The Political is Personal: Activism While Autistic and Scarred from Abuse

I am a 21-year-old feminist, Youth Rights, environmentalist and anti-authoritarian (I call it “anti-paternalism”) activist from Australia. I aim to be a hero of Youth Rights, to bring the cause into the mainstream. I also suffer from high-functioning autism. I can be socially awkward and extremely emotional, and I obsess about things. My obsession is social politics, the focus of activism, which I simply cannot stop thinking about. I tend to worry constantly about issues, over and over again, and can have difficulty letting go. My problems are very much compounded by the emotional abuse I experienced from my Prep (Kindergarten for you Americans) and Grade 1 teacher, Mrs Thorpe.

Mrs Thorpe seemed nice on the surface. According to my parents, she was always “nice as pie” to them. She looked like June Cleaver, was devoutly religious, friends with my lovely preschool teacher Mrs James, and sweet to everyone except her victims. My autism was as yet undiagnosed, but was still there. Mrs Thorpe made us do writing every morning. When we wrote letters wrong, she would criticise and ridicule our writing in front of the whole class. I remember her cheerful voice, “Alexandra writes back-to-front letters, Thomas writes back-to-front words!” My grandmother didn’t understand why I was so upset and reluctant to show her my writing.

Prep wasn’t so bad, partially because I was protected by the lovely principal, Mr. Askew, and had a friend in my Grade 6 buddy, school captain Kia Macintosh. But Grade 1 was hell. My classmates mostly got Ms Blair or the wonderful Mrs J, but the school stuck me with Mrs Thorpe for another year. Mr Askew left to become principal of another school, and acting principal Mr. Calijia sided with Mrs. Thorpe. Mrs. Thorpe was generally abusive, ridiculing kids to the whole class. She told the whole class that Louisa Argondizzo’s headband looked stupid and, in the words of my psychologist Tanya, she “didn’t like illness”. Hamish McLean had such severe asthma that he had to take his nebuliser pump to school and use it twice a day, and we were told he would die without it. Mrs. Thorpe called him a “baby” at least once, and yelled at him when he threw up.

She also yelled at Rebecca Laws, who had cystic fibrosis and would die in Grade 4, for throwing up. And she tormented me. When I wrote my name, which was longer than most kids’, as “Alex”, Mrs. Thorpe told the class that I was “too lazy to write it properly”. Even worse, she believed that I was grotesque, disgusting, crazy and stupid, and that I could never do anything. Once, when we were making jigsaw puzzles from magazine pages, she drew a proper jigsaw pattern on the other kids’ but not on mine, because I “could never cut it out”. My mum remembers a time we were making paper boxes, and Mrs Thorpe, convinced I couldn’t do it, pressed hers on me. I could do it, very well. I knew how much she hated me, but my parents did nothing. Maybe because of my autism, I expected them to know what Mrs Thorpe was doing to me. But they didn’t know, so they did nothing. I saw their inaction as a sign they approved of the abuse, that they too saw me as grotesque and disgusting. The whole world was suddenly against me, and even God seemed to approve of the abuse. I had a nervous breakdown at the tender age of six. I became angry at the world, seething for revenge against it. I remained this way for over two years.

Even today, the feeling of abandonment to oppression, and of the whole world being utterly hostile and oppressive, remains. In the words of Tanya, part of me really hungers for justice, and when justice is denied I become enraged, so angry that I can barely function. People always remark on my strong sense of justice. This is why I am an activist. But it also makes it difficult. When I read this site or similar sources and learn about the horrors, inequality and injustice of the world, which I obsess about due to my autism, I just can’t let go of a truly horrible image of the world that I call the Oppression Machine.

Through this lens, the world is an Oppression Machine, controlled by evil systems which steamroll and trample people into the ground, people who are worthless, have no rights, don’t matter at all, die and suffer and know agony and cry and scream in agony as the Oppression Machine grinds them up alive and the authorities, fueled by utter bigotry, do nothing at all, and even benefit from their agony and enjoy their screams of pain as they don’t matter. Our world is Hell on Earth, a shithole ruled by oppression, and oppression makes the world go round. Because this is inherent in the system, the Oppression Machine, little changes are useless and a sweeping, pie-in-the-sky revolution is required. Those with power are disgusting hypocritical bigots who keep millions in immeasurable agony and oppression. Forgiveness only makes things worse, reinforcing the bigotry, racism and idea that the victims are nothing. Also, nothing has changed- colonialism, Jim Crow and other horrors of the past have never died at all, and the great social movements have basically failed, their chief nobility being struggle for struggle’s sake.

Many things can set off this vision. If the Marxists are right or if, as Jos claims, “the law is not there for people of colour and trans people”, the Oppression Machine is real, and we live in Hell. I associate the idea of “anti-capitalism” with Marxism and the Oppression Machine.
I can’t quite let go of the ultra-Left or the vision of the Oppression Machine, even though my activist friend Michelle Pose, who describes herself as “an optimist” is shocked at such a horrible vision and often urges me to look on the bright side of life. Tanya tells me that the world is constantly in flux, that there are people being both oppressed and liberated at the same time, and that little changes do matter. I know that justice happens as well, that the rights of out-groups are defended and upheld as well as ignored. It doesn’t help that with my autism, I really don’t like disappointment. It feels like betrayal and, as Tanya notes, betrayal is a much stronger emotion than disappointment.

Many people have said that my thinking is too black-and-white, and because I don’t handle disappointment well, grey easily becomes black. Politicians and others also often oppress people without meaning to, by doing what’s easy rather than what’s right. I have to tell myself that that’s what’s happening, that they’re not malicious, as I tend to project Mrs. Thorpe, my malicious, two-faced oppressor, onto them. Mrs. Thorpe, with her veneer of respectability hiding evil and oppression, does not help with my visions of the Oppression Machine. I do not reject the very far Left out of privilege, but for the opposite reason.

Due to my emotional scars and autism, dealing with the problems of the world can be very difficult. But while activism is painful, it is still the only way for me, my life’s work, and I aim to continue.

Disclaimer: This post was written by a Feministing Community user and does not necessarily reflect the views of any Feministing columnist, editor, or executive director.

Join the Conversation