Jim Sinclair's report to the Planning Committee, edited to remove names and to fill in details learned after the initial report was filed August 12-13, 2013. THE INCIDENT As best I'm able to piece it together, here is what happened: are identified seizure triggers for Person1. This was indicated on her registration form prior to Autreat. Wednesday evening after the Kids' Program had vacated the main lounge (which has the communal kitchen in it), Person2’s daughter was watching a video on the big TV in the lounge. Person2 as her support person was sitting with her. The volume was loud because Person2’s daughter has some hearing loss. Other adults, including Person1, began coming into the room, because it's a social gathering space as well as because the kitchen is there. People who apparently were present, besides Person2’s daughter, Person2, and Person1: Supporter1, Supporter2, and I forget who else was there with Person1. Bystander1 was in the kitchen getting her food. Bystander2 came in toward the end of the confrontation. Everyone I spoke with agreed that the video volume was loud and that at least two requests were made to turn it down. Most people agreed that Person2 did in fact turn it down. There are conflicting reports as to whether Person2’s daughter or Person2 subsequently turned it back up again, or whether it was turned down and stayed down. It is agreed that while trying to adjust the volume, Person2 accidentally pushed the wrong button and caused the TV to switch from video to television mode, and that Supporter1 fixed it. It is agreed that Person2’s daughter was becoming verbally agitated by all this. It is agreed that music of the sort that can trigger Person1's seizures began playing on the video, whereupon Person1 began indicating this was a problem, Supporter1 ran across the room and muted the TV, Person2’s daughter objected, and someone else helped Person1 to leave the room. There are NO reports that there were any requests to turn the TV off, or any mentions of seizure triggers, or use of the word "emergency," prior to Supporter1 having already muted the TV. Therefore it is impossible for Person2 or her daughter to have "refused" to turn off the TV after being told there was a seizure trigger. They were not informed of the seizure trigger until *after* Supporter1 had already taken action to eliminate the trigger by muting the TV. It is agreed that after having been assisted to leave the room, Person1 came back into the room, apparently to retrieve and take her medication. It is agreed that Person1 yelled something involving the word "fuck," which she later said is an "autonomic" response when in that triggered state. (I believe she meant "automatic," as speech is not an autonomic function.) It is agreed that a bunch of people began confronting Person2 about the video, seizure triggers, and access rights; that Person2 stated that Person2’s daughter is also autistic and has seizures as well as hearing loss (Person2 states that she meant this to convey that she understands what seizure triggers are; Supporter2 interpreted it as meaning she was equating Person1's condition with Person2’s daughter's and thus minimizing the urgency of the situation); that people began shouting; and that Supporter2 told Person2 to fuck off. Person1 acknowledges having said sarcastically that being autistic means she isn't capable of thinking about anyone except herself. It alleged by Person1 and her supporters that Person2 replied to this saying that such self-focus is part of the definition of autism. Person2 says she does not specifically remember Person1 making the sarcastic statement, but does remember in the middle of this dramatic confrontation hearing some discussion about an autistic person's ability/inability to understand others, and remembers herself saying that the definition of the word autism is basically self-focus (referring to the etymology). It is alleged by Person2 that Supporter2 then told her she didn't belong at Autreat. It is alleged by Supporter2 that he didn't say she doesn't belong there but did ask why she was there if she believed that about autistic people. THE AFTERMATH: WEDNESDAY NIGHT By the time I came into the kitchen to get cat food, Person1 and her supporters had left. Person2 and Person2’s daughter were still in the lounge. Person2 was severely traumatized. Bystander1 was still in the kitchen, appeared to be outwardly calm, and was able to help Person2 describe what had happened. Bystander1 also apologized to Person2 for not having been able to process the crisis quickly enough to defend her. Bystander1 agreed that Person2 had been ganged up on. I listened to Person2 and Bystander1 tell me what they had experienced or witnessed. Person2’s daughter's only input was when Person2 repeated having been told she doesn't belong at Autreat, at which Person2’s daughter said, "Please don't say that, Mama." Person2 then took Person2’s daughter to their room and I got my cats' food from the refrigerator and took it to my trailer for the cats. Along the way I was told by some people that Person1 wanted to talk to me, and I said I would be there after I fed my cats. After feeding cats and hearing from more people that Person1 wanted to talk to me, and asking those people if they had been present during the incident and what they had witnessed, I got my own food from my room and proceeded with it to the lounge on Person1's floor, where I'd been told she was waiting, and found it to be full of people. Person1, Supporter1, Supporter2, , and a bunch more people were filling up the lounge. All were there for the Person1 meeting (people who happened to wander in thinking it was a casual conversational gathering were asked to leave), though