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.
As a newcomer to the site I have learned so much that has helped me to rationalise my 'condition', if I can call it that, through what I've always assumed to be perfectly acceptable open discussion. I have also had certain literature recommended to me, which has also been a great help. Does this constitute medical advice? You could argue it either way.
Thank you to everyone who has given advice freely thus far...just in case that river gets dammed sometime soon. As several people have already said, this is almost certainly driven by fear of litigation, and therefore somewhat understandable if regrettable.
Pleasure. I'm also a newcomer to the site. § It's called an autistic condition, at least this term is used by us. Then I wouldn't be able to write to you from here. § I'll tell you no! I'll explain. medical advice .And not even in a nihilistic advice, if for example a literature devoid of ethics were recommended (example: how to die, none of us would do it I set an impossible extreme example, given that we are good and correct people). §Let's put ourselves in the perspective of a forum. Which accepts us with a diagnosis of autism, but also with other types of problems (a very long speech that I don't do) and with questions aimed at understanding oneself. § A medical advice is when a user writes not Ethically to use a drug, make a diagnosis without the title of a specific degree, when you try to interrupt a therapy, when you use, for your personal reasons or malice, interactional methods of doing nothing prescribed by a doctor or do not write a very simple sentence of the according to my opinion and of the own experiences. That it is not helpful without overstepping unstable boundaries in very fragile people. You praise therapies not shared by the scientific world. it was published in SCIENCE for example. There is a not fine line between informing and medically advising. § I write that here in Italy it is perfectly normal and right (sorry if I have already written it); call peremptorily and if repeated the call this leads immediately to the Ban (exclusion forever from the forum)§ To say that NAS, perhaps with a rule number 13 protects itself from legal actions not wanted by NAS, is the least I can do.§ Question ... but have you ever wondered why NAS Forum in this case should immediately regulate something with a rule 13? I studied 5 years of logic at school. I could describe hundreds of pages of this subject to you, I won't I will use only one answer: it is not that if they did it it means that they were not protected? In perfect good faith they accepted the comments of users who in the best case could also be wrong. I also wrote that I could have unintentionally made a mistake in answering here in the thread. §This is possible! §I'll give you an example, in one of our regions we have a Governor called Luca Zaia. He is super good. He does a hundred things for example, but he can also make some mistakes. He is well liked by people because he admits he is wrong when he is wrong. He is rarely wrong too. Isn't it normal to have a regulation? Why is it so annoying to have a regulation that fills a potential lack in the regulation itself? Isn't it good? Let us ask ourselves really why there are all these hesitations to a rule if anything. § A rule provides for impositions. But impositions allow the site to exist. If they are violated? The site that suffers? I am writing to you myself that maybe in six days I'll be here longer because I unintentionally wrote something wrong here in the thread. I'm not sure I'm biased. If you don't see me it will be because of this thing. If it happens it will only be my fault, not the site and whoever manages it, but only mine. I accept this. And I wish you all the best for a good continuation. I will never write that the site was wrong. If anything, I hope that the site will remain without me. I am here now, I may not be there soon. My intention is to write it in a super serene way. Don't complain. In my opinion, anyone who complains about these things is doing it wrong.
I will have for this another flag (?)
Which I won't oppose because it becomes stressful for me to find excuses and it always repeats itself.
My apologies to everyone if I have offended your sensibilities, it is not my intent, I am very sensitive too, and I would greatly appreciate it if that were the case.
Thank you