Is it me or is this website not entirely autistic friendly?

And now I've had a post flagged as abuse because I asked someone why they're scared of dying and mentioned that dying is hard. Apparently this is encouraging self-harm  (!????!)

Hi Andy,

I would unreservedly recommend Sara Heath from Shropshire Autonomy as a possible assessment route for you, Her website is down at the moment, but you should be able to "Google" her contact details. You should also be able to search the community posts here and see that others have also previously recommended her too. Sara is a non-medical Autism expert who works privately with an NHS psychiatrist. Because Sara does a pre-assessment before referring you to the psychiatrist, it works out considerably cheaper than some other private providers. She will only refer you to the psychiatrist if she is confident that there is enough evidence for a medical diagnosis. I used her for my diagnosis last year (age 50) and have no regrets whatsoever. Please let me know if you have any questions.

It sounds like you’re in the same place as me. I know what you mean about being geared to children but it’s a life long condition and in my opinion gets worse (if it is my ‘problem’) likewise I have unknowingly developed strategies and have found IT a saviour over the years, emails instead of phone, organising using spreadsheets etc. which negate some of the answers.  Also with age you can arrange your life to have less contact with people  

With web pages I need things simple and clear, I feel a bit baffled by this site, I don’t understand some of the answers you have to this post, am I even replying to it? I went to the ‘introduce yourself’ area and there seemed to be posts of all types - the sort of thing that makes me feel like blowing a fuse (along with your infuriating postcode search) and like an unwelcome outsider!

PS I Like the way you put space around your paragraphs! 

It sounds like you’re in the same place as me. I know what you mean about being geared to children but it’s a life long condition and in my opinion gets worse (if it is my ‘problem’) likewise I have unknowingly developed strategies and have found IT a saviour over the years, emails instead of phone, organising using spreadsheets etc. which negate some of the answers.  Also with age you can arrange your life to have less contact with people  

With web pages I need things simple and clear, I feel a bit baffled by this site, I don’t understand some of the answers you have to this post, am I even replying to it? I went to the ‘introduce yourself’ area and there seemed to be posts of all types - the sort of thing that makes me feel like blowing a fuse (along with your infuriating postcode search) and like an unwelcome outsider!

PS I Like the way you put space around your paragraphs! 

cheers for that, I was hoping this place would be a safer place to search for decent assessor than internet. But will try those links

Moderating this forum must be a bit like trying to herd cats. I think the Mods mean well, but at times I find their attitude a bit patronising. Their starting point seems to be that we are all "vulnerable" and need to be protected.

I prefer the approach of the Mental Capacity Act - assume your service user has mental capacity and treat them as a competent adult unless and until there is a good reason to suggest otherwise.

Hello Andy P,

This website is like it's users.

A bit special and often really quite dysfunctional in some very surprising ways.

Welcome home.

Number

I think they're just worried about you and others, particularly if it's a trigger. 

I mentioned suicide in 1 message here, and believe me the mods did NOT  like it. This forum is not autistic friendly.

Do you think they may have employed a neurodivergent bot as a search engine?  If you can have Artificial Intelligence, why not have an autistic or ADHD bot? A think-outside-the-box-bot ... what a wonderful idea.

The worst thing is that people might think that the NAS website is definitive and miss out entirely on some resource local to them,

I looked for my own listing using different keywords, and the results were, if not random, rather strange. I used "social work" as the keyword, but most of the results were not for social workers but an assortment of independent providers and statutory agencies. Very frustrating!

Not autistic friendly?  It's all relative.    Try discussing autism and suicide attempts on other social websites and see how friendly and helpful prople are.

Yes, the search function is just laughable, I have never received a useful set of results from it. It seems to give three types of result: nothing, everything, or totally random.

You might want to do an internet search for private companies that do assessments through the Right to Choose scheme if you need to go through the NHS to keep costs down. Just be aware that one of the national ones Psychiatry UK has had to close its door to new referrals so they don't get overwhelmed but "you can still go through Right To Choose (free NHS) with Clinical Partners https://www.clinical-partners.co.uk/for-adults/autism for adults. And Places like Clinical Partners and Psicon will do Therapy sessions via Skype for general mental health support. For kids Right to choose is also in place with Wellbeing https://www.wellbeingasd.co.uk/services/right-to-choose/ " I'm having to copy paste that info a few times now because of the Psychiatry UK status currently.

Now as for the

Andy P said:

I fear failing a questionnaire just because I have learnt coping strategies over the years.

be sure to do and take the results of the online CAT-Q as that test specifically covers traits that could be masked. https://embrace-autism.com/cat-q/

Hope that helps.