Friedrich Nietzsche famously said
What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.
What a crock!
What doesn’t kill us leaves us wounded, maimed and scarred.
We know, we victims. We know that abuse (whether verbal, sexual, physical or whatever; whether by parents or peers or strangers) leaves scars. Those wounds never heal completely. Some victims cope better than others, for various reasons. But we are all wounded, we are all scarred.
It is true that those of us who survive are stronger than those who did not. But that is not because we were made stronger by the abuse; it is because we were, somehow, stronger before the abuse.
For those of us in the autism ballpark, abuse can take so many forms. It can be intentional (ask any victim of bullying) or unintentional (by those well-meaning but uncomprehending). Every time our experiences are invalidated because they are not neurotypical experiences, that is abuse. There is no way for anyone to know what someone else is experiencing, because our experiences are all internal. But because I am learning disabled, you will, almost certainly, have even less of an idea what it is like to be me.
Speak Your Mind