#stoptheshock

[autisticadvocacy]

Andre's Law would stop any more New Yorkers from being sent to the JRC. Our community can’t wait — we must take this critical step. New York members, call your state legislators! Your advocacy will move us towards the day when we #StopTheShock for good. 

#StopTheShock

[massiveharmonytiger]

Hey, guys. I’m sharing a page with a collection of links for the Stop the Shocks campaign, which aims to ban the inhumane use of electroshock devices on autistic people (yes, it’s still being done). I’m also sharing an article from ASAN (Autistic Self Advocacy Network) from 14 July 2022 to show you guys just how recent this piece of news is. Now, I don’t live in the US as I’m sure is true for quite a few of you, but I’ve added my signature to the petitions and I’ll be doing what I can from where I am, because this is something that I care deeply about. I sincerely ask you all to also do what you can, no matter how small or pointless it seems. Please. Every bit of advocacy helps and is appreciated.

I’m also adding the link to autistic advocate and current candidate for the Maryland House of Delegates, Lydia X. Z. Brown who has an archive of the JRC (Judge Rotenberg Center’s) abuses. The JRC (a residential school for autistic children and adults) continues to use electroshock devices despite its brutality and all the campaigns against this practice.

https://linktr.ee/StopTheShock?fbclid=IwAR0NalLLZmQnRBdQq7CuGdoRVulX8kscbkoKLbHzovYXTHKOYcj5suWfui8

https://autisticadvocacy.org/2022/07/a-letter-of-support-for-legislation-banning-electric-stimulation-devices/

https://autistichoya.net/

#stoptheshock #asan #autistic self advocacy network #neurodivergence #autistic #neurodivergent #actually autistic #actuallyautistic #autism #autism spectrum #autistic adult #autistic community #stop torture #stop ableism #ableism #ableist bullshit #autistic strength #injustice

[limbicnoodle]

#stoptheshock #neurodivergent #autism #actuallyautistic #autistic #neurodiversity #disability #neurodiversesquad #neurodivergence #ableism

[neuroclastic]

Inside The Judge Rotenburg Center Live Event

Inside The Judge Rotenburg Center Live Event

BREAKING: On Monday, July 25, at 1:00 pm Eastern time, join NeuroClastic’s Terra Vance, Kate Jones, and Jude Afolake Olubodun with a special guest who spent over half a decade working at the Judge Rotenberg Center for a question and answer session. There’s no need to register. Simply visit this link to our Facebook event at the scheduled time and video will begin. You can also view this stream…

View On WordPress

#ableism #abuse #advocacy #applied behavior analysis #autism #autistic #behaviorism #community #disability #education #jrcsuemetoo #Justice #livestreaming #PTSD #restraint #seclusion #social #social justice #society #stoptheshock #support #therapy #trauma

[saltymcsaltything]

A Waking Nightmare

TW: Torture, abuse, suicide

When I was a young child, no older than probably 8 or 9, I first started to realize that there was something different about me. My intense emotions, my sensory sensitivities, my chronic migraines — I knew these were things that most other kids my age didn’t experience. I knew enough to know that all of these problems were in my brain, and that my brain was different. I knew there were other kids, and adults, with different brains too — I had friends from the time I was old enough to talk that were developmentally disabled, although I didn’t know that terminology or what exactly it meant. I was aware that some of the people I interacted with on an almost daily basis had brains that were different from most people, and I didn’t think there was anything wrong with that.

But I definitely thought there was something wrong with *my* brain, because I knew I had trouble dealing with my emotions. I cried constantly, I shrieked, I panicked. I was afraid of so many things, and I found so many things painful that others didn’t. I attracted a lot of attention I didn’t want to attract. I got yelled at by teachers for “overreacting” to things other kids did or said to me, and then yelled at and written up for crying when they yelled at me. I didn’t want that kind of attention. I didn’t want to do the wrong things, to feel wrong, and to have a brain that was wrong, but I knew that a lot of other people, especially certain kids (bullies) and certain teachers (*also* bullies) had no problem telling me that I was weird and that it was wrong to be weird. I knew something was wrong with my brain.

I only knew of two things that could be wrong with my brain: I could either not be able to think and read well (meaning intellectually disabled, although that was not the terminology people used back then — the r-slur was still considered an acceptable term by most adults), but the teachers who liked me always told me I was smart, and I knew I could read well, so it wasn’t that. The other way my brain could be wrong was for me to be “crazy.” I didn’t know what that was exactly, but when I was 8 or 9 I first learned about my paternal grandmother, the one who died only a year or so before I was born.

I learned that she was sick… sick in the brain. I learned that some people hated her for it. I learned what her illness was called.

My grandmother had bipolar disorder. My mom explained it to me a little, and told me that it was what led to my grandmother’s death. She had jumped off a bridge. Her brain was wrong, and in my naive mind, anytime I was made to feel like my brain was wrong, that is what I thought of. I was scared people would find out I was like her, and hate me, and that I might feel like I had to kill myself too. The alternative in my mind actually seemed worse.

