Autism Answer: Don't Judge, But Also Do Ask For Change

A pic of my oldest son with words he wrote about judging

I know, I know, I know: if I'm not judging you then I must be okay with everything you do, right? I mean, I don't judge. You do you.

Sometimes, that works fine. If I'm not judging you I can still choose to walk away, to judge your behaviors and beliefs as not for me, not my jam.

But what about my kids? My grand-kids? My closest friends and family? Do I just let them do whatever the heck they want without asking for, teaching, and insisting on change? Nope. Obviously that doesn't make sense. It doesn't connect us, it doesn't help us help each other. 

And it sets us up for being abusive and being abused. 

It's often not easy or obvious, and for sure mistakes will be made, but we should remember that asking for change, or teaching a different way to be, is not inherently judgmental, critical, or fault-finding. It can be, when we're being intolerant and hence telling a person to be a different person. But it isn't true that if we are not judgemental we won't ask people to shift, change, grow.

In fact, when you ask yourself to shift, change, and grow you may notice you do your best work when not sitting in judgement of yourself but, rather, seeing where your habits, behaviors, and beliefs are hindering or hurting you and trusting yourself to make changes. It is beautiful. It is an evolving of yourself that you influence. Not by hating something about you but, rather, by choosing a new thing. When you're busy hating a thing, you keep it alive. You feed it and give it power. It keeps you busy hating it and there's less time for changing it. When you instead see it as a hindrance, or something you were mistaken to believe, or something that once helped you but now hurts you, you more easily move on. (Er, more easily. Not always easily.)

We can do that with our loved ones. Growing up with autistic brothers gave me a unique perspective. Actually, it was growing up with autistic brothers and a mom with unique perspectives that gave me a unique perspective. But I saw first hand the differences between experts being fake nice with my brothers, judging them as less than or broken inside, while trying to force them to be different people vs my mom who saw them as born beautiful, burdened with overwhelming challenges, finding ways to handle those challenges that were, sometimes, less than ideal, and worth all the hard work and curious nature she could muster to help them be them, but in healthier safer ways. She raised the bar with my brothers and insisted they could be successful. She was almost merciless in her insistence, but she always considered who they were and what they wanted as she urged them to shift, change, and grow.

It's hard to explain the difference, but it is all the difference. Seeing people as generally awesome inside, navigating their world, the world their body and environment provides, and probably needing help from others along the way, is a non-judgemental view. We all need help from others along the way. Which is wonderful. That's how we learn about others.

Seeing different people with different styles as different rather than wrong is what we're after, I think, but that doesn't mean we can't ask for change. For growth.

Silly example:

When I was thirteen my mom confronted me about something, I don't remember what, but I know it had to do with my behavior at the time. I responded in a fun way. I chose to punch her over and over again on her thigh while screaming, "I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!" I was mature for my age. tee hee!

Anyway, she didn't say it was okay for me to do that. But she also didn't think I was bad or wrong for doing that. She reached into my torment and asked why I was doing that, made sure I knew I must never again do that, and helped me figure out a different way to navigate my pain. (Our pain? I did punch her.)

This. This is what it can be to love someone without judgment but with expectations of change.

It worked, too. I never said mean things to her ever again. (Mom, if you're reading this, pretend with me, kay? giggle!)

This is my long winded way of attempting to remind us of the thing I often need reminding of: It is okay to ask someone you love to change. It is okay to ask someone, including yourself, to behave differently. It is more than okay. It is what love often looks like. It is necessary, I believe, to practice knowing when to do so and knowing not to hate or think bad and wrong of the person, or even the behaviors, you are hoping to change. The behaviors are all symptoms and clues. The person is the seed.

Also, it is necessary to practice being open to the possibility that we ourselves are the one who may want to change. I can't tell you how often I would be asking a brother to change, to be more like something I thought was better, when suddenly I'd realize this was not one of those times when I knew better. This was me asking him to be different for my convenience.

Note: I said "I can't tell you how many times..." but if you look through my blog you will see that I have certainly tried!

Anyway, long story short: Don't judge the people you love, including yourself, but do believe in and teach change.

I guess I could have just said that, huh?

Hugs, smiles, and love!! 

