Perhaps The Decent Amount Of Notes On My Post For Leena's Campaign Is Making People Think That Others

perhaps the decent amount of notes on my post for leena's campaign is making people think that others are donating to her? or perhaps everyone has genuinely gone completely broke. i don't know. it's not really getting anywhere regardless of the reason. every day i wish i had better news for her.

i'm not sure what to say. leena is an engineer, like her mother, like my mother. she's quick witted and funny when she has the energy to be. she's been sick for a long time. she's honest with her feelings. she's thanked me for not getting bored with her several times now. it breaks my heart to think she'd expect me to. when she was attacked and separated from her family, she messaged me crying, and for a whole century long day i was terrified, completely terrified that i was the last person she ever messaged. she reminds me of my little sister so much it hurts.

i'm not willing to give up on her or her family. please help her reach her campaign goal. it's not that far. all we need is for the support to be consistent.

16,285/25,000€

8,715€ to go

gofundme.com

Donate to Help Me and my Family to evacuate from Gaza ASAP, organized by Leena M

Dear compassionate souls, I am Leena , reaching out from the heart of Gaza, … Leena M needs your support for Help Me and my Family to evacu

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Help Siraj get to 70k by Thursday!!

Some bloggers were less than pleased with my most recent posts where I talked about how Palestine has become a momentary trend for many, and accused me of trying to "guilt trip". They even predicted that these posts wouldn't bring in any sustained support for Siraj Abudayeh ( @siraj2024 ) and advised me to instead keep it to the point. Well alright then, let's keep it short and get to the point:

Siraj Abudayeh is a journalist who is fundraising to survive and rebuild in Gaza as he has no plans to evacuate

Recently he became the sole provider of FIVE FAMILIES- both his own and that of his parents and married siblings, after they all fled to him to escape the recent IOF attacks. 

As he is now fundraising to bear the cost of all 23 family members, he is even more desperate to finish his campaign. 

What the family needs most now is access to clean drinking  water. With 10 children ( Siraj's sons and their cousins) to take care of and with the polio epidemic spreading in camps, this is imperative. 

He has requested us to help him buy a submersible water generator and network tools. This is costly but with water treating plants and other facilities being completely destroyed, this is the only long term solution for now.

For 11 months Siraj has hesitated to buy a water generator. He was afraid  that he wouldn't be able to manage it while also making sure that his family had something to eat. But since there are more children (all between 6 and 12 years of age) to take care of now, he cannot put this off anymore. The settler state has already  unchilded them- they risk their lives and walk long distances to look for drinkable water to carry back in heavy pails, when they instead should have been working on their homeworks or playing. Siraj wants them to at least be relatively safe from having to take such risks to survive. 

Siraj needs to reach 70k by THURSDAY, that is within 3 days, so that he can start the process of making a purchase. You said that I do not need to write scathing posts to have your attention, so I am here now requesting you to act upon Siraj’s plea for help. 

He is currently only at $65,393 CAD . That is 4.6k away from our next short term goal. Boost and donate and help him access clean water for the children. 

[ GFM LINK ] [ Vetting #219]

this is going to be a long post, it's kinda just me writing all my raw unfiltered thoughts on ABA therapy as someone who actually went through it

-> TW for ABA therapy, child abuse, suicide <-

I was functionally diagnosed with autism at the age of 3 but it wasn't until I was 13 that I was actually formally evaluated for it and given an official diagnosis. I was behind in social skills and developmental skills

[ID: "was also described as a sensory seeker. She does not currently have any friends and has struggled to make and maintain peer relationships throughout her childhood. Difficulties with social skills were initially noted when she was in preschool (years before the onset of clinically significant symptoms of anxiety and"]