most had not been present for the incident itself. Following the first draft of this report, I have learned that another member of the site management team was also present during the first part of this meeting, and can confirm that it occurred as I describe it. I should have started by asking people there to give me their accounts of what happened. I acknowledge it was a mistake to not take time to do that. I think I had already listened to accounts from everyone there who had actually been present during the incident, except for Person1 herself who was still highly triggered and also heavily drugged and also wasn't talking about the specifics of what happened but rather about the political implications (i.e., talking about access rights and safe space instead of about the TV being loud and making seizure-triggering sounds). So while I thought then and still think now that I'd already listened to accounts of the incident from everyone who had been there and was able to tell me about it, I should still have started by inviting them to tell their accounts again. But I didn't, even though I should have, because my thought at the time was that everyone I'd been told had been present, who was also in the room and communicative, had already told me their accounts. So instead I said, having listened to those several different people's accounts as well as Person2's and Bystander1's, that it seemed to me the problem was setting reasonable rules for use of public spaces like the main lounge. I asked them if that sounded right to them. They said not only wasn't it right, but it was dismissive and invalidating and trivializing to reduce an accessibility issue to a pissing contest over use of the lounge. I tried to clarify that I *did* recognize it as an accessibility issue, specifically *because* it involved a public space, but that did not satisfy them and they kept saying I was trivializing access concerns. So I said fine, I retracted the statement and asked what they thought the issues were. First Person1 kept saying she wanted to go home. I asked if she wanted to go home immediately right now. She said Autreat wasn't safe and people didn't care about access and it was the worst place she'd been since Autcom and she wanted to go home. I asked again if she meant she wanted to go home right then. I said if she wanted to go home right away, I would try to help make the necessary arrangements for her to go home, instead of sitting there talking about the incident with the video. If she wanted to talk about the incident, I would stay and talk about it with her. I asked her to tell me which she wanted me to do: discuss the incident or help her arrange to go home. The other people kept quiet and waited for her to answer. Eventually she said she wanted Autreat to be a safe place so she wouldn't have to go home early. I asked if this meant she wanted us to stay there and talk about how to do that, and she said yes. So I tried to ascertain what she thought was needed for Autreat to be safe and respectful of access rights. They (especially Supporter2) initially just piled blame on Person2. I asked questions about what was done and what was said, but informed Supporter2 sternly that making statements about what Person2 or anyone else thinks, feels, wants, cares or does not care about, etc. is out of line. I also told him it was out of line to tell Person2 and Person2’s daughter that something Person2’s daughter needs "is a want, not a need" and therefore less important than Person1's needs. If Person1 has shared information with him about what she needs, he is informed enough to make statements about what Person1 needs. He is not in a position to make judgments about other people's needs who have not shared similar information with him. He continued to characterize Person2’s daughter's issues as "wants, not needs." At one point after he again said Person2 doesn't care about access rights, I again told him he was not to make such statements denigrating what people think, feel, want or care about unless those people have directly stated that those really are what they think, feel, want, or care about. I asked him, "Do you understand?" He said yes. And didn't do it again for maybe ten or fifteen minutes. Supporter2 also indicated he'd thought at the time that Person2 is NT, though he'd since been informed that she isn't. It seemed to me that he was offering this as a partial explanation of his verbal aggression toward Person2--that if someone is, or is perceived to be, NT, then it's okay to treat that person more harshly than a fellow autistic. I find this problematic. Mostly people initially were ranting about Person2, and Person1 was saying Autreat doesn't respect access rights. I had to state three or four times that I agreed the TV should not have been played loudly in a public space, before people gave any indication of having heard me. Even after I agreed that the TV should not be loud in public space and that this needs to be part of what we do going forward, Person1 continued to state that people at Autreat don't care about access rights and it's not a safe space and it's the worst thing she'd experienced since Autcom. We finally seemed to have everyone focusing on how to fix things to improve accessibility and restore safety and prevent similar problems from happening again, starting with the TV not being loud in common areas, and anything else known to present a danger or access barrier or even significant distress to any participants being restricted in common areas. There were suggestions to designate some times for the TV to be off, including mealtimes when more people are using the kitchen. At one point after discussion was proceeding constructively about