Autism Answers with Tsara Shelton (Facebook)

Auitsm Answer: A Person Is Not A Courtroom

Hand on hip

A Person often looks at someone disapprovingly, even angrily, and thinks, "For goodness sake! They should do these things instead...." and then they proceed to judge that person's actions, replacing them with several things their own life and experiences and physiology and psychology have given them to use as they go about their days and choose their own actions.

We don't all have the same opportunities or abilities or experiences or support groups. The separation of our stories is - though always built on foundations with sameness, and always fluttering within and alongside each other - dangerous to disregard.

Our beliefs and actions stem from the story of our lives and the raw material we have to work with. And so we can fairly think: "I would probably do these things instead, if it was me in that situation." Although, even that thought experiment is imperfect. The truth is, if it was us in that situation, we would likely be surprised by our own feelings and knee-jerk reactions, which would maybe not match those of the person we are watching but would also quite possibly not match the ones we imagine we would have.

Hence, I suggest we remind ourselves to allow interest in the actions of others but rein in the judgments. They build barricades that keep us from truly connecting and learning from each other, and more often than not they are unkind. But even seemingly kind judgments swiftly made get in the way of actually connecting. They label the way we hear and see a person, editing it all to fit our assumption. Hence, even a kind judgment can play an unkind role.

So I think we are all-around better off keeping our judgments to a minimum.

(Think of how long a court case generally lasts, how much work it takes to bring so much evidence and possibilities to a judge or jury who then spends much time considering and reaching into history for precedence and conversing and then choosing a judgment that is rarely unanimous. A Person is not a courtroom. So we should not consider our job that of judging, but even when we do - and sometimes we are in a position to make a judgment on a person in our lives - lets at least take the kind of time expected of a judge. Though, since we are not a courtroom, I believe it is also okay to be less unbiased and take on a role of defending what is best for ourselves. We are our own client.)

Just a thought I was thinking on a Monday morning.

Hugs, smiles, and love!!!
Autism Answers with Tsara Shelton (Facebook)

"Forming opinions is a balancing act. We've got to consider the opinions of others - they help us gather information from diverse origins - while not falling into the easy habit of merely agreeing or disagreeing. Forming opinions is a balancing act and requires using our muscles." ~Tsara Shelton, author of Spinning in Circles and Learning from Myself, Oxford Comma Advocate, and Careful Former of Opinions.

Autism Answer: My Husband Didn't Hit Me

Surgery, Day Six

What a conundrum. People are too often blamed or not believed when they find themselves in an abusive relationship and reach out for help. Yet, also too often, when people see a woman (or child) bruised and battered they pounce on the assumption that someone is abusing them.

Have you noticed this?

One personal recent example:
My husband saw a woman in the store with black eyes and a bruised arm. She said something about getting hurt on a job but my hubby hardly even listened because he was absolutely certain the story was being invented to protect a husband or boyfriend.

A few weeks later, he and I drove to Dallas for my appointment to have Mohs Surgery in order to remove the Basal Cell Carcinoma from my face. It turned out the cute little mole just under my left eye, near my nose, was deceptively dangerous (albeit, slowly so). My lovely hubby waited hours in the waiting room, asked me thoughtful questions, bought me coffee, held my hand, worried wildly when I was taking longer than several other patients

Surgery, Day One

getting the same type of surgery. He loves me and worked at finding ways to be of service while dealing with his own anxiety.

He, uh, he didn't hit me.

As I finally emerged from the room (cancer free!) and told him that we were officially able to go home, he relaxed a little and breathed an audible sigh of relief. The couple we had been chatting with in the waiting room - interestingly, a husband and wife from our very small town! - were happy for us but a little bummed that they weren't able to leave yet. Also, they were impressed with the immediate swelling and bruising of my face. "You'll have to walk around town telling people Boogie did that to ya!" the woman joked.

CONFESSION: We all laughed. Nervously, without making eye contact, and aware of our shared discomfort. But, we laughed. Not because it was funny, but because we were all thinking it. I did look like I had been beaten up. And it did remind us of photos where women have been hit by their husbands.

Why? Why all of us? <---- This is an important question with answers worth discussing. But, also, with answers worth giving to ourselves. So, I'll ask for that in today's sharing. Let's give ourselves some answers.

