This piece was one I, Meggan, wrote. It’s based on the formatting for another disgusting add about autism, but the ideas here are my own.
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I am behaviorism.
I am visible in your life, but if I can help it, I’ll hide from you until you can’t ignore me.
I know no nation, no ethnicity, no culture, no limit.
My ways are widespread in this world, and if I come for you, I will be hell bent on insuring that your inner experiences never matter to anyone in your life.
Your actions are all that matter to me, and if you do not conform, you will catch my eye a lot quicker than you would have if you had just followed the crowd to begin with.
I will insure you obey, and there will be punishments and backlash if you don’t.
I don’t rest, so I’ll make sure you don’t either.
I will cause you to develop anxiety disorders, obsessing over every mistake you’ve ever made, and I will enjoy your fear.
I don’t care about you as a person, and I will make sure you know that every hour of every day, no matter where you are or what you’re doing or who you’re with.
In the end of my time with you, I will drive you to death’s door.
I am behaviorism.
You ignored me.
That behavior is unacceptable.
And to behaviorism we say,
We are babies, children, teenagers, adults, we are insiders, dreamers, and so much more.
Your labels cannot define us.
We know we are more than what you portray us to be, much more than a set of behaviors to be redesigned.
We don’t need rest, not until we’ve spent every waking hour tearing down your effects from our lives.
You think that because you spent years conditioning us, that we’re afraid to throw you away with everything we have?
Behaviorism, you are inexperienced in the ways of the world. You have not properly taken into account the will of our community, nor the resources we have gathered outside of your knowledge.
You refused to help us use the skills we had learned, and now look where that’s landed you.
No amount of tokens and meaningless good behavior can ever replace the simple act of an independently taken break, or a prompt-free breathing moment, spent with someone who sees us as more than what we do.
No amount of Frydays spent using those tokens on desired items in the makeshift store our elementary school had could ever make up for what we didn’t get, and what you refused to help us learn.
And no amount of ‘positive thing slips’ can ever make up for the way drawing was turned against us and used as a part of teaching us to fear communicating in any form.
Behaviorism, it was not we who failed you. It was you who failed us.
We blame you, because if you had not been around us in the way you were, we would not be afraid of doing such basic things as asking for help, and we would not struggle to begin things independently.
The responsibility lays squarely on your shoulders, not ours. Your blindness to the reality behind our actions, and your refusal to open your eyes to the truth, has become your ultimate undoing.
We will not allow you, or the shame and fear you spread, to continue to live within and among us.
Behaviorism, your time is coming. Are you listening?