I know the exact point that anger became too intense. I’m not going to go into that particular memory. However, what I will say is that it gives me a disadvantage. Anger becomes silence externally, but internally I’m battling a raging inferno. I have to avoid situations that make me angry because I can’t function until it’s passed. I can shut down completely, to the point my wife has to tell me when to go to bed, and reassure me she’ll be there when I wake.
If someone said something about me that was not true, my silence was perceived as an omission of guilt. When in actuality I was consciously trapped by an emotion that became too strong. Tied into a protective instinct to survive. I’m not violent, it’s a personal choice. I know I can have access to a lot of physical strength and I could probably hurt someone really badly if I unleashed my anger. That’s why I don’t, why I shut down, because it was the only way to trap it. To stop the collective agony of my past from hurting me or others.
Hate has no place in this world, and words matter, but intent matters more. There are two words directed at our community that are derogatory and highly disrespectful. We often hear of people hearing them on a daily basis, that makes me angry. I can’t write them in the post, or it wouldn’t be shared to groups. What I can do is say one starts with R, ends in D, and the other SP and ends in c. These words are antiquated, and have no place in an accepting world, the one a lot of people are trying to build. These words are vile to hear and should be left in the past. That is why we are working with the Scottish government to get both words categorised as hate speech, under the Hate Crime and Public Order Bill Scotland (2021). This is something that I brought to their attention last year, and a bill related to hate speech is currently in discussion in the UK parliament. We hope that by the time the discussion is over, both words are banned legally.
All our best and love
Ross Fraser and Jeni Dern
Words – Ross A Fraser
Design App – Canva
All we can say at this point is we have been looking into this for some time, and we hope to have an update in the coming months. However, we are fully committed to seeing this through and at least reducing some of the hate speech that’s directed at autistic, and, disabled people.