There’s nothing autistic about killing people
 
 When an 18 year old Sky Walker, a severely autistic man, bashed his mother to death he was facing charges of murder even though he couldn’t understand the charges of what he’d done. But calls of outrage saying that he should not face detention even in a mental health facility were based on the idea that what he did was due to his ‘autism’, as if having an information processing disorder could make you bash your mother to death and that he had no psychiatric problem. What about ‘intermittent explosive disorder‘? What about untreated co-morbid bipolar overlooked as part of ‘the autism’? What about the way that significant chronic stress from ongoing information processing, sensory perceptual and communication challenges can lead personality traits to soar into the personality disorder range and that he may well have had some personality disorders also called ‘the autism’?
Well, last time I looked, these other disorders were all mental health issues. Furthermore, calls to place him instead into a residential home could then significantly reduce the quality of life of fellow residents who did not have dangerous co-morbid disorders, put them at risk of severe violence if not death. And if he caused another death, would that be ‘the autism’ too?
In the light of Sky Walker, Martin Bryant , Seung-Hui Cho, and the like, maybe its time we considered how overly precious about the label we can sometimes be, how PC, how afraid, to consider a more holistic view of why some autistic adults have seriously harmed, even killed, and why that is nothing directly to do with their autism.
Until we face that, the social majority of adults on the autism spectrum will continue to be afraid to disclose their condition for fear of rejection by ignorant people who progressively associated autism with murderers. It’s about time we face that people with untreated mood disorders, with untreated explosive disorders, with untreated personality disorders can sometimes be capable of murder. And, further, that those with these exist in all populations including among autistic people and, yes, even severely autistic people are no more immune to co-morbids than they are to getting any health issue.
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Donna Williams, Dip Ed, BA Hons.
Author, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter.
Autism consultant and public speaker.
Ever the arty Autie.
http://www.donnawilliams.net
http://www.aspinauts.com
The key word in your last paragraph is untreated: by which can also be meant undertreated or wrongly treated, whether the wrong is in an ethical or practical way.
It can be hard to tease the co-existing condition out. I was able to accept that I had bipolar disorder too (as opposed to the schizo-spectrum diagnoses I was receiving after my first and only so far psychotic episode) by knowing that I was impulsive, and that it was way out there, for a neurotypical or autistic person of my age and background. Not necessarily the mood swings and the other things that might make someone else bipolar.
We can look at all crime up to and including murder. Of course, there are people like Julian Knight too, who was part of a Herald-Sun editorial. He is the man responsible for the Hoddle Street murders in 1988. (Were you in Europe at that time?)
And remember ALL people with mental conditions are much more likely to become victims than murderers, in relation to each other and the general population.
Also Thomas Szasz said on a recent news item on the ABC radio (4/2009, All in the mind): “Incompetent people are not able to plan a massive crime, their incompetence is shown”. And mentally ill is not necessarily legally incompetent. Not these days.
There is an interesting book about Bryant by the European correspondent for the Age, Paola T[…]. It has a strong implication and strong evidence…
It would be important to look at people in similar situations who did not murder to find out the factors as well.
Hi Bronwyn,
totally true. For example I believe intermittent explosive disorder runs on my mother’s side and that on my father’s side my paternal grandfather had had it. On her side it appears to be triggered through very different personality traits than on his side. He was a warm kindly soul and very moral and my view is this held him back from most of it. But it didn’t stop him apparently once throwing a wardrobe off a balcony and chopping down a staircase with an axe but largely he seems a man who dealt with it through solitude. Both my parents had extreme rage but my father’s almost exclusively only came out in binge drinking episodes, and otherwise I think his personality contained it. I’ve had extreme rage but almost always self-directed or at objects. Since diet, supplements, medication and environmental adaptations I’m quite good with it. Spirituality (not religion) is also something both me and my younger brother have that probably helps. Some religious zealots have had extreme rage so I can’t see that religion necessarily helps people with a rage disorder though a degree of spirituality might help to at least walk away or employ self calming strategies…
but for me rage and tendency to addiction go together, so when rage flares, it is so hard to turn away from it. In Like Colour To The Blind I wrote of giving my hands to Ian to stop me striking myself in rage. It was humbling and hard to admit I couldn’t stop myself when enraged but even admitting that and getting help helped me over the years come to better manage it.
And re bipolar, I’ve seen the most appalling violence from two mood disordered parents. But I believe all three of us kids experience mood disorders and in me and my younger brother it has fed largely into arts and sensory buzzing and in my younger brother into arts so it really depends on how conditions interact with personality.
I think there are some personality traits which end up in disorder proportions which when combined with things like intermittent explosive disorder and bipolar are harder to channel constructively and LD and communication disorders complicate that, further limiting opportunities to channel these in less damaging ways.
As a rule you’re mostly correct. Being autistic doesn’t make it okay to kill anyone.
I realise that in this entry you’re not talking about murder resulting from repeated abuse by someone……….
But it’s conceivable that such a thing could happen.
Ivan
One of the problems, as I see it, is that people who rate higher are bullying others. While everything you say can be true and should be considered. You fail to mention that it might also be a part of autism that doesn’t effect everyone. Prehaps it simply increases the risk.
While, I understand your fear. My fear is that autistic people who can speak for themselves, are doing what the physically handicap people did to people with mental disabilities. “Don’t call us handicap, we are challenged not disabled”. Which resulted in the PC folks agreeing, which resulted in school closing and funding cuts, after all, we are all challenged, right.
I think now is the time to not be defensive and work together to resolve this. Create division and you power.