The only thing I knew about mental health treatment was from movies — and in the 1980’s, asylums and mental hospitals were mostly only shown in horror movies. Sometimes, the patients were the ones who were supposed to be scary, but to me, the doctors and staff were always the scary ones. They kept people locked up, and they hurt them. I don’t remember which movie it was where I first saw “shock therapy” depicted, but it stuck with me. In my mind, that was the kind of place I would go, the kind of people who would be running it, and the kind of things they would do to me there.

I started having nightmares about being taken away, locked up, and shocked for being crazy like my grandmother. I internalized a fear of institutions, psychology, and psychiatric treatment at a young age. But as I got older, I eventually learned that those images and scenes were being exaggerated and were based on things that had gone out of favor ages ago. They were just there to be scary.

I still had nightmares about those types of conditions — schools and hospitals that were like prisons run by sadists who punished me for my abnormality. I would try to escape over and over again and keep finding myself back on the inside of the fence line know matter how many times I scaled it and started running. They were still just as terrifying, but I started to think of them as a just a nagging echo of childhood fear. I still thought my brain was wrong, but I had begun learning to hide it, because even if I was confident it was just fiction, it was better not to ever have to find out for sure, just in case I was wrong.

The nightmares finally ended by the time I was in college, but my fear of all things related to psychology didn’t end with them. That fear had stuck to me for years. I still thought I might be bipolar, but I didn’t want to find out. I still avoided therapy, and still cringed whenever psychiatry was mentioned, especially any sort of inpatient treatment. If someone joked that I was “crazy” or seriously suggested that I might need help of any kind, I resisted. I told myself it was irrational, but I couldn’t shake the fear of allowing myself to be vulnerable. My walls were all that had protected me for years, and to open myself up to that kind of scrutiny would have meant making myself defenseless.

Even in my darkest moments, it still took years and a lot of pushing from loved ones to get beyond those fears. I got into therapy. I slowly opened up. I slowly learned to trust. I slowly accepted treatment. I slowly started to heal. It was a necessary step to understanding myself, and a few years later, it led to my evaluation and my Autism & ADHD diagnosis.

But a few months after I received my diagnosis, I learned that the nightmare was real after all. I learned about the Judge Rotenberg Center and its use of electric shock as an “aversive” on autistic and other developmentally disabled people. It was what I had feared all along, for over 30 years, and what I had told myself couldn’t possibly be true — not anymore, and certainly not on children and teens. I was thrilled when the FDA banned their patented torture device, and appalled that it wasn’t ever stopped because the implementation on the ban was delayed by COVID. I was even more appalled when a judge overturned the ban, and infuriated when I learned that parents supported its use on their own children.

I was also infuriated, but no longer surprised, that JRC has been attempting to silence critics while simultaneously using the cover of Applied Behavior Analysis International to market and advocate for the use of torture on disabled people. I watched about 10 seconds of the video from a 2012 lawsuit that they settled showing the actual torture — I had to stop after the first shock was given because I was about to have a panic attack.

They are still doing this. They never stopped, and now they are presenting this treatment at the ABAI 2022 conference in Boston. They’ve been given a platform over the objections of autistic advocates, human rights organizations, parents, and survivors of their abusive practices, because they have deep financial ties to ABAI. They’ve done this despite criticism from their own membership.

I’m not here to detail the practices — they are well documented and easy to find, but also disturbing beyond belief. I’m not hear to argue with apologists. I’m simply here to say that as a child, I had a recurring nightmare — a nightmare that because my brain is wrong, I would be locked away and tortured. I thought that nightmare wasn’t real.

But it is, and there are people living my nightmare today.

#tw abuse #tw torture #tw suicide #actuallyautistic #actually mentally ill #stoptheshock #judge rotenberg center #my nightmare

[daughterofrageandlovee]

Hey,

https://chng.it/fM2K9JLjdH

I just signed the petition "Stop the JRC from Presenting at ABAI" and wanted to see if you could help by adding your name.

Our goal is to reach 100 signatures and we need more support. You can read more and sign the petition here:

Thanks!

#actually autistic #autism #stoptheshock #jrc #petition

[jasperthetransandfriendlyghost]

#stoptheshock #autism #tw aba #tw violence

[fierceautie]

#ABA #abuse #appliedbehavioranalysis #behaviorism #electricshocks #FDA #policetasers #stoptheshock

[monachopsis-11]

Please sign! It only takes a few minutes and it’s such an important cause 💛

#autistic experiences #late diagnosed autistic #actually autistic #autistic women #self diagnosed autism #sensory issues #autistic meltdown #sensory overload #stoptheshock

[theblackautist]

Posted @withregram • @theautisticot Save the date. We've got some protesting to do. * Image: A bold red #SOS is stamped on the image of a child wearing a contingent electric skin shock (CESS) device on their leg. They are also clutching a teddy bear. Framed in red is the phrase Save the Date! Underneath, a gold box displays further information: Protest @ JRC; Canton, MA; June 11, 2022. 11 AM to 1 PM. #StopTheShock #OT https://www.instagram.com/p/CeJiMgMO0i-/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

#sos #stoptheshock #ot

[captaincanute]

https://neuroclastic.com/press-release-judge-rotenberg-center-threatens-neuroclastic-with-defamation-suit/

#StopTheShock

[autisticadvocacy]

The FDA’s 2020 ban on the use of electric shock devices on people with disabilities was overturned on a technicality. Now that Congress clarified the FDA’s authority, ASAN and 152 other organizations urge the FDA to take swift action and reissue the ban. https://autisticadvocacy.org/2023/05/a-letter-urging-the-reissue-of-the-fdas-ban-on-electrical-stimulation-devices/

#StopTheShock

[just-1-voice]

ABA is an evidence-based autism treatment, but is it ethical? Let's take a look at ABA's pairing technique and what it really is.

