Documentaries showing that homeless people with schizophrenia are ignored and deprived of the treatment and help that they need.
We have those documentaries here too. They are pro-coercion propaganda. Homeless people need homes, not medical treatment.
I don't know whether there's much point discussing it as you seem to have very fixed views
You are right that my ideas are fixed but so are yours. I do understand that my ideas run counter to what we are all taught all of our lives, and I don't expect everybody to see it my way.
I can only say that I think people need to be very cautious about ignoring a serious diagnosis.
I've already commented on diagnoses somewhere else. What I am concerned about is people's freedom. Like I said, I don't object to psychiatric "diagnoses" when people want them. What I object to is when they are used as legal loopholes to deprive people who have committed no crime of their freedom and physical integrity. This does not happen only to people who are labeled "schizophrenic." I also know people who are labeled "autistic" who are involuntarily committed (in GB: sectioned) and force-drugged.
Do you have objections to diagnoses and/or treatment being issued when those concerned are actually unable to objectively evaluate their options and make an informed choice?
You're right that this is a problem that's not so easy to solve. Adults who are considered incompetent are appointed guardians, usually family members, by the court. The guardians are then the people who make the decisions about diagnostic testing and treatment. The questions of judging who is competent, to what degree, and who is competent to judge someone else's competence, are difficult. I don't presume to have any easy answers.
When we are talking about forced diagnosis and treatment, we are usually not talking about people who have been ruled incompetent by a judge. So we are talking about people who are legally competent.
I've already commented on diagnoses somewhere else. What I am concerned about is people's freedom. Like I said, I don't object to psychiatric "diagnoses" when people want them. What I object to is when they are used as legal loopholes to deprive people who have committed no crime of their freedom and physical integrity. This does not happen only to people who are labeled "schizophrenic." I also know people who are labeled "autistic" who are involuntarily committed (in GB: sectioned) and force-drugged.
I totally agree with your explanation. It is correct that the psychiatric profession has dealt social misfits a horrible hand. And, what I mean by social misfits, are individuals who are not deemed by society as normal. Over the past century this has included autistics, aspies, homosexuals, african americans, and any other group that faces an -ism in society. During the early 20th century, the psychiatric profession was allowed to commit horrendous experiments on those who were considered socially inept and therefore dangerous to the greater society. In their minds, anyone who deviates from the norms of behaviour represents a threat to everyone else. Therefore, I believe that as Aspies, and non-Aspies, when we have discussions of this kind, we should always remember the social implications behind any form of classification (diagnosis). These classifications will affect future generations of Aspies, and for that reason we must present a united front, and not allow those who would undermine our efforts towards equal treatment succeed in dehumanizing us.
I still don't like talking to strangers although I act like an actor so they don't notice it.
When I'm outside I feel like my body movements are normal but if a camera records me and I watch it I see that sometimes it's not normal. I'm also left handed.
I'm also going to university
although my grades are not good because I hate lessons.
Me too. I feel a lot of sympathy for you. 
i'm really confused. is it possible to enjoy the puzzle of putting sentences together, to be a writer, and still be an aspie? i'm 34 and most of my life i have crashed from one disaster to another, at the beginning mostly because i tended to be very naiive about people and institutions, believing what they say and not understanding that people who say they are working for you/your friend/love you, may not be telling the truth. I can empathise (and have no truck with Simon Baron-Cohen) but i get very upset when i can't understand why people are doing/saying certain things i tend to imagine the worst... i'm not really a numbers person, that is, i am totally fascinated with dates and i have loved mathematical forumula and adored working through calculus proofs, but always came unstuck during tests, slipping up on the final putting-in-the-bare-numbers stage. i always got the final answer wrong in tests so i suppose i can't be... but then again, I lose words, and often substitute them in sentences when i talk - "you know, the thing, the thing that is round, has a big dip in it and metal and has lots of wholes in it... you drop flour through it, oh yes, that's it, the sieve".
it is very strange. I began researching autism for a novel that I wanted to write, one that begins with some controversy about a technology that was developed as a 'cure' but ends up showing the strengths and value of difference, indeed, showing the absolute necessity of difference and the evils of trying to make everyone the same... but then, reading all the stories, so many things rang true... except i work as a writer, which doesn't seem to add up really.
i did the neurodiversity test and my Aspie score was 124 /neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 50. "You are very likely an Aspie"
i'm really confused. are there anyother journalist aspies out there? or have i just become too occupied with my latest project, do you think??
like the other guys i'm not too keen on going to the doctor. I had a diagnosis of epilepsy (temporal lobe) in my early twenties and all it did was cause an enormous headache and forbid me to drive.
forgive the unedited blab.
best wishes to all
curly j
Thanks lili, i'm going to look up your list right now. Its interesting that other aspies have difficulties finding the right word sometimes... i don't usually think of it as a problem, but it can be embarrassing if it happens in an interview or something. i noticed the whole/holes mistake and was about to edit it out, as I usually would, but then i stopped and left it in, thinking, perhaps it meant something..? It seems i have an awful lot to learn, but i am looking forward to it.
cheers again
curly j
Sign language seems to help me; it doesn't even have to be "real" sign, if I can just pantomime what something is, it'll usually come to me, or if not I can convey enough of a picture for the other person to guess.
Mmm, that's what it feels like, like i am signing with the description, like a pantomime, except for me it is the shape and what it does, all together. I rarely mind it, when it happens. I like succeeding in the description, even if the word is gone. It feels good to have developed a strategy for dealing with it.