Anti-Ableism Policy: Experience of Derek Hearthtower (North Bay Regional Center)

Derek Hearthtower

Many of my experiences with North Bay Regional Center and its service providers have made my life worse. I have left many meetings with additional mental trauma. I’m tired and hurt from people emotionally abusing me, saying it’s because we care about you, and then refusing to listen and trust my experiences. Love without respect is a very dangerous combination. Experiencing and observing in my role as a client and also as an employee of service providers, regional center and its vendors have violated clients’ rights by:

• manipulation by
  • saying I can’t change my IPP.
  • saying they wouldn’t tell my mom anything and then did so in front of me.
  • saying they wouldn’t contact a former therapist of mine, then did so anyway.
  • saying someone isn’t available for a specific appointment when they were actually choosing not to see me at any time.
• microaggression by
  • asking me “did you graduate high school?” instead of asking for my highest level of education.
  • asking me “do you do janitorial there?” when I said where I work.
• marginalization by
  • trying to convince me that I’m not autistic.
  • ignoring my questions.
  • defending the side of the people discriminating against me saying “nobody’s perfect”.
  • hanging up on me right when I mentioned discrimination.
  • telling me to stop telling people they are hurting me because “that hurts the relationship”, meaning that how they feel about me is more important than my own feelings. If telling them they are hurting me damages the relationship, that’s not the kind of people I want a relationship with and that’s not someone you should be paying to do their job.
  • saying “sweetheart…it’s not that bad” after complaining about discrimination
  • interrupting me to say that I am acting like a child after I attempted to call something discrimination, not even letting me finish.
  • saying I don’t need to share my history and triggers with providers, after I worked hard on it.
  • ordering staff to dead name and use non-preferred pronouns for a transwoman, despite the pain it caused her.
  • giving me non-consensual advice, right after I told them this is a trigger for me because of my Persistent Drive for Autonomy.
  • refusing to talk to me ever again after I inquired to his supervisor how I can make a complaint.
  • holding an angry staff meeting in full view of clients, stressing them out.
  • wiping a client’s butt then wipe his face afterwards with it.
  • doubting that I was abused at work.
  • being ignored by SDP ombudspeople.
• denial of reasonable accommodation by
  • hiding a clients’ communication aids because they didn’t like what he was saying.
  • telling me this is not the way it works after I requested an accommodation others are already receiving. (Honestly, then it doesn’t work at all.)
  • denying an elderly, blind client assistance walking to his room at night to force him to stay awake while he begged for help, all so he doesn’t wake up early and inconvenience the overnight staff.
  • letting a provider expel me because I asked for an accommodation (why would anyone ever ask if they know there’s the risk of retaliation?).
  • splitting hairs to give companies as much leeway as possible to deny my needs even when what I need is in my IPP (I best communicate in writing), but the specific accommodation to meet that need is not (to be able to communicate in writing when needed).
  • ignoring the requirement that termination of a service from a provider requires a 30 day notice (while the appeal to DDS affirmed it)
• violation of privacy by
  • discussing what services I need with my landlord without my permission.
  • asking me how often I masturbate.
• unethical discipline by
  • using social isolation by putting a client in a corner alone.
  • physically pulling a client along for a walk when he didn’t want to go.
  • pushing a client to other rooms when merely asking would have worked.
  • threatening to push a client outside without clothes on after he didn’t do what she wanted.
• misuse of power by
  • violating the DDS directions that any specific provider I am using does not have to be named in the spending plan.

Despite all the promotion of self-determination in advertising, the lack of self-determination is the regional centers’ biggest source of abuse. After making a clients’ rights complaint, the response I got was that they were acting in my best interest. Effectively, this means they can do any harm as long as they believe it’s in our best interests. Now I fear talking to staff because they have a free pass to hurt me despite the boundaries I shared and what I put in my IPP. The dark ages of treating us like objects to be fixed instead of people to be supported is not over yet. This is conservatorship ideology, the opposite of self-determination. It is shown in how the services are designed to make autism invisible rather than generally to improve our lives (needed after lifetimes of oppression and marginalization). I didn’t come to them for someone to fix or control me. Using best interest means they believe their judgment is better than mine when it comes to my well being. I am the expert on my experiences.