possible solutions, Supporter2 again started complaining about Person2. Person1 said, "I'm confused. Are we having a different conversation?" I said that we'd been talking about ways to make things better, but now Supporter2 was changing the subject to talking about blame. One of the other people in the group told Supporter2, "We've moved past that now," and he subsided. I do not think I tried to "defend Person2" during my meetings with Person1 and her supporters. I did note a couple of times that Person2 had been triggered by the incident too, and at some points when people were complaining that Person2 hadn't understood and responded immediately the way they thought she should have, I suggested that people (people in general, *not* specifically Person2) who don't have prior knowledge of a concern, and have it abruptly presented to them in the form of a demand to immediately change behavior that they hadn't thought there was anything wrong with, are likely to require a bit of time to process and comprehend and accommodate that information. (At this time I still was not clear on the order of events and was under the impression that Person2 was being blamed for failing to promptly understand and comply with a request to turn off the TV upon being informed it was a seizure trigger. As noted above, it has now been confirmed by multiple witnesses, including the person who actually did mute the TV, that no such request was made, and no mention of seizure triggers occurred, until *after* Supporter1 had *already* taken the necessary action of muting the TV.) It turned out Person1 had prepared detailed information and instructions about her various health concerns and possible medical crises, and sent them to about 50 different people (I am not sure if that number was a real estimate or an exaggeration) so that they would know how to assist in case something happened. This led to a discussion of the role of those support people. I finally got an opening to ask the question I'd been wondering: If all those people had advance knowledge of Person1's needs, and all had committed to help her, then why, after Person1 had initially been helped to leave the room, did she have to go back in to get her meds? Why did nobody go out with her to make sure she was safe and had what she needed? Why were they all still in the lounge arguing with Person2, instead of with Person1 helping her? Supporter1 accepted this and agreed that they should have gone with Person1, and one of them should have taken her medication to her so she didn't have to go back into the room. She also added that during the glow party someone had taken a picture with a flash, and Supporter1 had thought Person1 was still in the room (it turned out Person1 had already left), and had yelled at the person and ordered xem out of the glow party. (We should find out who that person was, and encourage Supporter1 to send an apology if she still agrees with her own earlier acknowledgment that her reaction was out of line, or reach out to that person ourselves if Supporter1 isn't willing to. Being publicly yelled at and kicked out of activities is not a reasonable consequence of a first offense for something that's against Autreat rules but entirely permissible in mainstream society.) Supporter1 said if Person1 had in fact been in the room when that happened, then Supporter1 would have been violating the instructions given by Person1, which instruct helpers to stay calm. I asked if the person had set off the flash on purpose or by accident (my intention being that if the flash was set off on purpose, that meant I ought to make sure the person now understood that xe shouldn't do that again), and Supporter2 (who was sitting next to me) emitted an agitated-sounding noise accompanied by an abrupt movement, appearing to me to be angered by my asking the question. Supporter1 said the flash had been an accident. I agreed that it is essential for helpers to stay calm. There was general agreement on this by the helpers, though some of them said it was hard for them to stay calm when something happened that seemed harmful to a person they cared about. I said if they were accepting the responsibility of being a helper to someone, they needed to make sure they were ready and able to fulfill the requirements of that role. Those requirements include being calm and rational when a crisis happens. If they are not sure they'll be able to do that, then they should rehearse and otherwise prep themselves in advance. Some verbal and body language responses indicated people liked the idea of rehearsing and preparing. It was not at the same time as this part of the discussion, but at some other time during the meeting, that Supporter2 said something similar about his confrontation with Person2 coming out of his difficulty controlling anger when Person1 was under threat. I asked him if he could conceptualize his crisis-response role as more like an EMT than a police officer: When an EMT responds to a situation where someone has come to some kind of harm, the EMT's focus is on helping the person who has suffered the harm. When a police officer responds, the police officer's focus is on identifying and confronting the person who has caused the harm. I asked Supporter2 if he could keep his focus on helping Person1, and leave it to site management to deal with whoever or whatever led to Person1's being in need of help. Some of the people present seemed to find this request reasonable. Continuing on the theme of people not complying immediately with demands to change their behavior, there was a suggestion to have a rule that any time someone says something is an emergency, everyone should go along with it right away even if they don't understand