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Information about me for Cadets.

Amy

Hello

I go to Sea Cadets twice a week and In the summer I have quite a few course booked now (exiting but also VERY scary). In the past I have (mostly!) enjoyed courses but I leave completly exausted and frustrtated after a whole weekend (courses are usually weekends anyway) of being completly missunderstood by staff. So far all the courses I have been on have been at other units where i know none of the staff theri or any other cadets going-and all the ones comming up are at new places too. I doubt I would recognise another cadet even if I had seen them before.

A staff member from my local autism group said that he would help me to make a information sheet for cadets that explains about autism and then has things specific to me that I could take and show them at all these courses. He has now said that my funding for him to come to collage and help me do things like this has stopped so I don't think he is able to help me anymore. But I think it is a good idea so I want to try and do it myself.

I have a few ideas about what I should include but I'm really struggling with writing it. The things I have so far thought to include are: 

  •  General information about Autism and common symptoms that affect me explaind in a simple way. e.g. interpret things literaly, sensative to noise/lights/touch/etc..
  • What behaviors I do that are often unusal and that it is best to give me time alone when things get too much for me. 
  • Do not touch me! My unit did first aid and I was told off for not letting them put a sling on me when I was clearly not injured and they were touching me. The next time we did first aid he singled me out by name and said ".... now tonight we will not have you being silly, you will let people touch you and stop making a big fuss.." I felt terrible, clearly he did not understand I am not making a fuss and touching really hurts me! If I had the choice this is one part of ASD I would change, but I cant and I wish people understood that. 
  • That I get tired easy when doing things that are new so to allow me to go to sleep! (I have been forced up till 11pm on one course in a horrible noisy disco when I would have happily gone to sleep at 8pm! They then wonderd why I got more and more upset.... I got too scared and am none verbal so could not explain, so it went on..) 
  • I need to somehow tell them that I am non-verbal if scared/azious, but I can sometimes have good talking skills, but I a, not sure how to write it and explain it in a simple way-any ideas? 
  • I also need to include that because of eczema I do not roll my sleves up in the summer. My unit agreed to this last year but I have no proof. The staff from my center was going to help sort this out too so I had proff it would apply at other units but it has not happend.
  • Neither has the fact that I should not be QM. My unit has not agreed to this but they need to, and I need a way to tell other units when I arrive. The staff was supposed to do this but never did.  (QM is basically a receptionist, their are bits I can do and obviously (to people here anyway!) bits I would find hard, like knowing what on earth I should say to visitors? and that I am not able to use a phone. Obviosuly having ASD would make this a very hard job for me and cadets need to understand this and either supervise me to do it or not have me doing it if I can still progress as the others do) 

Can anyone think of anything else I should mention or include?

Another thing is how should I introduce it, and lay it out. I have 2 ideas for this. The first is to do a A4 document with a short intro paragraph (mentiond below) then with a bulet point list similar to above with the different points. I would try and put them in to some sort of sections like stuff in practical lesons, stuff in theory lessons, genearal things for not in lessons (mainly when staying over somewhere). I would have a coppy myself and give each unit I went to a coppy with the health form when I arrived. 
The other idea is for me to have each of the things in my poket in a card. So if for example someone was touching me I get the "do not touch" card out and show them. In that situation I would be too scared to speak and my behavior just makes me look even more 'weird or different' and no-one can ever work out what the problem is! Althouth that would mean they only learnt about these things when they happend, unless I could also give in a list at the start. Even then I can not guarentee they show all the staff. 

My final point is about the introduction. I am at the moment thinking a combiation of both the list and cards would be best. I have started writing the introduction and would appreciate some feedback. Where their is brackets it would be personal information that I do not want to post on here. 

Hello. I am (rank and name)  from (the name of my unit) unit and I have autism. Please read the information below to help you to help me while on this course. I hope this will help you understand me and my behaviour and help you know what to do when I behave strangely. Please can you  make sure that all the staff in this unit and the staff that will be teaching me have this information. 

Any feedback about any of this or ideas would be a massive help. As would anything else you can offer e.g if you have had a similar problem or have a partiqular skill in writing information in a letter! 

Looking forward to some advice. 
Amy  

Parents

  • Hi Mum of 3. Nice to have replys from you. :)

    I do remember you have mentiond your son in Marine cadets before. 

    I put autism on my T1 soon after I was diagnosed (I stared cadet before this, I think this is part of the problem. I was just a 'normal' cadet, and I appear normal at first which I assume delayed diagnosis. Now diagnosis helps me to understand myself and is helping others understand me if they would bother to listen unlike cadets) but it is  basically just ignored I assume because they do not know what it is or what it means and did see me as just any other cadet before-why is that suddenly different? My unit are very slowly getting the message a bit now. 
    So, I think that providing them more information is important because clearly what I have done so far has not helped.

    I was wondering about that, like is their anything against them being so horrible? It seems their is but what can I do about it? Collage is the same, equally un-helpful and not understanding. Been a fairly bad year really. 

