Month: Sep 2021

This afternoon’s incident

officially ᗩᑎGEᒪIᑎᗩ Leave a comment

Walking back from Lidl, I run into two young people who are screaming their heads off at a family in a car. This is at this notorious spot next to Ma’s in Kingston Road, where you need X-ray vision to be able to turn into the road.

They have a child in a buggy. They walk on, leaving an utterly flabbergasted family behind. “Fucking hell.” the guy says calmly, clearly stunned. Ethnic minorities, by the looks of it, but clearly English. “Just laugh about it.” I tell them.

To my frustration, the young female goes after the car again a few minutes later, and then the male runs after the car. Probably as high as a kite on meth?

I’m not having it.

Worried that he will pull the driver out of the car in busy traffic, I decide to interfere and yell very loudly “Don’t be ridiculous!” and “Hey! Stop it!”

The female turns and runs towards me and I had just spotted that that had distracted the dude before she starts shouting into my face from a distance of about five centimetres.

Good. Because I thought she was going to hit me and I am not feeling well so I can’t run away.

“Nobody tells me in my own country what to do!” Some stuff follows about her child, which she has just abandoned in its pram on the pavement at least twice, with no adult looking after it. “Go back to where you came from!”

“I’m from Amsterdam!” I yell as she walks away again.

“Go back then!”

I retort “I would love to but you won’t let me. You won’t let me!”

I say sorry to a woman who’s walking by, clearly not happy with this kind of thing that you run into all the time when you live here instead of in Gerald Vernon-Jackson’s pretty little street. She smiles at me. A genuine smile.

I pass the young woman and her child at a bus stop later. I sensed that she was aware of me approaching and I sense that she is not keen on another confrontation. I walk by without paying any attention.

The guy had disappeared somewhere between Ma’s and the bus stop.

I’m exhausted. But I think I achieved my goal.

I was actually feeling really unwell and wouldn’t have been able to run away if either of the duo had decided to attack me.

Stalking and Asperger’s

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https://ibcces.org/blog/2017/04/26/stalking/

IBCCES, that’s the International Board of Credentialing and Continuing Education Standards. There are people who mediate in courts, who serve as advocates for autistic people. IBCCES can provide training (and a certificate) to that end.

From the IBCCES site.

https://stalkingdetective.wordpress.com/2014/01/29/stalkers-with-aspergers-syndrome/

This is a former police officer’s website.

http://professormichaelfitzgerald.eu/autism-aspergers-syndrome-stalking-and-other-reasons-for-legal-contact/

That’s him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Fitzgerald_(psychiatrist)

From Michael Fitzgerald’s website…

People with Asperger’s do not necessarily want to be rigid and controlling, but they can have trouble with what we call “boundaries” in the west. They can infringe upon other people’s “territories” and do various other things without realizing how intensely that may affect that other person.

Similarly, they may not see other people as individuals in their own right. I suspect that their egos can be so fluid that they sometimes perceive other people as not really separate from themselves. They “feel” other people’s presence rather than see them as beings with physical boundaries and they often don’t attach much significance to what a person looks like. (This may also be why autistic people, if they engage in stalking behaviors, take photos. They may not recognize a person if that person changes her hairstyle or hair color, so I understand.)

They certainly see other people differently than neurotypicals do and while they may not really “like” other people, they do like having a certain presence around, like having the presence of another soul in their vicinity. They like a certain feeling rather than a certain person, maybe.

All of these things can create tension and clashes very early on and may eventually build up into a lot of resentment (feel slighted when they get rebuffed because they don’t understand what on earth they are supposed to have done wrong). That’s the impression or feeling I have come away with while thinking about this.

For decades, I turned out to have known a woman who is somewhat autistic without me having a clue about this. She’s confirmed that she is autistic. I’ve since done a lot of thinking.

It’s often said that autistic people avoid looking you in the eye. It’s my impression that that’s often not true. What autistic people don’t do is “rules” as to what an appropriate period is to look at someone’s face. They don’t do societal “rules and customs” to a large degree because they do not necessarily attach judgments to all sorts of things, unlike the rest of us. They can teach themselves a heck of a lot, though, just like the rest of us can learn, and we call can learn for example a foreign language, and hence you may have no clue that someone is autistic. There is no stereotypical property, not even a sign on the forehead.


https://kennethrobersonphd.com/eight-tips-handling-anger-someone-aspergers/

https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/what-is-autism/asperger-syndrome