it, and they can ask questions later. I pointed out (I recall making this point several times that night) that it is not realistic to expect that people are going to be able or willing to do that, especially in a group of people who have a disability that frequently involves processing lags and difficulty handling unexpected demands, in a setting where they are already likely to be stressed due to being away from their usual environments and routines. I brought it back to the responsibilities of people who know they have issues that could put them in danger and that necessitate their having a contingency plan, and of people who accept the role of helpers for them. I made a careful point of assuring Person1 that she *had* done what I was about to suggest--and one of her supporters repeated for her that I was saying she had done this right--and then I said people who are aware of dangerous issues should have a plan in advance, and again affirmed that Person1 had in fact done that. (There was later a discussion about how maybe some of the people in that meeting could lead a useful workshop about how to develop a good emergency plan.) I also suggested, and the people at the meeting agreed, that it would be a good idea for anyone with a personal emergency plan involving other people to give a copy of their plan to the Planning Committee. I stressed that the Planning Committee canNOT take on responsibility for implementing everyone's personal emergency plan. But if we know what the plan is and who the designated helpers are, we'll be better able to respond if either some part of the plan falls through (like if the designated helper isn't around when a problem happens, we'll know to find that person and notify xem that xe's needed), or if other participants or venue staff notice something out of the ordinary and want to know what's going on. (Not that we would disclose confidential information, but just being able to confirm that we know what's going on--just having it be *true* that we know what's going on--and being able to check that the people who are supposed to be helping are present and doing the things they're supposed to be doing, would allow us to reassure concerned questioners that things are under control.) I said the emeregency plan should first get the person out of the dangerous situation, and then make sure the person doesn't have to go back into the dangerous situation (i.e., it should not have been necessary for Person1 to go back into the lounge to get her meds!), and that helpers should focus entirely on those two priorities and should *not* initiate or escalate confrontations with other people. This may be the source of the allegation that Person1 was advised to cede access rights. I never suggested any such thing. I only advised that she should get out of an imminently dangerous situation first, and make sure she was safe, and *then* address the access issue from a position of safety. At no time, EVER, did I say that getting out of the situation is the only thing needed. I just said it's the *first* thing needed. *After* the person is safely out of a dangerous situation, then the *next* step should be to report the problem to the on-site manager who will address the situation that caused the problem. This led to an agreement that it needs to be easier to locate on-site management when people need to. My cell phone wasn't receiving a signal most of the time at the venue. I had charged up the walkie talkies, had one with me, and gave the other three to Phil with instructions to keep one and give the others to Stan and Jonah, but I don't know if that ever happened. I think we should get cheap prepaid cell phones, from carriers that we know get good reception at the venue, for all on-site management team members who either don't have cell phones, have phones that don't get good reception at the venue, or don't want to give out their personal phone numbers to everyone at Autreat. Everyone at the meeting indicated agreement that these resolutions are reasonable and appropriate, and I wrote them down. Around this time Phil showed up after getting back to campus from being at the ER with . I said that having written down the resolutions we'd all agreed were reasonable, I would review them with Person2 and get her input the next day. I requested an agreement from everyone at the meeting not to confront Person2 again about the incident, but to let me relay the agreed-upon resolutions to Person2. I also said I would make the same request of Person2 to not confront them. They all agreed. There was a question about what to do if Person2 did confront them, and I said they should not engage, not escalate the confrontation, but should disengage and report to me or, if I wasn't available, report to Phil, who agreed to this. Then I had to find a private place with no sleeping roommates and brief Phil on the whole situation. Then I went to my room to change clothes and brush teeth and get ready to go back to my trailer for the night, and I checked my email and found Rhapsody's biopsy result. After that I couldn't go to sleep for a long time because I kept reliving all the horror of the night Rhapsody died, plus all the desperate efforts to save him during his whole life that I now know were hopeless from the outset because FIP is lethal and incurable, plus the unfairness and cruelty of people telling me I made him sick and killed him by feeding him a vegan diet when it turns out he died of a virus. THE AFTERMATH: THURSDAY While I was meeting with Person1 and her group Wednesday night, Person2 had texted me about being afraid to come out of her room and unable to do merchandise sales anymore. After the meeting I texted back asking if Person2’s stepdaughter