    Anyway, when I first started cadets someone said that the main thing about cadets is going on courses, what you do in the unit is just a tiny bit and you  need to go on courses you choose to get the most from it, so I did. I would generally prefer to go places with new people-not because I like new people but because all the cadets at my unit are horrible, they dont listen to me (mainly when I give commands when taking squad) and the rest of the time I am either picked on or completly ignored. The staff wern't much better, although I can see evidence they are trying to be helpful to me. Like they let me stay out of one of the games (it involved holding hands then getting tangled then working as a team to untagle everyone) on games night without a big discussion-I was very impressed when that happend :) 

    I would have preferred to sit somewhere quiet (and light enough) to read my book, or go to sleep. All the new people, a new place and having things to learn makes me tired very quickly. But they forced all the cadets to be on the Main Deck where the disco was, no-one was allowed upstairs or anywhere other than the main deck. I resorted to sitting in the corner with a torch and my book, untill other cadet crouded round me, I got scared, then more cadets came, then staff, let's just say that them not understanding made a hard situation even harder! 

    This is why I want to work on telling the staff about me so I hope that it does not happen again. I agree exactly with what you are saying that cancaling the disco would not be reasonale but letting me go somewhere less noisy would-and less noise is at least better than lots of noise! Fortunatly only the bigger units have discos, when their is not many they do other things like watch a film or the cadet generally just mess around, talk or do whatever they do! Not a ful on disco but still equally noisy at 3am when I really want to sleep. Discos are deffinatly the worst though so if it's not a disco I am vaugly happy. I think all units have some people sleeping on the Main Deck, unless they have accomodation. However the very small number of girls are usually in a classroom instead-us needing to be seperate from the boys (well, according to the rules, not that every unit checks that it happens!) So, at all the units I have been to so far I have had a seperate 'bedroom'. 

    You said that cadets have a disabilty policy. What does this mean exactly? Im not sure but I think from your post you say their are things in the policy that means that they have to do them that they are not doing. So doe that mean that I can do something about it to make sure they do these things? 

    Amy. 

Reply

  • Hi Mum of 3. Nice to have replys from you. :)

    I do remember you have mentiond your son in Marine cadets before. 

    I put autism on my T1 soon after I was diagnosed (I stared cadet before this, I think this is part of the problem. I was just a 'normal' cadet, and I appear normal at first which I assume delayed diagnosis. Now diagnosis helps me to understand myself and is helping others understand me if they would bother to listen unlike cadets) but it is  basically just ignored I assume because they do not know what it is or what it means and did see me as just any other cadet before-why is that suddenly different? My unit are very slowly getting the message a bit now. 
    So, I think that providing them more information is important because clearly what I have done so far has not helped.

    I was wondering about that, like is their anything against them being so horrible? It seems their is but what can I do about it? Collage is the same, equally un-helpful and not understanding. Been a fairly bad year really. 

    Anyway, when I first started cadets someone said that the main thing about cadets is going on courses, what you do in the unit is just a tiny bit and you  need to go on courses you choose to get the most from it, so I did. I would generally prefer to go places with new people-not because I like new people but because all the cadets at my unit are horrible, they dont listen to me (mainly when I give commands when taking squad) and the rest of the time I am either picked on or completly ignored. The staff wern't much better, although I can see evidence they are trying to be helpful to me. Like they let me stay out of one of the games (it involved holding hands then getting tangled then working as a team to untagle everyone) on games night without a big discussion-I was very impressed when that happend :) 

    I would have preferred to sit somewhere quiet (and light enough) to read my book, or go to sleep. All the new people, a new place and having things to learn makes me tired very quickly. But they forced all the cadets to be on the Main Deck where the disco was, no-one was allowed upstairs or anywhere other than the main deck. I resorted to sitting in the corner with a torch and my book, untill other cadet crouded round me, I got scared, then more cadets came, then staff, let's just say that them not understanding made a hard situation even harder! 

    This is why I want to work on telling the staff about me so I hope that it does not happen again. I agree exactly with what you are saying that cancaling the disco would not be reasonale but letting me go somewhere less noisy would-and less noise is at least better than lots of noise! Fortunatly only the bigger units have discos, when their is not many they do other things like watch a film or the cadet generally just mess around, talk or do whatever they do! Not a ful on disco but still equally noisy at 3am when I really want to sleep. Discos are deffinatly the worst though so if it's not a disco I am vaugly happy. I think all units have some people sleeping on the Main Deck, unless they have accomodation. However the very small number of girls are usually in a classroom instead-us needing to be seperate from the boys (well, according to the rules, not that every unit checks that it happens!) So, at all the units I have been to so far I have had a seperate 'bedroom'. 

    You said that cadets have a disabilty policy. What does this mean exactly? Im not sure but I think from your post you say their are things in the policy that means that they have to do them that they are not doing. So doe that mean that I can do something about it to make sure they do these things? 

    Amy. 

Children
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