, they have no moral qualms about having their members lie in court which they use to defend themselves from lawsuits or charges that they’ve broken the law and also to help win lawsuits against their enemies. •They essentially spied on and stole information from the IRS and tried to frame the mayor of Clearwater Florida for a hit and run.
•Scientology filed 50 different lawsuits in one year against the Cult Awareness Network, an anti-cult organization. Using false testimony they won one of the suits and because the organization couldn’t pay the fine Scientology took the organizations name and logo so if you were calling to get out of Scientology you’d be unknowingly telling Scientology of your intentions. (For full transparency my mom was a member of the Cult Awareness Network before it was taken over and was sued individually by the Church of Scientology)
•Scientology has an official branch known as the Sea Org, a mixture between a paramilitary group and slavery, comprised of their most dedicated members including many children/teens who’ve been raised in Scientology. This is where some of the most rampant and terrifying abuse in Scientology occurs.
•Sea Org members often work over 100 hours a week for Scientology for around 2$ per hour.
•Sea Org member’s living conditions are terrible; they live in overcrowded communal rooms with up to 12 other people, are not given healthcare unless there is a free clinic in the area, often are forced to miss meals or sleep in order to successfully completed their work.
•Several former Sea Org members have accused the church of physical abuse. •Sea Org members may not have children and women who have become pregnant have reportedly been forced/coerced by their higher-ups to have abortions.
•Leaving Sea Org without permission automatically makes you a suppressive person, so young adults who’ve been raised in Scientology who want to leave are cut off from everyone they’ve ever known with no money or job and getting permission to leave can require 3 years of hard labor, social isolation, and group pressure.
it’s one of the scariest “religions” you’ll ever meet if not THE scariest because it was PURPOSELY created to make money. unlike most cults that do have some seed of genuine belief however twisted and off base the founders are, scientology was never a belief system – it was a get rich quick scheme for a terrible hack author who saw that there was more money to be made in manipulating people into a cult and then not letting them leave. higher and higher levels of scientology, which you have to take to be truly “clear” aka free of evil spirits, will cost you thousands and even millions of dollars. they will literally hook you into a billion year contract and then pursue you for any money you “owe” them, thousands of “back fees” for their religious training, if you try to leave.
stay the fuck away from anything marked scientology or dianetics. narconon (NOT the same as narcotics anonymous, the 12 step program) is also their thing. never even step FOOT into one of their free dianetics “auditing sessions” because they will use it to manipulate you into joining. they are incredibly persistent and will use every trick in the book to get you on board.
scientology: not even once.
It was a special interest of mine too for a while. This is all true.
They literally tried to drive a journalist crazy who reported on them critically. Paulette Cooper was her name.
They will literally attempt to make you paranoid if you ever cross them.
Hell, a few years back a guy from the BBC did a documentary on them and they did it to him, to the point where he explosively lost his temper at one of them on camera.
The intention being to make him look unstable in his own documentary so people wouldn’t believe what he was exposing.
theyir tactics towards anyone they deem SP (suppressive person) and criticizes them publicly involves harrassing and belittling them. Ron Miscavage, the father of the current leader Dan Miscavage, was STALKED for a year by a PI who was carrying all sorts of weapons. His own SON said that if he died, do not interact! You cant make this shit up. I just finished a paper on it last night and these people are WORSE than you think
They are master manipulators, and that coupled with them having no sense of Too Far at all… do not engage, not even for fun or whatever. People think it’s a funny harmless 4chan meme or whatever but it’s really, really horrific. People take the free session and are harassed for years and years after.
Scientology is a pyramid scheme, a cult, and PROFOUNDLY dangerous. If someone comes to you and tries to get you to do *anything* with Scientology, do whatever you have to do to get away from them.
Scientology destroys lives, tears families apart, and is a deadly, dangerous cult.
Oh and here’s a fun fact: The Cult Awareness Network, which was one of the earliest websites that did research on cults, including Scientology, and was a very useful resource for people was bought by Scientology several years ago, because its owners got into financial trouble. So people going to that website to find out about how dangerous Scientology is are actually getting propaganda from Scientology.
I can not overstate how dangerous and ruinous the cult of Scientology is. Stay away from it, and anyone associated with it. It’s not funny, it’s not harmless, it’s not fun.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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