could bring her a breakfast tray from the dining room so she wouldn't need to come out until after we'd had a chance to talk in the morning. Also Wednesday night I had checked with Jonah about how he was doing and how things were working with the Kids’ Program volunteers, to find out if it would be all right for me to sleep later in the morning because I was severely sleep-deprived by then. Jonah said he and the volunteers could handle the Kids' Program and I didn't have to show up early in the morning. I ended up setting alarms anyway, but then ended up sleeping through them, which may be for the best, because the last time I went more than four nights without sleep *I* was the one who had seizures and stopped breathing and didn't have a pulse and needed to go to the ER from Autreat. (And until last week I was the *only* person who ever had to go to the ER from Autreat. At least I'm still the only one who's ever been taken away from Autreat in a real ambulance instead of Phil's ambulance-deputized car. I hope I remain unique in that regard.) I woke up around 11 a.m. Thursday and went to the dorm to get food for my cats. Person2 was in the main lounge when I was in the kitchen getting cat food. Some people including Supporter2 came into the room while I was there. Person2 ran out of the room and flattened herself against the wall in the game room next door. I asked Person2 to come back to the trailer with me so we could talk while the cats ate. She agreed and we went. Person2 was still freaked out but was considerably more receptive to others' points of view than either Person1 or most of her supporters had been. She did not make any blaming statements about Person1 herself, but did complain about being ganged up on by her group of supporters and about being told she shouldn't be at Autreat. I told Person2 about the meeting the previous night with Person1 and her supporters. She agreed with the resolutions that came out of that meeting, and specifically that it was reasonable for Person2’s daughter to either bring a portable video player to watch videos in their room or else to use headphones if watching videos in a common area. And she agreed emphatically that she would not confront Person1 or her supporters about the incident. She said that she would like to tell Person1 that she was sorry for what happened, and I said I would relay that message. I suggested to her that at future Autreats Person2’s daughter could use a support person who is less triggerable and better able to withstand confrontations. And I pointed out, both to Person2 on Thursday and to the Person1-meeting group the night before, that nobody seemed to be granting any agency to Person2’s daughter in all this. Communication about Person2’s daughter and her behavior and her needs and wants was going between other people and Person2, not between other people and Person2’s daughter herself. Person2’s daughter was not receiving explanations about what was going on for other people, nor about ways her own choices could help or hurt other people, nor was she being offered the opportunity to make mindful choices for cooperative engagement. I find this problematic. She's a grown woman and people should not still be interfacing with her via her mom. I also asked Person2 if she needed anything, like maybe a friend to be with her so she could come out of her room and not have to brave public spaces alone. She told me that she had already come up with a plan for getting through the rest of Autreat, involving staying with her family in the Kids' Program room, going off-site or having Person2’s stepdaughter bring her trays for meals, and staying out of the way of Person1 and her group. While we were in my trailer having this conversation, Supporter3 came and knocked on the door. (How did so many people whom I had not invited to my trailer end up knowing where the trailer was and thinking it was okay to come bang on it? The trailer was supposed to be my own safe space!) Supporter3 said that Person1 wanted to talk to me again. I said I was meeting with someone else just then and would be back to the dorm afterward. After finishing talking with Person2 I checked email on my phone and found this from Phil under the subject line "Person1 is in bad meltdown": " asked me to come talk to her and I made the mistake of trying to respond to a vent. She says she feels totally invalidated by you and that all you did was defend Person2. I made the mistake of noting that Person2 was triggered too, and now Person1 doesn't want to talk to me either. I don't think she is going to present at 2:30 in this state." I went back to the dorm and someone, I think Supporter4 but it's possible it was Supporter3 again, asked if I would go talk with Person1 because she needed to hear some things she hadn't heard the night before, in order to give her presentation. I asked what she needed to hear. I was told that she needed me to admit to and apologize for gaslighting her the night before. I wasn't sure I'd heard that right so I asked for clarification: Was she saying that Person1 had already decided what I was supposed to say, and that if I didn't say what she wanted me to say, then she wouldn't give her presentation? The person (I think Supporter4) said that was her understanding of the request. I said if that was what she wanted, then it would be a waste of both our time for me to go meet with her. I was willing to go meet with her, but I was not willing to have her dictate what I would say, nor was I willing to be manipulated by a threat that if I didn't say what she wanted me to say, then she would not honor her commitment to Autreat. That is the only thing I said that could be construed as pressure to give the presentation: a reminder that she'd made a commitment, delivered not to her directly but to one of her supporters, and in response to being told that Person1 would only give the presentation on condition that I say certain things she specified I had to say. The person I think was Supporter4 said she would pass that message to Person1, and began typing on her phone. I said I was going to my room to eat breakfast (it was now about 1:30 p.m. and I hadn't eaten anything since a bowl of rice at the beginning of the Person1 meeting the night before), and afterward she could let me know if Person1 still wanted to meet. I went to my room and ate something, and asked Phil to inform the Planning Committee about what was happening and to brainstorm about emergency replacements for a canceled session, and tossed him a spare spoon. I was told that Person1 still wanted me to come to her room, so I went. Again there were many other people in the room. My recollection of which things were said in what order is not clear, but the following things happened in some order, probably not the order in which I'm listing them unless by coincidence: As described in a previous message, Supporter2 continued to distort things I said and then attack me on the basis of his distortions, until I said either he was leaving the room or I was. It has been claimed that I kicked him out of the room. I have a much better awareness of boundaries than to do that. It was not my room, not my meeting, and not my decision to kick anybody out. It *was* my decision to decline to stay in a situation where my ability to communicate was being systematically undermined. It has also been claimed that Supporter2 was "interpreting" for Person1. Supporter2 was sitting next to me at both the Wednesday night and Thursday afternoon meetings, across the room from Person1 both times. To the best of my recollection, he and Person1 never spoke directly to each other during either meeting. He never asked her questions to facilitate her responding, as the other supporters did. His participation consisted of attacking Person2, distorting and MISinterpreting things I said, and then attacking me on the basis of his distorted versions of my statements. This is why I declared that I would not stay in the room with him. One of her supporters asked Person1 which of us she wanted to stay. She said I should stay. Supporter2 left. It has subsequently been reported by two other members of the site management team that Supporter2 began making allegations that Person1 was being coerced into giving the presentation, *before* the meeting was over and *before* anyone knew whether or not Person1 would in fact give the presentation, so obviously before any information could have been communicated to him about whether she was coerced. It appears to have been a foregone conclusion. Why was I repeatedly asked by several supporters to go to a meeting about whether Person1 would give her presentation, if it had already been decided by Person1 and was known by her supporters that she didn’t want to give it? There was something said about Person1 needing apologies. My take on coerced apologies is that they’re not real, not meaningful, and not right. But in this instance I was able to report that I'd just met with Person2 and that Person2 had asked me to convey her apology. I said that at the time of the incident Person2 had not understood what was happening, that she now acknowledged she hadn't understood what was happening, and that she wanted me to tell Person1 she was sorry. Some of the supporters responded positively to this. I did not observe much response to it from Person1. I was told I had gaslighted (gaslit?) Person1 the night before. I asked what that meant. They said it means I said her experiences weren't real. I said I was sorry if it came across that way to her, but I in no way intended to deny the reality or the validity of her experiences. I had been trying to focus on practical things that could be done to prevent such things from happening again. And I had challenged (and still do challenge) her representations about *other* people’s experiences, such as repeated allegations that Person2 and/or Autreat organizers don’t care about access rights and don’t think she has a right to be there. I acknowledged repeatedly that an access violation had occurred, repeatedly assured her that it would be dealt with, but refused to agree with her contentions that it had been done on purpose or that people didn’t care about it. I tried again to explain that when, despite an intent and commitment for accessibility, something goes wrong and a dangerous situation occurs, I still think the immediate priority is to get out of the dangerous situation, and *then* once safe, work to remove the danger so the unsafe situation becomes safe. That's when Person1 said leaving the situation would mean she's admitting it's her fault for having epilepsy and she doesn't have access rights. There was more talk about Autreat not being safe and not respecting access rights and not having a commitment to accessibility. I continued to affirm a commitment to accessibility. I also repeated that Person2 had agreed to all the things the rest of us had agreed on the night before to prevent future occurrences. When something got said about Person2, Supporter3 made a personal statement about how she herself finds it very hard to be calm and rational and understand other people's positions in a situation where her child is upset or where people are seeming hostile toward her child. Somewhere in there Person1 said something again about me invalidating her, and one of her supporters reminded her that I'd already said I hadn't meant things that way and had apologized if I hadn't