Surgery, Day Three

*As my wound began to look quickly worse, evolving speedily from one state of healing to another, looking like one image we would imagine of an abused wife after another, the next few days were an emotional roller coaster ride for my hubby.

You see, he couldn't stop thinking about the woman he had seen only weeks previous. The woman he had been certain was being beaten by her man. Sure, she could have been. We (sadly) know too many people for whom that is or has been the story. However, he realized, probably she wasn't. And how sad is it (this is my own addition) that he had not only made the assumption, regardless of her words, but had done so only to then judge her for being beaten and lying about it?

For days my husband would cringe every time I had to run an errand in our town, knowing that many others would likely be making the same assumptions and judgments about us, about me and about him.

Well, my face has healed quite a bit now. I no longer look like a stock photo under the heading "battered women", and so it could be easy for my husband to just forget about it.

Instead, today he found himself running into the woman he'd been thinking about so much (funny to say that so comfortably as his wife, right? tee hee!) at the store and nervously approached her. He apologized for the behavior of his inner monologue and the subsequent sharing of that opinion. He told her the story of me, my face, his worry. Her reaction was forgiveness and laughter. Turns out, she told him, that a few police officers pulled her aside and asked similar questions, they'd had the same assumption.

I'm sorry that people do beat their spouses and their children. It's such a sad, horrible, hurtful truth. And I'm also sorry that when they don't, people might assume they do. There is some crossing of the wires where caring is concerned, maybe. We want to care and step in, we want to be a helpful hero, yet we are also afraid to be when people specifically reach out to us. Or, maybe, we just like to imagine the sensational stuff when we know that we aren't expected to take responsibility. There aren't a lot of easy answers where taking action in the relationships of others is concerned.

But we can do a few things. Stop judging so easily, stop assuming so readily, and especially: choose to believe the stories people tell of themselves and their experiences. It's true that there will be people and times in our lives where the evidence will need to not be ignored when met with clashing stories, but those times are - for most of us - rare. And even then, let's listen without judgment and assumption.

 

Surgery, One Month

If someone reaches out for help, specifically trying to sever an abusive tie with someone, or if we see consistent and concrete evidence of abuse, where a child or disabled person is concerned, perhaps we open ourselves up to taking an action or opening a door where they can find help. And if someone tells us no, they don't need us, our assumptions are wrong, maybe look at where and why we are having those thoughts. Is it evidence or knee-jerk assumptions? Who are we judging? What does it say about us?

It's interesting stuff, really. Diving in and getting to know our judgments and assumptions. They reveal a lot about who we are and the world we are immersed in.

Also, wear sunscreen. You might be able to avoid the Mohs Surgery I had and never even ever have to wonder if people think your spouse is hitting you. ;D
 
Hugs smiles, and love!!
Autism Answers with Tsara Shelton (Facebook) 
__________________________________

PLEASE: If you or someone you know is struggling to heal from or understand how to change a story of abuse, please read Sever The Cycle of Abuse with The Sub Shop Savior by my mom, Dr. Lynette Louise ("The Brain Broad"). It is a beautifully written and designed true story that offers guidance, friendship, and understanding.  
 ________________________________ 

 *AN ASIDE: I like to think of the way my wound healed as being similar to the healing we go through after leaving an abusive situation. At first, it looks kind of worse. Though we have taken the first steps toward healing it is a precarious time. My wound needed special care, it needed protection and careful cleaning. It is similar when we have broken free from a harmful relationship. We are messy, vulnerable, confused, and in danger of allowing ourselves to be infected with poisonous beliefs, potentially prolonging our healing or hurting ourselves further so that we need yet MORE help and interventions. However, if we do the work and take care in the beginning, the healing soon becomes visible and - dare I say it? - almost easy. Until it IS easy! We are left with a scar, a reminder that we can mostly forget or ignore but sometimes flares or itches and tends to invite questions we can choose to answer as ways to offer insight. It's worth it, my friends. Cutting the cancer literally off of your skin or cutting it figuratively out of your life. It's worth it. (Now, does anyone want to give me $600 so I can pay for my surgery? It's worth it, I just don't have it. Oh, wait. That's still part of my healing, eh? Well, the request still stands. Sometimes it's okay to ask for a little help in the healing process. Giggle! xoxo)