[ID: "Social functions: [blank]'s mother also completed a questionnaire rating her social responsiveness. Her responses on the SRS-2 indicated that [blank] is demonstrating severe deficits in the areas of Social Communication (reciprocal social interaction and nonverbal and verbal communication), Social Motivation (motivation to engage in social-interpersonal behavior) and Social Awareness (perceiving social cues) and moderate deficits in the areas of Social Cognition (understanding social cues). Severe Repetitive and Restrictive Behaviors (stereotypical behaviors or highly restricted interests) were also reported. The total T-score on the SRS-2 indicates severe deficiencies in reciprocal behavior that are likely to result in interference in everyday social interaction"]

[ID: "%ile) are mildly impaired, while her social skills are moderately impaired (2nd %ile). By domain, demonstrates mildly to moderately impaired abilities in six adaptive skills areas, including self care (9th %ile), communication (5th %ile), home living (5th %ile), self-direction (2nd %ile), social (2nd %ile), and leisure (1st %ile)"]

and ultimately all this ended up with the number one recommendation after my autism evaluation being for ABA therapy.

[ID: "Recommendations: Based on the above results, the following recommendations are made for [blank] and her family.

1. ABA therapy: [blank] May benefit from an intensive treatment program to foster cognitive and communication skills, improve independence and adaptive functioning, and help manage interfering behaviors (i.e home-based, 1:1 instruction, task analysis, etc.) Most private and community programs are based on principals of operant conditioning and taught in home with 1:1 instruction"]

*I'm getting misgendered here. my pronouns are he/him

"operant conditioning"-- like a dog 🐕🐕. woof woof.

my mom didn't know any better so she put me in ABA therapy with the Center for Autism and Related Disorders. she regrets this. I regret this more.

my autism evaluation was cruel, it dissected all my flaws as if I was a bug under a microscope in a highschool laboratory. my evaluation was passed around to ABA therapists, a line of high schoolers peering through the microscope examining the most vulnerable parts of me.

and I choose the highschool analogy quite deliberately. most of the ABA therapists at my center were recent highschool graduates with no degree and little training. they knew nothing about autism and had no qualifications. you need more certificates to become a professional dog trainer than to become a professional human trainer.

"operant conditioning"

and I wish I could say it was just a poor choice of words but ABA therapy was dog training for children. my dad used to call me an "it" and somehow I felt less dehumanized by that than the entire experience I had in ABA therapy.

I was the oldest person at my center (I did not receive in home therapy) with the next oldest being approximately 3 years younger than me. at the time I felt babied. I was surrounded by 5 year olds and I was treated as if I was not just a 5 year old but an autistic 5 year old and anyone who has been a visibly autistic 5 year old knows what that feels like. I had escaped being an autistic child and now I was being treated like one again. The head of the program tried to console me by telling me adults received their services too.

[ID: "Following the principles of applied behavior analysis, CARD has developed a treatment approach for children and adolescents with"]

this was the first lie they told me. CARD does not work with adults.

I was not allowed the privileges of being a 13 year old. because I was an autistic 13 year old and therefore I was the equivalent of a 5 year old. I was in psychotherapy at the same time and I had grown very accustomed to some level of freedom in therapy. I was allowed to use the bathroom independently. in ABA therapy I was not allowed to use the bathroom independently. I tried once, me and my therapist were on an "outing" to the grocery store and I told my therapist I was going to the bathroom and walked off and I got a very stern talking to about how I needed to "stop eloping" and if I didn't stop it would "become a behavior"

eloping became a common theme used to control me and squeeze money out of my parents.

out of everything I hated in my life, including severe physical abuse at home (which they did not report), I hated ABA therapy the most. I would repeatedly make serious threats of suicide to try to get out of ABA. no one cared. everyone thought I was being dramatic but there were times I wrote out suicide notes and ABA was among the reasons I listed. ABA made me feel hopeless, depressed, revolting, disgusting, inferior, and less than human. between ABA, my home life, and my social life I had never felt so hated and it was boiling through my skin. I acted out, I was bullying people, I was behaving recklessly, I was starting fights, and all this only made the oppressive force of ABA crack down on me harder. I was a cat hissing in the corner begging to be left alone and ABA brought a net to try to tame me further. every time I scratched back it was listed as a reason I needed to be there.

