Aspies For Freedom

Sueing the Church of England?   Not sure how that would work...oh, and then their moderators said that because I was coping with some of the message board conversations ok, I must be exaggerating my difficulties.  The actual members were great - they wanted me to stay, by the way.

The leadership at the very top have apologised and said they want to learn how they can not make those mistakes again...but they're not that willing to do much to stop what's happening in that particular group by the look of it.  They want to think about it for three months (!).  And they seem to have no-one in the entire country with experience of spirituality and ASD, and have only told me to go find some other religious community.  (eek!)
  
Difficult.

I don't want to take them on - it's really knocked the proverbial stuffing out of me and my doc has told me to stay away from any more stress - but I do want to know why I got that reaction for asking for help for this.  And I'd love to know what the heck to say to them that would make a difference for anyone else who thought they were likely to get help/support/understanding.

Thank you everyone.  It's been such a relief to find understanding and ideas about this from within our own communities.
Not sure about the press - my experience of them is that they write what they like, not what people expect.  I've had enough unexpected surprises.
In the UK, churches do have to follow the disability discrimination laws.  I told them this.  I gave them the information on it.  I put them in contact with charities who could tell them what they needed to know.   Their church council (not the top leaders - these are the people who do the moderating etc) are still pretending nothing's wrong.

So... I have these options, I think:
1) Sue.  Expensive, stressful, no guarantee of not getting a mad judge who thinks we're dangerous too or thinks "Oh heck, this is the Church of England, I'll never be able to shake the Bishop's hand again if I say they've lost- I'd better say the church wins".  Politics.
2) Formal disability Conciliation.  Much cheaper, less stressful, but they'd have to agree to it.  
3) Go to press.  Free, but random result, assuming there's even an reporter interested...and I don't cope with random results.
4) Keep the pressure on their top leaders to sort out the mess.  Free, but might take forever.
5) Walk away.

I hate choices. I hate politics. I especially hate prejudice.

Finding a new church?.....scary.  It's hard enough working out what to do in the ones I've tried, even without all the nastiness in this last one.  I think I've run out of confidence to keep trying.  I wish church websites had more on them about what they do in their services, how disability-friendly they are, etc.  I suppose I could write emails to lots of church ministers and pick the one who sounds the friendliest (well, assuming any of them write back?)

Thanks Gareth, I'm talking with solicitors about ways we can encourage them to be more sensible.  Seems there's a group of four of them on the church Council who are telling others by email that I'm a liar/troublemaker   Not exactly a very good response to the situation.   Not all of Christian faith is this ignorant though - have a look at http://eveningbeaches.blogspot.com/  and look for entries on 1st January.  A couple of very good ones on ASD.

On a brighter note, also, a charity who've known me for a while have been brilliant - really supportive and lovely and have said they want to help raise the profile of this neurodiversity and rewrite some of their own stuff to make it more AS-friendly.  And they're not even a disability charity.  What a relief to find the good people...and thanks again to everyone here.  It's really helped to have a 'safe space' to talk about this.

Maybe some of them do... or caused by sins, or something.  Clearly not true, but some religious people (of any faith) do believe this.

The latest is that one of the leadership team was telling a friend of mine that they wouldn't help me because they had no proof of my disability. Well, a) They never asked for any and b) they don't ask anyone else on there for proof of their disabilities (sight problems etc) so why me?

*sigh*

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in that case I'd suggest you start legal procedings for discrimination

they have not only forced you out because of your "disability" but they are now telling friends of yours that they belive you were lieing to them

belive me you should contact your lawyer and attempt to sue them

you don't deserve this
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Have contacted a lawyer.  Waiting for news.

Honestly, now. How can a person labeled with Aspergers be any more dangerous than a neurotypical. I do not believe anyone has ever done an actual retrospective study, but I can tell you from being a medical officer in a naval brig for 3 years I saw no one with Asperger's there. The American prisons are loaded with NT's. Us aspies are generally above crime. We are aware of the effects of physical and mental violence and would not attack without just cause. I would consider the average NT more dangerous than the most dangerous aspie. We are predictably creative, the NT's are predictably violent. I have the scars to prove it.

As much as I'd hate to say it, Freedom of Association on the part of the church must be upheld...

Their behavior is so absurd it is almost funny.... sadly so. i realize the experience was not a pleasant one, but if it is any consolation I think you made out with the better part of the deal in not being a part of them.  don't let it dissuade you from church groups per se... just look for another one. I'm sure there are many that would love to have you.

MomofHrick

Yup, lawyers appalled too.  I'm now getting the church in question to try to look at this whole issue again, thank goodness.  The stuff the lawyers wrote is very useful - it's given them a heck of a fright.  Have been helped to find an excellent other church to go to who really wanted to help and were prepared to do whatever it takes.  It'll take a time to undo the damage and get my trust back again, but I'm willing to try this new one out.

PS had to laugh - the Church of England is running a weekend for people with disabilities that looks at how the church fails to help them.  When I explained that I'm aspie, they admitted they had not a clue how to include people on the autistic spectrum, and wanted me to tell them how to do it.  Well, that's better than the "*** off" i had from another one - at least they wanted to know, but how many people on the spectrum have they failed to help over the years by not even realising they were supposed to know about it or have policies that included it?

The emphasis is so much on disability being only wheelchairs, visual disabilities or deafness., but there's nearly as many of us as there are wheelchair users!   Feels like there's a 'mountain to be climbed'.

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Yup, or saying to someone who can't see, "well, you seem like a very capable person to me - why can't you just work out where I'd put that box on the floor instead of falling over it?".

I've been given details of an inclusive church who've never tried to be inclusive for people on the autistic spectrum before, but they've been absolutely brilliant so far.  Not got as far as going to a church service quite yet, but I've met the vicar and visited the church, and he's been surprised at how many things I found to be scary which he would never have thought of.  He's got a friendly person who's willing to sit with me in the service and talk me through what I have to do, and when to do it.  It's very High Church so there's a lot to think about and get right, but it's something I want to try.

And a good friend of mine has now said she'll go with me too.

Phew, this seems like something that could work.

If only we could get a lot more churches/places of worship to try...

Except I'm female...?

Update, just in case anyone's interested.  As explained in my post above, things started well with this new church.  Unfortunately, the vicar has (since then) never got back in contact with me to arrange for me to get the support to actually go to the church for a church service rather than a visit, not even after I've left him another message about it.   So it's Easter and my friend isn't around to go to a church with me, and I think I'm going to have to get the courage to just go to one anyway... because it's important to me and I want to be able to, even if I find it SO difficult to manage on my own.  I even asked someone to check if there was some reason why the vicar wouldn't have got back to me, but they said he seems to be ok and doing his job as usual.

This is all a bit depressing, it really is.

I've just got back from church (a new one) and am just so excited about it...
They were just lovely.  I sat right at the back near the door in case I needed to escape, but a really nice lady who was also new to that church sat down next to me and we talked about local churches and schools and Easter, and she knew some of the others anyway, so it felt really friendly.  The only really scary thing was the bit where they sprinkle water over everyone in the congregation.  I didn't know churches did that at Easter, but I coped (just).  Oh, and there was a puzzling bit where the offering bowl got to me and there was no-one to take it from me as I was at the end of the row....but I was "rescued" by one of the sidesmen after a while     And I went up for Communion and didn't get it wrong (as far as I know).  They had really clear service sheets that had all the instructions on them, and because I was at the back I could mostly see what everyone else was doing, though I need to be taller to see over the top of people I think.
So happy that I've managed this. It meant so much to me.  Thank you for your prayers and thoughts and ideas, everyone.  I might just get the courage to go again...