Is It Ableism? Part 9: Unintentional Gaslighting

Links to previous installments in this series:

Part 1: Revisiting the Dark Ages

Part 2: Obvious Definitions of Ableism

Part 3: Defining Disability

Part 4: Internalized Ableism

Part 5: Is "Overcoming" Worth It?

Part 6: Accommodation 

Part 7: Infantilization

Part 8: Immaturity or "The Blog Post Where I Have a Meltdown"

As always, names are changed.

In Part 7, I talked about how autistic people are often infantilized. In Part 8, I discussed how the actions of autistic people-- particularly meltdowns-- are dismissed as "immature." Meltdowns are often the result of a cascade of overwhelming and complex emotions and are not a question of maturity; how can it be when it's something that most people don't deal with at any age? 

Many of us on the autism spectrum have commented on having had our emotions, experiences, and perceptions invalidated, either when growing up, as adults, or both. At some point in the past few years, I began referring to these attitudes from other people as "unintentional gaslighting." As it turns out, many other people have independently come up with this term, and now it is commonly used in autism communities. So what is it exactly? Well, let's start by going over the definition of "gaslighting".

"Gaslighting" is when someone purposely makes another person doubt their own perception of reality, and it is often used in abusive relationships. Here's an extreme example where an emotionally abusive husband, Steven, might gaslight his wife, Holly: Holly comes home one day to see Steve making out with another woman. Holly calls out Steve for cheating on her. However, after the other woman goes home, Steve assures Holly that the woman was just a client, but that she stopped breathing because of some medical issue and he had to give her CPR. Steve might even say, "I don't know where you come up with this stuff. You let your imagination run away with you and then you overreact. You'd better stop it if you want this marriage to last." Even though Holly knows what she saw, Steve has a way of manipulating her into doubting even her clearest observations. She is eventually convinced that her imagination did run away with her, and she was just overreacting.

So what is unintentional gaslighting? It's exactly what it sounds like: making people doubt their own perception of reality, but for well-intentioned reasons. It often happens to autistic people simply because they are autistic. Because we interact with the world differently, and occasionally misinterpret situations, people often perceive us as being largely out of touch with reality, needing our neurotypical counterparts to explain even the most basic things to us. Even if we know exactly what we just experienced, family, friends, and others will tell us we were wrong, and we eventually begin to doubt our own perceptions. It feels like gaslighting, but the behavior is well-meaning and unintentional. That doesn't make it any less frustrating, however. 

Here's an example from my own life:  

In the spring of 1995, at age 14, I had been seeing my therapist, Dr. Klein, for about three years. I eventually decided to stop seeing him because it was becoming abundantly clear that he was unable to help, and he just didn't understand me. During our last session, he asked if I wanted to see my diagnosis. I thought, "After three years, he finally knows what this is?" Dr. Klein handed me a 3x5 index card, on which he had written, "Difficulty interacting with peers and adapting to new situations."* To this day, I have no idea what he meant by "difficulty adapting to new situations", seeing as how I tried new things all the time-- I was actually getting ready to go to overnight camp that summer, and that was my idea! The example of unintentional gaslighting comes in at the following exchange, which I have recreated to the best of my memory:

Me: What do you mean "difficulty adjusting to new situations?" I don't have a hard time adjusting to new situations!

Dr. Klein: What about the social problems you have with your peers?

Me: Being made fun of and hit is me having "difficulty adjusting to new situations?"

Dr. Klein: Well, it seems you overreact to things and get into conflicts with other kids far too often.

Oh, my God, where do I even start?

Aside from the obvious victim-blaming (which is another topic for another day), the unintentional gaslighting here was when Dr. Klein told me that I overreacted to situations where other kids bullied me. I had told Dr. Klein dozens of stories about kids spreading rumors about me, humiliating me in front of others, and physically assaulting me; in one case, a girl pinned me to the wall and tried to strangle me because she thought I had been flirting with her boyfriend. My peers were emotionally abusing me, but unfortunately back then bullying wasn't seen as a form of emotional abuse. It was just "part of growing up." And because it happened as often as it did, Dr. Klein obviously came to the conclusion that I was exaggerating and overreacting to the situations I related to him.

When I told my current therapist this story, he was shocked, and told me that even in the 1990s he would have never said something like that to a kid he was working with. Do people-- autistic and neurotypical-- overreact sometimes? Sure. But when the "overreaction" is something that's happening consistently, there's obviously something deeper going on: at best, it means that the person in question suffers from severe anxiety that might have nothing to do with external factors; at worst, things are really as bad as the person says and the anxiety follows. In my case, it was the latter.

Unfortunately, a lot of us on the spectrum have similar stories about such unintentional gaslighting. One that I often hear is from people with sensory issues. They might complain about bright fluorescent lights, only to have friends and family tell them, "Oh, it's not that bad," as if that will make them reconsider how the bright fluorescent lights are affecting them. Well, they are obviously "that bad" to the person with sensory issues!

In a personal "it's not that bad" incident that I experienced, when I was in fifth grade and joining the school band to play the saxophone, my music teacher told us that we were supposed to go into the kindergarten room the next day and pick up our instrument. Even though the room would be filled with little kids, I was anxious about walking into a room with a group of random people to get my saxophone. I expressed my anxiety to my parents, saying something like, "I'm faced with a real problem." Dad sighed in exasperation and said, "Oh, boy, here we go again. Every day it's the same thing." Around that time in my life, Dad often told me that he felt I was "looking for problems" and "making a big deal out of nothing." Well, it obviously wasn't "nothing" to me!**

Telling people they are "making a big deal out of nothing" or "it's not that bad" does not help the situation. Also, why would anybody "look for problems?" As I've said, sure, people can overreact, but if these seemingly "little" things are a big deal to someone-- autistic or not-- there is obviously something bigger going on, especially if there is a pattern of such reactions. I think that we as a society are getting better-- albeit slowly-- at listening and not being dismissive like this. But people need to continue listening and learning that some brains just work differently. They need to do better at validating our experiences even if they don't understand them. If something is "that bad" to someone, accept it and help them work through it to the best of their ability, but also keep in mind that they might not be able to work through it, depending on the person and depending on the issue.

And here I'm going to awkwardly segue into the next installment, which is about challenging one's comfort zones, and any limitations of that. Stay tuned.

*These are symptoms, not a diagnosis!

**Fortunately, the kindergarten room was empty when I went to get my saxophone that day!