I have been thinking a lot about language over the past couple of weeks. Jo Cox’s murder in England, the Orlando shootings in Florida and our own Eddie McGuire, just “having a joke” – which happened to involve drowning a respected female football commentator as its punchline.
Punchline. Gives you pause for thought, doesn’t it?
In fact, as you’ll know if you’ve read I swear, I think about language frequently. Jo Cox was killed by someone who appears to have held views in extreme contrast to hers, and disagreed to the extent that he was prepared to kill her. Whether mental illness was involved, I don’t know. But certainly, there was no respect.
There is debate about whether the massacre in Orlando was a terrorist attack or a gay hate crime. However one chooses to categorise it, the gunman certainly had no respect for the patrons of the Pulse nightclub.
Then there was Eddie. A decent guy just having a blokey joke with some mates. It was all in good fun. Of course, he would never do anything as hideous as holding someone under water. So why joke about it? We know it happens. Pixels and print have flowed as this unconscious bias has suddenly been exposed and called for the ugly thing it is. Letters and social media have seen opinions both ways. Many vociferously supporting Eddie and excoriating those who would hold him to account. Others point out that it demonstrates a world view where the man is king and woe betide the woman who dares to criticise him. Either way – no respect.
And there’s Wombat world. Where brotherly teasing sometimes passes the boundary of cheerful ribbing into the dangerous territory of verbal abuse. Where frustration at parental requests boils over into white-hot meltdown anger and intimidating, threatening, insulting and demeaning language.
Recently, a simple request from Littlest Wombat at 10.30 pm for his oldest brother to turn down the TV resulted in verbal nastiness and a hard shove in the stomach. As Littlest Wombat lay sobbing on his bed, he said to me, “If there was a tablet that made people nice, I think he needs to take two.” Okay, I’m sure that I probably called my sister and brothers “sooks” at some stage. But I start to get concerned when the verbal morphs into the physical.
Likewise, when a parent holding the line about something results in being on the receiving end of insulting, abusive, intimidating and threatening language, I worry. Yes, I could see that this incident happened in “meltdown” territory. Yes, I realised that the Wombat in question had probably hardly eaten all day – never a good thing with him. But no excuses. If this behaviour had been directed at someone else in another situation, there could have been serious consequences. What do you do?
Bullying is not in the eye of the perpetrator – it’s how the victim perceives it. Resorting to yelling, personal abuse, and destructive, vindictive behaviour is not a good default position.
The good news is that we got through it. I consistently refused to engage, called the language and behaviour for what it was, held my breath, held my line and prayed. We got through. But it was tough – even for those on the periphery.
What am I doing wrong? Sure, in Wombat World we’re not perfect parents. We get cross, fed up, even angry with our kids sometimes. But we try very hard to model respectful relationships, to model talking through frustrations and importantly, to model sincere apologies when we get things wrong. It’s really hard when you see behaviour thrown in your face which is certainly not coming from us as parents.
Where does it come from?
The part of our brain which alerts us to danger and triggers the “fight or flight” response is the amygdala. The amygdala of those with ASD can be different from others, and hyper-reactive.* The frontal lobe – which acts as the brake on the “fight or flight” response – might not even be aware that a meltdown is looming.
In high stress situations, that “thinking” part of the brain closes down first. Then, wham – like a high powered car going from zero to a hundred kph in a few seconds, the person is in full meltdown. Quite possibly trying to manage the situation that triggered it, but with insufficient supports (either internal or external). In Wombat world, we just need to “ride it out” – logic has no place until the relevant wombat has regained his or her equilibrium.
From this perspective, I can understand an extreme response. And I sympathise. But it doesn’t answer my question of why the nasty, hurtful speech is triggered, and not something else.
Surely, what we say is intrinsically informed by our values system, and then consciously or subconsciously directs our speech. And yet, when I am tired, frustrated and at my wits’ end, I can say things that I instantly regret. How much harder must it be, then, for someone who is in meltdown to be able to access their values system. So I wonder again, in that case, what underlying values system ARE they accessing for their speech, or are they even accessing one at all? What triggers someone to call their father an “imbecile” simply because he asks for cutlery to be used when attacking the roast chicken at dinner?
So where does it come from? The short answer is I don’t know. It’s probably irrelevant. And for me, there are two issues: what happens in “normal” mode and what happens in “meltdown” mode, where the primal amygdala is overriding the more “cerebral” frontal lobe? I worry that if being disrespectful in “normal” mode becomes habitual, then it’s more likely to be the default position for “meltdown” mode. As a Chinese proverb goes:
“Be careful of your thoughts, for your thoughts become your words.
Be careful of your words, for your words become your actions.
Be careful of your actions, for your actions become your habits.
Be careful of your habits, for your habits become your character.
Be careful of your character, for your character becomes your destiny.”
Yet this wombat refuses to acknowledge that he’s being rude or disrespectful. “I’m just telling the truth,” is the constant reply. “X is being stupid/watching a stupid show/saying stupid things etc.” The irony is that he would be the first to take offence if someone said those things about him.
He had calmed down by dinner time. Food makes a huge difference to his temperament and ability to remain in control. Again – this is something he rarely acknowledges, which makes it difficult when we are trying to encourage him to eat. He came and watched some TV with me. Even accepted my offer of a back rub before bed. I think that letting me in is his way of apologising. But that won’t always be an option.
Like Eddie, the challenge for him is to accept that some things just aren’t acceptable. That when someone doesn’t see something as a joke, it isn’t. That constantly speaking disrespectfully of someone erodes their self-esteem. And does the speaker no good. You don’t make yourself look big by making someone else feel little. At heart, this wombat is a loyal, loving, caring, clever, interested and interesting young man. He is worthy of and capable of being better. Our challenge is to help him see this, and to give him the strategies to change. After tonight, though, I feel very much as though I am falling short.
Until next time, may we all be careful of our thoughts and speech. And Happy Wombatting!