I was "disruptive" and "rebellious" and "uncooperative" and "resistant to treatment" and no one could figure out why I was "regressing" despite me shouting the answer. I was screaming and no one was willing to hear me

I hated myself and my autism. my autism diagnosis made me want to die. I didn't feel freed by it or understood I felt ashamed and disgusted. I felt incompetent and like I had failed. I was ashamed to be at ABA, it was my biggest secret. I'd lie to my friends about why I couldn't hang out and I'd lie to people in public about who the woman I was with was and I'd lie about all of it to try to cover up my most shameful secret.

ABA therapy did nothing but foster this. In ABA therapy I was mocked for being autistic and what was happening only clicked when a young kid, maybe only 4 or 5, was flapping his hands and a therapist took out her phone and recorded him. we were circus animals. it was all an entertaining show to them while they poked and prodded at us with metaphorical hot irons to make us dance. the first time a therapist laughed at me for rocking back and forth I wanted to throw up. I almost did. it was systematic bullying of children I was forced to watch and experience.

my point is: the last place on earth I wanted to be was the ABA center.

so of course I tried to leave. my mom would bring me McDonald's and I'd beg, sobbing real tears, to leave early because only she could sign me out. every time I'd go to meet her I'd be marked as "eloping" and my hotel stay in hell would get extended.

my natural response to a stressful environment (leaving) was pathologized. I was eloping this way and that way and never once did I actually, truly elope. that word was a weapon used against me. they used my "elopement" to justify extending my stay to my parents. they ate it right up.

they argued I needed to stay there because I was making friends. this was true, I'm great at getting along with children it's part of why I want to go into pediatrics, but I had also made real friends with people my age at my highschool. ABA was getting in the way. I wanted to spend time with my friends outside of school but ABA took up all my time from the minute I left school to 6pm and all day on weekends. I was doing a full time job's worth of hours. I complained about how I was missing out on spending time with my real friends (as in, over the age of 7) and I was met with almost no wiggle room in my schedule. I was allowed to pre-plan time to spend with friends but every time my friend group wanted to do something spontaneously? I had to say no, and I had to lie about why. my friends would share stories about driving around town with 2 people in the group stuffed in the trunk, of hanging out in the woods together, of taking part in ordinary highschool activities as ordinary high schoolers and it made me cry because I was not an ordinary highschooler and I was not allowed to participate in ordinary highschool activities. I was one of those weird, unpleasant, socially awkward autistic people instead. eventually, they just stopped inviting me. I was forced into the out group by ABA.

I'll never get that back. I'll never get a chance to be a normal highschooler ever again.

when I did have time available to hang out with people I never had the energy to. at the time I was living with an undiagnosed physical disability and I was begging to see a doctor but no one would believe that it wasn't just anxiety. the people who believed me least of all were the people at the center.

I was constantly told I was trying to get out of therapy by "feigning" very real pain and fatigue. I tried to explain spoon theory, and that I had limited spoons, and in response they made a task for me to name things to "regenerate spoons" that's not how it works. I wasn't the only physically disabled person there. there was a wheelchair user who was constantly forced to stand for periods of time despite being in agony doing it. he wasn't allowed rewards until he did it.

rewards were used to train us like dog treats are used with dogs. sometimes the treats were fun! I'd get to cook, play Mario kart, and go on outings. other times the treats were "using the correct name and pronouns for me." I'd constantly be threatened with deadnaming and misgendering if I was being "noncompliant."

misgendering because of my autism was a theme in my life. my neuropsych evaluation report misgendered me. my parents misgendered me. the staff at ABA misgendered me. at one point the head of the program suggested that my "gender confusion" was because of my autism. my abusive father latched onto this and still claims that the reason I'm "confused" about my gender is because the evil transgenders tricked me into thinking I'm one of them because I'm autistic and therefore easily impressionable.

the two therapists I had were nice because I refused to work with the others. they weren't on a power trip and both eventually left because they realized the harm the organization was doing. other therapists were not so kind. other therapists were on a power trip, because in their mind lording over autistic 5 year olds (and autistic 14 year olds) makes them powerful and strong. occasionally I'd get stuck with one of the other therapists when my usual therapists were out. they would talk to me in a baby voice. they would make fun of me for rocking back and forth, for not making eye contact, for talking about Skyrim "too much" and generally just for being autistic.

