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I think at the core of it, autism is about balance... or "just rightness." (Think Goldilocks)

Everything we do as autistic people seems to root back to the need for internal balance, aka for things to be "just right" for our brains to feel regulated.

#autismeducationmonth

But I wanted to share these thoughts with those willing to listen and with those in positions of influence who can help me do something with them.

If you made it this far, thank you for hearing me out.

And if you feel similarly, I'd love to hear from you. Maybe we can do something together. 🙏🏻

In other words, what we have now is incomplete. I say this from a psychological perspective as well as a curriculum design perspective. (For context, I have over 20 years of expertise in the field of learning/education and learning psychology)

This is not a problem we solve tomorrow... I know that.

And to be clear, because this is also important... I know we do some of this already with SEL programming. But it's far from universal, far from consistent, and looking at the larger societal-level picture, it's clear that what exists today is not enough.

But the problem we have right now is not that people can't learn this skill. It's that we are not teaching it effectively on a systemic level.

We need to create and integrate intentional programming, focused on this skill specifically, into all early childhood education programs.

They can employ coping strategies (proactive, not reactive) that they've integrated into their nervous system over time to the point where those strategies become their automatic response to threats.

It won't be easy. It will be immensely difficult. Just like learning any new skill is...

Because if someone ALREADY has positive/healthy coping skills, when their nervous system sees a threat and is activated... it won't automatically default to harmful, reactive behaviors.

This includes things like problem solving skills, self-regulation skills, social emotional skills... but is also so much more than that.

(I've been calling this bucket of skills "discernment-based skills." Let me know if you'd like me to explain this more in another post.)

And I say 'developmental' because people need to learn positive and healthy coping skills BEFORE they need to use them.

This needs to happen during formative years in early childhood development environments.

One that IS solvable. IF enough people see the problem for what it is and agree to put societal resources into addressing it.

To be clear... this is largely an issue rooted in people missing a CRUCIAL developmental skill.

It DOES create a map for society to help people like this BEFORE they get to the point of such intolerable desperation that they're behaviors hurt others in irreparable ways.

This is a societal issue. A systemic one.

This does NOT absolve them from the harm they cause.

Please read that again as well because I do not want my meaning to get lost or misunderstood here.

This does NOT absolve them from the harm they cause. Not now. Not ever. Harm is harm. Period.

BUT...

Because at the root of it all... what causes most people to resort to other-focused, harmful coping behaviors... is missing healthy coping skills.

Not a bad person.

Please read that again.

A person can behave badly and not be an inherently evil person.

So it's only the people who use OTHER-focused harmful coping behaviors that are really described by the "hurt people hurt people" saying.

And all of this matters.

Meaning, a person can turn to harmful coping behaviors that only hurt themselves and not others. Like substance use, overeating, spending money they don't have...

(I know these things can become harmful to others over time, that's a separate point from this one.)

And through intense and immense effort, many do manage to do this successfully and break the cycle.

But those who don't... and unfortunately this is far more common... often perpetuate it.

But even then... not always. Because harmful coping can be self-focused.

And this happens every day. Traumatized people raised in toxic and abusive environments break the cycle every. single. day.

And not by accident. By actively seeking out and learning coping strategies that help them heal from their deep, deep, DEEP pain and trauma.

Because if it were that simple... that hurt people hurt people... then it would apply to all hurt people.

All hurt people would be hurting others. And that just isn't the case, objectively speaking.

Getting more specific, the saying doesn't explain how generational trauma is broken.

Lashing out. Name calling. Hitting. Throwing things. (These are just some examples. I won't get into the more terrifying ones here.)

People say "hurt people hurt people", which is absolutely true sometimes, but the saying misses a lot of what's actually going on when someone abuses someone else.

Most abuse comes from a person's inability to use healthy coping skills when their nervous system is activated... because they were never taught them.

So they default to ones they can access automatically. Things that often fall into the "fight" survival response bucket...

After 42 years of seeing a million different types of abuse and experiencing many of them first hand (thankfully this is now far in my past) I'm realizing something significant about abuse...

With that said... if you're autistic or suspect you might be, what type of content would you find most helpful? I'd love to focus on autistic support this month. 🤗

Autism Education Month isn't just for nonautistic people to understand us better... it's also for undiagnosed autistic people to self-discover and for autistic people to understand their own autism better...

100% all of this

Just a fun little fact if you're self-diagnosed & someone is trying to invalidate you.

That's actually just their nervous system seeing your self-diagnosis as a threat & responding by trying to control & neutralize it.

It actually has nothing to do with you or the validity of your self-diagnosis.🤗

Autism & routines #autismeducation

And I think this is something we need to get ahead of now, before it starts doing real harm to real people. (If it hasn't already.)

What can we do? I'm open to ideas...

This is particularly concerning to me because the direction we're headed in feels like it will become yet another way for neurodivergent people to be actively targeted and discriminated against because of the way we naturally communicate.

It tends to sound more "proper" because it matches how I naturally think and speak. But people on social media wouldn't know that, so they accuse me of using AI.