Published on 12, July, 2020
Today completes an important step for the National Autistic Society. Today with Rule 13 they complete the abdication of responsibility for supporting autistic adults reaching out for help.You may remember in 2021 that the National Autistic Society closed its general helpline. There was a thread about it on this forum. As was pointed out at the time from that point onwards this forum became the only port of call at the National Autistic Society for help for people who did not qualify for one of the remaining helplines.And the remaining helplines pertain to children in school, children leaving school and parents of autistic children. The National Autistic Society has become a defacto children’s charity leaving autistic adults out in the cold.Now not content with refusing to help autistic adults they now seek to reduce autistic adults ability to help each other. I fully admit that a bunch of amateurs on an autistic support forum is a poor substitute for professional help. However the vast majority of those seeking such help now have nowhere to go professional or otherwise.Some of you know that I also brought a lawsuit against an organisation for discrimination. I reached out to the citizens advice bureau and got no useful help. I reached out to the EASS and they said that they couldn’t help me because the other party would not engage with them. I wrote to established academics with a background in discrimination law and autism and they said they couldn’t help me.Yes I rang that autism helpline back when it existed, back when I tried to get some justice and they said we can’t help you. But at least I spoke to someone who admitted that he was supposed to be able to help me. That helping me was what he was there for.With regard to the law when you bring a case for discrimination most of the time legal aid is not available. This is in part because the majority of discrimination cases go through the small claims track which is intended to operate without lawyers.Something similar applies to the health service. It’s very easy for autistic people to get sidelined in the health service particularly if they are bad at articulating their needs and concerns. Again I know this from personal experience.At this point if autistic adults come to this forum or the loved ones of autistic adults come to this forum and say they are having difficulty with the law or discrimination or a medical issue rule 13 interpreted strictly means that we can provide no helpful advice other than pointing to sources of help that in fact do not exist.For quite some time now I have run a website dedicated to helping autistic people defend their rights and oppose discrimination. I chose not to include a forum on that website because I was aware that policing it could involve a substantial amount of work. However this development has persuaded me to change my mind. So I’m announcing that areyoualien.uk now has a forum for autistic people. The focus of this forum like the website is advocating for autistic rights in government policy and the law and opposing discrimination. You are all very much welcome there.
In these days of extreme litiginous is is no wonder the site has to create this caveat otherwise they could become liable for any piece of bad advice from one of the users (over which they have no control).
I've had people on here telling me to go kill myself, and if I did follow through with this then my family could have a legal case to come after NAS and sue them.
They are most likely struggling for funding and having to spend money defending legal cases from any random who turn up on the forum is less money they have to spend on positive help for others.
Shifting the user base to another forum will not really help as the legal implications will soon enough follow and the other site will discover the same costs and risks that will cause them to adopt the same rules.
Debbie is right - to cover ourselves legally we cannot offer advice, only our opinion and we should always make clear that this is the case.
Iain said:I've had people on here telling me to go kill myself,
Say what now ?!
I seem to not see that level of hate on these pages - I don't know why not, but I am pleased that it is so. May I ask - was your hate received in open forum, or via PM? There seems to be a whole side of this place that I don't see.
Don't worry it happens to most of us at times. Akismet (the spam fighting bot) can be very sensitive.
Having a post flagged automatically doesn't mean you have written anything wrong. Just submit the appeal and the post should be restored in a day or two.
Happened to me too. It does it automatically. Perhaps this should be evaluated better. Instead, the discussion is turning around a rule that is present in all the forums of the world. And it's right according to my experience. Like it or not, it's right. § The NAS is useful for us autistics, it just can't accommodate our mistakes or abuse in posts. This I would find incorrect in their regard. § Since they have a lot of posts to go through, let's not rush them because they are human beings, and have the time necessities to go through posts. § Having said that, I may have to leave it if I have written two posts considered wrong, in spite of myself. My intentions are always oriented towards maximum respect and honesty. I can be wrong: I don't speak English and format badly. Or I may be incomprehensible. But here I put it into account and I'm really sorry to give him extra work. § The forum is useful let's not oppose it! You write very well. Unfortunately here I can not write posts at my level and are not of quality If it loses you it will be a serious problem for the NAS. Stay here. Thank you
I've tried replying but my post are being flagged at the moment - no links or abusive language so I'm not sure what is going on. Hopefully they will be reviewed and released in the morning.
Number said:May I ask - was your hate received in open forum, or via PM?
It was in a forum post which the mods deleted as you would expect. The person in question had a severe reaction to anyone offering advice which escalated into abuse.
Happily it is a very rare occurrance and the mods did a great job of allowing the opinions to be aired with the abuse removed.