“This is an identity, not a stereotype. This is an individual; given no more to violence than any other person of the world. This is autism. I am autism. Maybe Adam Lamza is autism. But my experience does not define Adam Lamza’s; and his does not inform my own.”
I am Autism!
12.18.2012
I am continually disturbed by reports that Adam Lamza and other recent mass-shootings nationwide claim that the perpetrators were affected by autism or Asperger’s disorders. This assumption is inaccurate and inflammatory. And it creates an equally inaccurate stereotype that all persons with forms of autism are naturally violent and likely to be dangerous. But what these gross inaccuracies really promote is an environment of mistrust and continued marginalization of an already marginal group of people. And it just shows that the general public and most public safety officials are not prepared to deal with people who have autism in a way that protects the dignity, life, and basic civil rights of the individual.
The fact is, there are very few convicted murders (only eight included in a study in Sweden) who have any form of autism. And having autism does not make an individual any more likely to commit a violent crime that anyone else. Conversely, individuals with autism are often the victim of bullies. Because of their unique subset of disabilities and their inability to determine appropriate social behavior (their own behavior and in translating the behavior of their peers as a threat), these people are targeted by others due to their oddities and often, their own personal naivety. Due to their pedantic way of speaking; unusual behavior, such as “stimming”; and hyper-focus on often “annoying” obsessions, the autistic person is often the victim of cruelty, jokes, and bullying.
Often, due to misunderstanding of the disorder or the inability of the autistic person to communicate or follow instructions, police also react with fatal results when called to intervene in domestic disputes involving autistic persons. Rather than treat the call as a serious medical-emotional emergency, the police see the autistic as a threat; not following orders, not talking sensibly, not understanding commands, or reacting in the usual ways police expect a person to react to authority. A quick search of the key words “autistic man shot” immediately brings up articles where police officers have taken wrongful and fatal action against the autistic, usually called on to intervene in a domestic dispute or a medical emergency by family. Here are a few: “Police Commission; LAPD shooting of unarmed autistic man was wrong”; “Autistic teen fatally shot by police in suburban Chicago home”; “Family says autistic man with toy gun shot, killed by Florida police”; “Autistic man shot and killed by police in his home”; Eight-year-old autistic boy handcuffed by police”.
I am not saying that autistic persons are not violent in their behaviors. On the contrary, anyone who lives with, works with, or plays with a person who falls on the autism spectrum, may report some level of violent behavior by the person with autism at any given time. But, often the violence that is experienced by these individuals is not the pre-meditated, predatory type of the homicidal mass-shooter. Often the violence is turned towards self-injury or towards primary caregivers, not in a pre-meditated manner, but as psychologists define it, in an affective violent manner. The difference between affective and predatory violence is the pre-meditation of the actions. People with autism exhibiting violence are most often exhibiting affective violence toward self or others. This type of violent behavior is characterized by broad generality, passion, lack of planning, and is temporal or ephemeral. This is the kind of behavior demonstrated by self-injury or in response to painful or emotional stimulation experienced by people who have autism. It is chiefly reactive. Predatory violent behavior, as demonstrated by the mass-shooter, is thought-out, planned, and focused. Predatory violence is the type of behavior that Adam Lamza demonstrated by donning army fatigues, loading three guns, and systematically killing his mother and the children execution-style at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Adam Lamza may or may not have had a form of Asperger’s or autism; but in addition to that, he was clearly emotionally disturbed over a long period of time during which he planned and executed his homicide-suicide plans. His behavior was clearly not reactionary but proactive.
I am afraid of what the media reports when they speculate that an individual who exhibits violence is autistic. It creates an environment in which the person who has an autism disorder is equated with persons who are violent and unpredictable, or a sociopathic pathology. I am increasingly terrified of telling others that I am autistic because of what they misconstrue that to mean. It feels like I have a be a “closet-autistic” and try so much harder to be the socially-acceptable person the world expects me to be. It feels like I have to “come out” as autistic like a person has to come out as gay. And we all know that closeted gay people are more likely to feel isolated, contemplate suicide, and experience bullying in school; likewise, if I must closet away my autism as a deep, dark secret. This is not right. I am no more in control of my disability as a person with autism that a blind person is of his or hers; or a gay person is in control of their genetic sexual orientation; only, my disability is quite invisible under normal circumstances. So where does that leave me and persons like me? Come out of the closet as autistic, risking becoming a pariah or labeled as violent; or try to hide this identity which so defines my life experiences? I do not like the choices.
We are not all freaks toting hand guns into schools! We are the bullied child under the bleachers, living in his or her own world; because this world is too intense and people are too cruel. We are the man who plays with children’s toys whom everyone picks on when he rides the bus. We are the child sitting at the doctor’s office rocking, flapping their hands, or spinning to create self-stimulus only to drive out the often painful stimulus of public places. We are the non-verbal person who does not follow commands we do not understand, whose behavior is wrongfully construed as subordination or threatening. We are the brilliant but awkward scientist whose public speaking skills are not honed like a professor’s; but can write amazing things to make you cry; or draw amazing things and “think in pictures and words”. We are the person who in fits of emotion beyond our kenning, hits him or herself in the face, or bangs their head in frustration at the world which does not fit the puzzle of our own life experience. This is an identity, not a stereotype. This is an individual; given no more to violence than any other person of the world. This is autism. I am autism. Maybe Adam Lamza is autism. But my experience does not define Adam Lamza’s; and his does not inform my own. I am not Adam Lamza.
(C)henry francis redhouse, 2012; including artwork.
henry's home for wandering trees 