HastyWords's Blog, page 41

HOPELESS

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The curve winds around

Like a snake that slithers

Underneath my veins

I can’t feel the motion

Or understand why

It’s wrapping itself

Around my everyday

But it’s dragging me

From my focus

And pulling me

From my slumber

Waiting inside my joints

Trying to convince me

It’s all hopeless

BULLY OFF! #AUTISM by Sonia Boue

Sonia is my first guest on Hastywords in quite awhile.  Please give her a warm welcome and help her share her story.  

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I’ve recently been a target of an attempt at bullying. I didn’t think this could happen to me, so I’m writing because I want to help others feel safer and stronger. I found my experience shocking as it is many, many years since I felt such visceral fear, though with the right support I saw it for what it was – a vindictive sham. Momentarily, it had taken me back to when I was 11 years old and cornered in an underpass outside my school, outnumbered by a gang of girls primed to beat me up. I feel the most constructive way to deal with this is to speak out and share my thoughts on effective autistic self protection.

I’ve known social disdain of a subtle kind all my life, from those who think themselves more socially sophisticated and who remain aloof. I stopped caring a very longtime ago, and sought more genuine interactions.

I’ve also known open hostility – yes of course I have. Humans can be fickle, and relationships sometimes brittle. Autistics get things ‘socially wrong’ a lot. We tend to stick out for ideas and principles, and this can get us into ‘hot water’ with others who want us to be pliable and polite. You learn to deal with it because it’s part of the scenery – an inevitable consequence of engagement with an illogical, and frankly, socially biased world.

It’s easier now that I have my diagnosis of autism and a growing bank of personal truths, honed from lived experience. For example, I now feel it’s a cruel thing to withhold knowledge of an autism diagnosis (an act some people think is best for their child). However well intentioned, this can’t be helpful in the long term. I understand why it happens, and that it may seem ‘kind’ from a certain perspective, but I think it could serve to block native survival strategies.

It is said that autistics are prone to bullying. Aside from ableism, I think there are probably two main reasons. The first being that humans can be incredibly cruel and also self-serving (non-news, I know), the second that we have an important hard-wired disadvantage in areas of communication. Others have written before me, and far more eloquently, on the importance of using our own autistic means of sussing out more complex human interactions, pattern recognition being one such.

Seen this behaviour before? Been down this route more than once? Eventually a discernible pattern emerges, and we can with any luck begin to pre-empt some of the trouble. It’s excellent advice, but not without difficulty. It can take a LOT of negative experiences to pick out the patterns – especially when we are repeatedly told we are wrong, as we grow up and beyond. More subtle sabotage, as we invest our efforts in learning ever changing rules of ‘neurotypical’ social engagement – only to have the rug pulled on our efforts time and time again.

This is why I return so often, in my writing and all my thinking, to the need for autistic spaces, and the passing down of autistic wisdom. We can’t do this ‘your’ way – but we can do it our way if you just let us be.

So what would happen if we stopped being endlessly ‘polite’, and trying to please other people? Might this free us to gauge a person’s intentions through their actions? If we’re free to filter out their words will we see more clearly what they’re up to? I think so. If I had listened to some of my autistic friends sooner (rather than trying so hard to remain polite), I could have protected myself and that’s an encouraging truth. Our wisdom can be very effective – if we are allowed to develop and use it.

There have also been ‘neurotypical’ friends who’ve helped me confront the truth of my situation. In fact one of the most supportive experiences has been to have this manipulation and bullying named by others who could see it more clearly (in the moment) from an NT perspective.

If actions, as the truism goes, ‘speak louder than words’ then we’re doubly disadvantaged by allowing ourselves to fold under the power of verbal communication, or trust to language (especially when it’s so slippery and casually used in the first place). The inner freedom to red flag such dissonance (between action and words) seems important. Won’t we be more alert to subtle manipulation if we can really place our focus where it’s needed?

So if you’re in any doubt and feeling uncomfortable, ask yourself what a true friend would do, rather than what a self-appointed ‘friend’ says. Some bullies seem to come from nowhere, others are brought in through the back door by our so-called friends (the regular wolves in sheep’s clothing).

And perhaps a person who avows their friendship, but looks the other way while the bully acts, is not a friend after all? No. Of course they’re not. They may even be acting in concert and complicity.

But our trouble (rather than lacking empathy) is often that we’re too kind, and too considerate for too long – we’ve been groomed to listen politely to other people despite the obvious damage they do us. We can be prey to hangers on.

So, don’t allow a situation to drift, until you feel the visceral fear of the unknowing autistic child cornered outside the school gates, or menaced in the underpass out of sight of the teachers, quite outnumbered by the bully gang. Don’t wait to be openly threatened for things to ‘become clear’. You’ll soon see, by looking back carefully at the behavioural signs, that they were always there.

Nip it in the bud. Look to how you feel (give yourself time to process), and break it off as soon as you’re uneasy or confused by the behaviour of someone who is supposed to be your friend. I’ll call this (ironically of course) applied behavioural analysis.

