Aspies For Freedom

Notice
I don't really know what influenced my decision on the following.  These are just questions and my opinion.  Please feel free to bash these as you want.

Pro-Autism
This question has been bugging me and I can't really say that I'm proud for asking it but we talk about stepping up for ourselves and putting down the believes of organizations like Cure Autism Now and AutismSpeaks.org. but why don't we honestly show what we keep bottled up?  As a group we should put up a fight (not physically) and really do what we intend to do.  I really, honest to God, wish I could do more than sit here at the computer right now and type this thread, but due to my being the only Aspie in my area that believes in this idea there isn't much I can honestly do.

The biggest question...
What's wrong with us?  By asking this I'm not asking what is wrong what us, but what other people think is wrong with us.  Why do they ridicule us, spit on us (figuratively), and see us as low, undesirable lifeforms?  People have the nerve to judge for us when we can't speak.  Oh, my poor Jimmy boy is suffering from autism.  He needs to be cured.  It's sad really, how they think that we want to be any different than we already are.  And thank God for those who are different; who actually say that we matter.  They are the best.  As well for the others, what do they actually think they're helping?  To me, I just see it as a personal problem.

I tend to agree, and I intend to put a bit more effort into the neurodiversity movement as soon as I go part time (in about two weeks).

I think that your situation is very much the norm - we have a bit of clout on the internet, but as far as physical groups, we're still very scattered. Some people don't wish to "come out", some end up being discouraged by therapist-run groups, and some quite simply aren't able to find autistic social groups nearby. There's no easy answer for this.

In the meantime, there's a few things you can do - get involved in one of the celebrity letter-writing campaigns, write letters to the editor in your local newspapers, or participate in online discussion on popular news websites. It's not much, but it's a start...

It's a product of the polarisation of autistic ideas - people see someone acting strange, and they automatically think "not as intelligent as me". At the other end, if people see an autistic person not acting strange, they think "they musn't really be autistic".

It's a tribal identity thing, really - people sort others into two groups. There's the "different, bad, not one of us" group, and then there's the "similar, okay, very similar to us" group.

A thought came to me the other day about what seems to be taboo; the exploding rage one feel about learning that one is autistic. It's a knife that stabs me in the back all the bleedin time. I live with it but outsiders don't know *** about what it's like to be so lost in this world. Screaming 'I hate the inability to fully comprehend the ramifications of my autism' and nobody is listening. I blow up buildings and entire cities at night. The filament that connect my temples is red hot and sparks are flying like unguided missiles. It's a nuclear dawn. The normies just file and forget. And shamble around blabbering about things they'll forget in an instance. I can't shut out the constant noise of the world.

Yes! What I'm saying is - Autism is Hell! It's fear that makes them not to want to understand what it's like to be autistic. They can't begin to comprehend it but I always have to understand them and live by their *** rules and regulations regardless of how sane they are. I feel *** about things that I've done in the past. I don't blame them on autism; I blame them on me because it's ingrained in me that there are blame to be put somewhere. So I hate my body and I hate my inability to fathom the devastation that spread out with my every breath. I can't see the beginning of myself.

I need help but I don't know how to ask for help. Why? What am I afraid of? That I'd be ridiculed again?

I can't control what other people think of me and that is painful. The constant nagging of 'what will the neighbors say?' or 'what will people think?' from a childhood that really was nothing but a prison. You are not allowed to question the guards. You're just a piece of furniture. Shut up or... they gave me life and did everything it seems to push it down and silent it. I fooled myself and was fooled time and time again but I could never fight back. I wasn't allowed to fight back. I didn't know how to fight back. When I reacted I suddenly was ripe for more *** because that's what I was - ***! I watched others and did as they did and sometimes that was wrong but why one thing could be wrong in one instance and right in the next I didn't understand. That's not logic.

I read some rapports from my 9th school year and had a hard time grasping how unprofessional most of the school personal was. It was in 1980/81 this and they were so blind to what went on at their place of work; school... rant rant rant


AFF is a very good place and it's participants are a diverse group of great people. Yes! It's a good place. But it can get better. A lot better. It's my responsibility that it gets better. And it's your responsibility too. It's all our responsibility...

I don't know much about the state of things up here in Scandinavia. I've googled a little for Swedish groups but haven't found any. I might be doing something wrong. And as EZ says, the community is very scattered, and maybe a handful can get together without having to travel half a day. It's even worse up here - there's at most 10 AFF:ies combined in Finland, Norway & Sweden (a population of 18 million people).

There's one idea though that would be possible to make real. A silent picket once a month at the same time all over Europe - I think that'll intrigue people after a while. In my mind it takes the form of a performance, almost ceremonial.

Well, if you really can't find any groups in your area why, not just start one?

At the moment, the main reason is because it would just be me and my wife attending - there's not too many Brisbane aspies and auties around. The same's probably true of other people - you need a few people in the one place before you can call something a group.

One of the things I want to work on in the near future is a flash utility that displays a world map you can click on and enter in your screen name, and view other peoples entries - to help people find nearby AFF members & get some real world groups started...

Like a FRAPPR map?

Yep, exactly - just looked them up. I didn't know they actually existed - that makes things a bit easier... *grins*

well,you could allways meet me...I only know about 3 scandinavians in AFF.

By the way,we have Bb meetings in my country.(Local forum)

^^ yes...

Yes what

^^ means two posts up.

[/quote]well,you could allways meet me...I only know about 3 scandinavians in AFF.
[/quote]

yes...

Some people and I tried to start an adult autism group in Townsville, North Queensland, in 2005. The group fizzled because key people left or were sidetracked by other commitments. By key people, I don't mean office bearers as our group was quite informal.

We lost a young man who was very much liked by all the others and meetings just weren't the same without him. Another young man found studying and working suffered because of his involvement in the group and felt somewhat taken advantage of. A lady left because she wasn't sure if she really had autism after all.

Although I wanted to get involved, I found having regular meetings at my place and working full time too taxing. The sensory issues involved with several people talking at the same time often left me very stressed. I also don't have good leadership qualities but would prefer to do things such as writing articles and would be happy to be interviewed by the local papers if it would help.

There are two groups up here that cater more for parents of children with autism and this includes adult sons and daughters. I have a bit of involvement with people from one of these groups and a couple of them were in the original adult group from 2005.

The thing that makes it tricky to put together an adult autism group is the higher functioning people often work full or part time and don't have much energy left over after work. They are also more likely to have the leadership qualities but this can spill over into bossiness in some cases.

It can be like herding cats to get people organised because the sensory issues limit the kinds of places we can go to for social activities and they have to be free or inexpensive as not many of us have a lot of money. It's great when a person can have meetings at their own house but mine was only big enough to fit a group of 4-6 people.

I wouldn't say it is impossible to organise an adult group and I hope to get more involved again in the future, but it certainly is quite a challenge.