#childabuse #abaisabuse #aba #appliedbehavioranalysis #autismeducation #anxiety #pairing #ableism #autism #stoptheshock #grooming #disabled #actuallyautistic #autismmom #neurodiversity #cptsd

[limbicnoodle]

Neurodivergency in the Neoliberal Era (ep. 8, S1 Autism and The Human podcast) - 2022-07-25, 9.33 PM

#aba #abaisabuse #actuallyautistic #autism #autismspeaks #autistic #boycottautismspeaks #neoliberalcapitalism #neoliberalism #neurodivergent #neurodiversity #neurodiversityparadigm #stoptheshock

[azuremist]

“Pride month is over! Next is gay wrath month!”

Love the energy! But, actually, July is disability pride month!

(Image ID: The disability pride flag. It has five stripes, going horizontally from the top left to the bottom right, on a gray background. From bottom to top, the stripe colors are red, yellow, white, blue, and green. End ID.)

Disability pride month has been celebrated for the past 30+ years. It takes place in July due to the Americans With Disabilities Act passing on July 26th, 1990. That year, Boston celebrated disability pride with a parade!

So, this month is a fantastic time to educate yourself on disability activism, and to support your disabled peers! Here are a few resources that I have gathered over the years:

Stop ableism

Avoid ableist language (some may disagree with a few inclusions, but the overall resource is helpful!)

Changing our vocabulary

7 ways to fight ableism

Why the use of the r-word needs to stop

Disability and forced sterilizations

The history of the disability rights movement

The invisible hate crime

Paying pennies to disabled workers

Ways disability allyship can get off-track

The invisible sexual assault epidemic

On “inspirational” disabled people

End the awkward

The harmfulness of ableism

16 disability rights movements to support

Why is accessibility still a problem?

Ways to take action

Facts on disability

Disability pride toolkit and resource guide

A Google doc full of disability justice stuff

Resources on autism

Resources on addiction studies and developmental disabilities

Disability as diversity

The disability activism handbook

Those are all of the resources that I have saved. But, for further reading, please consider looking into the following topics:

Physical disability activism

Sanism

Abuse of those in psychiatric hospitals

Disabled people and eugenics

Disabled people and electroshock therapy

Disabled marriage rights

The #StopTheShock campaign

Intersectionality in relation to disabled people

The difference between disability, disorder, and mental illness

Lastly, look into disabled people to support financially this month! (Like, perhaps, yours truly?) Disabled people, please feel free to drop ways to help support you in the notes!

Please uplift your disabled peers this month! Let’s see support! Let’s see love!! Let’s see solidarity!!!

Happy disabled pride month!

(Transcript: TERFs fuck off!!)

#disability pride #disability acceptance #disability activism #actuallyautistic #resources #disabled #disability pride month #azure does a thing

[dizzy-pops]

I’ve known about the Judge Rotenberg Center for almost a year now, but I’ve never known if there was anything I could do to help.

And I hate to say it, but I actually forgot about the horrible abuse and human rights violations that have been going on for over 40 years in this horrific place.

But I was just given a sobering reminder that it is STILL HAPPENING. Disabled children are STILL being put through this LITERAL TORTURE. And it needs to stop. Because lives depend on it. Whether that be because of the suicidal ideation that some of these children face because of the appalling “““treatment””” that they are forced to go through, or through the KILLINGS that take place in this center.

People have DIED because of the GED. I’ve seen a video of a survivor who said multiple times, in multiple ways, that she would rather have run out and gotten hit by a car and DIED than go back to the Judge Rotenberg Center and continued to be tortured.

I will never forget this again. I will never shut up about this. Because people are dying. People are being tortured. People are being shocked with devices that have the power of cattle prods.

REBLOG THIS. I DON’T CARE HOW SMALL YOUR PLATFORM IS, I DON’T CARE IF YOU NEVER REBLOG ANYTHING, ANY EXCUSE YOU HAVE TO NOT REBLOG THIS, I DO NOT CARE. REBLOG IT. SPREAD THE WORD. PEOPLE ARE BEING TORTURED AND DYING OF SAID TORTURE. AND WE CAN NOT SIT BACK AND LET IT HAPPEN.

#judge Rotenberg center #torture #reblog this #spread the word #help #people are dying #do not ignore #you need to tell people about this #autism #disability awareness #disability #disabled #ged #stop the shock #stop the shocks