Autistics will know what I’m getting at.

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www.soniaboue.co.uk

A multiform autistic practice, with a focus on themes of exile and displacement.

I specialise in object work, painting, installation, video and performance in an ongoing postmemory project about the Spanish Civil War – BARCELONA IN A BAG

I also develop and lead creative projects, such as the Arts Council funded Through An Artist’s Eye. Recent works includes a film collaboration with Tate Britain about the British artist Felicia Browne.

A painterly collaboration with Richard Hunt of the Shadowlight artist group was awarded the Shape Open 2017.

My new collaborative project is the Arts Council funded Museum for Object Research, which includes a professional development initiative for autistic project leadership.

At The Other Side, I write about autism and art.

Do you have a story about being a bully or dealing with a bully. I am looking for stories written by adults or children regarding bullying. No word count requirement. Can be previously published. Can be anonymous or not. Send me a story, with some sort of bio picture and a short bio. Email hastywords@gmail.com

SEA JUMPING

I don’t write much anymore.  I haven’t needed to.

I started my blog years ago as a way of releasing the voices in my head that had grown so loud I couldn’t trust reality anymore.  These voices played havoc on my relationships and nearly cost me my life.  At the time I had a friendship I cherished.  In many ways the friendship was a breath of fresh air at a time when I really needed it.  I used that friendship to escape some serious issues and I let it devour me in ways I never should have allowed.

It marked my midlife crisis.  I learned so much about myself.

Who I was. Who I am. Who I want to be.

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I know what it’s like

To have everyone

Look at you

As if you’ve

Lost your mind

Because I have

I know now

What it feels like

To be driven to the brink

Poked and prodded

Laughed at and discouraged

Instigated into reacting

So that I was the one

You could point at

As your biggest problem

I was your sympathy card

I was just a game you played

And you won

You played me well

I was broken and ready to jump

And I did

But not for the reason you think

I jumped because I knew

It was the only way to save myself

I fell into the ocean

With open wounds

And the pain

Swallowed me for awhile

But the waves carried me

And the wind sang to me

And the stars guided me

And even when storms

Threatened my survival

I knew jumping was right

That I was better off

Letting the sea devour me

Than allowing you to

Manipulate and bite at me

I let the sea cleanse me

And the sun warm me

Until I was ready

To once again believe

That friendship could be

What I once enjoyed it to be

COLLIDING

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I close my eyes

And I can see

Landscapes

That collide

Then break free

Just to bounce

Again together

Over and over

Happy to feel

The collision

Each time more

Anticipated

Each time more

Satisfying

Each time more

All there is

THEY JUST LEFT

[image error]One day they just left

A few words were thrown

Landing across faces

Crashing through windows

Plummeting to the floor

And scattering like beads

Stepped on and kicked

Before settling silent

To be swept out the door

And they followed

Not bothering to close

The door behind them

NO GHOSTS

If the ghosts hadn’t fallen

Before we’d met

Would they have taken us

Further from ourselves?

Had they not been slain

Would we find ourselves

Crushed and broken

Beneath invisible claims?

Would we have found

The truth of who we are

Had we not sliced them

Gut to throat with honesty

And accountability?

I think we are who we are

Because our ghosts

No longer have darkness

To hide themselves

We are stronger in truth

All of us stronger

Without these ghosts

THE WAY LOVE FEELS

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I’ve written

A thousand

Beautiful words

Played inside

Wordy poems

Teasing

Hundreds

Of lines

Of prose

From my soul

Crying out

A thousand

Verses worth

Of joyful tears

Only to be

Left erasing

Every letter

Ever written

Because

No matter

How I line

Them up

Or how each

Character

Is arranged

No matter

The rhythm

Or the rhyme

They can’t

Possibly say

I love you

The way

Loving you

Actually feels

Tagged: Beautiful, Emotion, love, Passion, POEM, Poet, POETRY, relationships

THE WAY YOU LOOK AT ME

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Tagged: #BeReal, Depression, Family, friends, love, Mental Health, POEM, POETRY, relationships [image error] [image error] [image error] [image error] [image error] [image error] [image error]

BLEEDING COLOR

Tagged: Beauty, Family, Friendship, love, Passion, POEM, POETRY, relationships, Romance [image error] [image error] [image error] [image error] [image error] [image error] [image error]

INEFFECTIVE VIRUCIDE

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I’m paralyzed

Inside thoughts

I’ve overanalyzed

Finding demons

I’ve devised

I’m not surprised

It’s an everyday

Compromised and

Fertilized in fear

And perfectly

Standardized

Inside my mind

Clarified and

Glorified amen

My logic vaporized

An ineffective virucide

No longer quarantined

And left to colonize

Inside your love

*I was thinking about Alien today and wanted to write about how depression effects us much like an alien organism that lives inside us.

Tagged: Alien, Dark Poetry, Death, Depression, Disease, INVASION, Mental Health, Mental Illness, POEM, Poet, POETRY