I never really knew what I was supposed to be doing, just that I was doing it wrong. the therapists there rarely actually told me what my tasks were they'd just mark yes or no on them, judging me for something I wasn't aware of. I was never actually supposed to graduate, I was never supposed to get out, if they wanted me to succeed they would have taught and explained what was happening but I was intentionally left in the dark.

I continued threatening suicide to get out. no one took me seriously. I was seriously considering it. there's no happy conclusion where someone finally realized it was all wrong, or I figured out how to be allistic and graduated, or I felt more comfortable there. I only got out when covid struck and shut the center down. it's gone now, replaced by a family advice center. I hope their advice for autistic children is to never put them in ABA.

there is no grander message here just suffering. I'm sorry if you were expecting some sort of great point at the end of this. there's not one. it happened, I wish it didn't, and I hope no one else experiences what I did ever again.

okay to reblog

What’s worse is that it is estimated that there are between 500 and 1000 children held in Israeli military detention each year.

Palestinian children in the Israel military detention system face physical and emotional abuse that entail:

• being beaten

• strip-searched

• sustaining gunshot wounds and broken bones

• sexual abuse

• transferred to court or between detention centres in small cages

Source: reliefweb

Where’s the outcry for Palestinian hostages?

Say their name.

CW AND TW: CHILD DEATH

Say.

Their.

Name.

Nex Benedict was a indigenous trans nonbinary teenager. Their head was beaten against the floor in a bathroom stall. Less than 24 hours later, they died, most likely from undiagnosed head trauma. Conservatives say they want to, "protect the children", where was the protection for Nex? That's the thing. There wasn't any. Nex died. And many more trans, queer, and nonbinary minors will if we don't step up and do something. What happened to Nex has and will happen to queer folk around the globe. Say their name.

Edit: I didn't expect this to get much attention, but thank you everyone. What alot of people, "forget" to mention was that Nex was two spirited, which means they were indigenous. The fact that I wouldn't have heard about this if I didn't have Tumblr is absolutely revolting. News needs to be covering this. But what are Republicans doing? Sucking their thumbs and crying about how, "trans people shouldn't be able to piss". What are Democrats doing? Twiddling their thumbs and groveling to an old geezer that somehow falls up the stairs and supports I$r3@l. It's disgusting and America needs to do better.

Edit 2: Any and all hate/saying that Nex Benedict wasn't murdered (they were) will immediately get deleted, just because you don't like trans people doesn't mean you can be an whiny little bitch. A child was murdered. This has nothing to do with politics, a child was murdered.

I'm losing my mind at how slowly Iyad and Ruba's campaign is going. Can you just pay attention. Please. I know fundraising posts on your dash may blur together but please remember these are real people.

Iyad and Ruba's campaign was already going at a slow pace before this at only $100 per day but now it's barely getting 10 bucks. It has to support not one but TWO families now since Ruba can't access the money from her previous fundraisers. That's a total of at the least, 16 people.

Ruba is currently in the hospital and if you've been following the news, you know how dangerous it is for Gazans to be stuck in one place. And Iyad is currently having heart problems due to the tremendous stress of barely surviving under genocide.

You can help them. You can pay for their treatment. You can help feed them. Literally even just $1 helps. We got only 1 donation for the last 3 days. Anything helps.

paypal.com

help-me-to-evacuate-from-the-genocide

Help Eman Abushaban reach their goal by donating or sharing with your friends.

They are both on the Vetted Gaza Fundraiser Spreadsheet by @/nabulsi and @/el-shab-hussein. You can check for yourselves but keep in mind the links have not been updated to their current situation. Read about that here