gotten my meaning across properly. It was either at that point in connection with Person1 wanting an apology from me, or at another point about Person2, that one of her supporters asked Person1 if she had been able to hear the apology I'd given (either my own or Person2's, whichever was being asked for after having already been given). Person1 paused briefly then said, "Not yet, but I will. That takes me a while." At no time during the meeting did I pressure her to give her presentation. I did, I think twice, toward the beginning of the meeting, ask her to tell me *if* she was going to give it. From this point on I am reasonably confident about the order of things: Things sort of wound down and then someone asked Person1 if she'd heard everything she needed to hear. She shook her head no. The person asked what she still needed to hear. She said something about me. I think this might have been the point where she was reminded that I'd already responded and was asked if she'd been able to hear what I'd said. Then she said I should have come and said those things to her two hours earlier. I explained that I am a person too and have my own needs to take care of, and other people (like Person2) that I'd also needed to meet with, and that I acknowledged and regretted I hadn't been able to get there as quickly as she'd needed me to, but I cannot go more than four days without sleep or more than sixteen hours without food and remain functional, and I was not going to apologize to her for being human. It looked like someone sitting next to Person1 was about to jump in when I said that, but Person1 said, "I can hear that, about clashing needs." And somewhere in there, after she was able to acknowledge that I have needs too, I disclosed that after the long meeting the night before, I had checked email and gotten Rhapsody's biopsy result, and there seemed to be some empathy displayed about that. Then after all this, someone, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't me this time, asked if she wanted to go ahead with her presentation. She said she didn't know. She also said something about not wanting to go give a presentation where there were people who didn't care about access rights and didn't think she had a right to be there. Without engaging in argument about whether that was an accurate reflection of anybody's position, I said that Person2 had told me she intended to stay in the Kids' Program with her family and would not be at the presentation. There were more questions about whether she wanted to go ahead with the presentation and what she needed to go ahead with it. This is where she responded with a string of "I don't know"s. There was a brief silence after she said "I don't know" and then I started to ask if that meant the rest of us should keep quiet and let her think, or if we should ask more questions. But someone else asked the same question before I did. In fact someone else *started* to ask the question before I did, but did not complete asking the question, because before the supporter had even finished asking the question, Person1 said, "Ask me yes or no questions." I sat quietly while her supporters asked these questions. If this is what she's referring to on her blog and on autreatinfo as abusing her and exploiting her trust, I'm not the one who did it to her. It was her own support team. Someone asked if she could give the slides to someone else to deliver the presentation. She answered quickly, "You can't have it. It's mine." Shortly after that she began listing other accomplishments she's done such as competing in events while injured, and said when she makes a commitment she keeps it. Neither I nor anyone else in the room put any pressure on her to give the presentation. She appeared to be talking herself into it and giving herself a pep talk. Once she'd decided to go ahead with it, people started asking pragmatic questions like if she had the slides, if she needed a drink of water or a sweater, where her shoes were, etc. I asked for someone to go to the presentation room and announce that Person1 would be there but would be a bit late. Supporter1 volunteered to do that, and left. There was a search for some hard candy, queries about whether other things like cough drops or chocolate would do (Person1 said no), and someone left the room and came back with LifeSavers which apparently were acceptable. After Person1 had been asked if she needed anything else, someone was thoughtful enough to ask me if I needed anything. I said I needed Supporter2 to stay away from me. The person said she would tell him. Finally as we were leaving the room I asked Person1 if it would be all right if I came to the presentation. She said she didn't care, she would not mind if I came but would not be offended if I didn't. Person1 and her supporters went to the presentation room. I went to my room and picked up the stuff I needed to write the remaining key deposit refund checks. (Early registrations were already done but a bunch of people registered right before, and a few even after, the cutoff deadline.) On my way out of the dorm I dropped off refund checks at the staff desk for people I knew were leaving on Thursday, and spoke briefly with two people who were checking out right as I was passing. Then I went to the presentation. Later that day Person1 did not express any hostility toward me or Autreat or the Planning Committee. She gave me some cat litter for Hyperbolic Cosine so I could keep her with me all evening. It turned out both Person1 and Person2 were chosen as First Witnesses by 5A honorees--Person1 was chosen by Bystander2 and Person2 was chosen by the one of the other honorees--so they were both at the ceremony and no fireworks erupted.