Aspies For Freedom

I think he created a magazine for *bling bling* rather than awareness.


My goal is for autism to be understood as clearly as cancer, AIDS and diabetes

That has upset me  :cry:

Aint it great how people who don't know anything about <insert subject at hand here> try to do things about the <subject at hand>?

This is rather interesting:

Because none of the above are clearly understood, and there is no known cure for any of them yet. But they all are great moneymakers for the doctors, the pharmaceutical industry and the government.

Uschi

"The world's first autism magazine" my arse. What about Asperger United?

Cris Italia,

Who are you to speak for autism??
Autism is not a disease like cancer.  Your rag highlights unlocking Autism the worse of the worse of the cure nazis.  There is even not a token autistic on your board.  

I know that Spectrum is sponsoring a Cure Cruise. (AKA death to autistics cruise). I called and comlained to the cruise/travel company I told them what evil bastards you all really are.

In one of editorial for this rag you describe your *** uncle. WTF??? What mental retardation has to do with Autism?? Yes some autistics are *** as is NTs.  Perhaps Mental retardation is a spectrum disorder and you are merely high functioning.

Okay I am willing  to back off and give you a chance.

But this Ain foundation with the cruise got to go. As far as behavior consulants being on a board that advocates autism awareness, It is thier bread and buttter to claim what they do works? Are they using aversives??

Joe

Me too for both of those.

I don't appreciate comments like I am trying to make money off of the autism population and I certainly dont appreciate being accused of doing this for the "BLING BLING." I think thats a little harsh.

Given the 'My goal is for autism to be understood as clearly as cancer, AIDS and diabetes.' comment I'd say you got off fairly lightly.

Were you expecting to see something more along the lines of 'Oh goody, another person who wants to remove my kind from the gene pool!'?

Cris, I went to your website to order a magazine, to check it out. I abandoned the attempt  though, because it appears that yours is not a secure server. When I got to the page where you put in all your information, including the visa number, there was no little lock picture in the lower right hand corner of my screen, as it does with all secure servers. I won't put my visa number on the Internet if I don't see the little lock, because my information will not be encrypted and protected from theft otherwise.

I read what it said about your magazine, and I can't really say I was pleased. Apparently the magazine is written entirely for parents and relatives of autistics, but not for them themselves. It is all about children. Children grow up, and there are plenty of autistic adults around, me included.

Another thing I don't like is that you refer to the parents of autistic children as 'the autistic community'. How are they the autistic community? This seems to be the only 'community' of people consisting entirely of the people who don't have the criteria to belong to the community!

Just as an example, when people talk of the Christian community, they are talking about people who themselves are Christians. If they refer to the 'gay community', they refer to people who are gay (not their relatives), the black community consists of black people, not their white neighbours. But when you talk of the 'autistic community', you mean the 'poor people' who have to deal with having an autistic child.

But, there is an autistic community, consisting of autistic people. Most of us here are grown up, but we have some teenagers and children. Mich, who replied in this thread, is one of the children, I believe she is about 11 years old. Obviously, she is quite capable of forming her own opinions, and no, she has never had any ABA type therapy.

I would really like to read one of your magazines. If it is possible to order one over the phone, or pay by cheque, please give me the info in a PM, and I'll order it. I am all for forming an informed opinion, because I can't really say I like or dislike your magazine until after I've read one.

Ursula

Cris, do you have any idea how difficult it was for me, as an autistic person, to raise five NT children? Why does all the help go to NT parents raising autistic children, and nobody cares to give support to adult autistic parents, who are raising children? Many here are autistic to varying degrees, raising NT and autistic children!

I am aware that not all low functioning autistic children end up being high functioning as adults, even though many do (Albert Einstein is a prime example here). I never said it was easy raising an autistic child. But it isn't easy raising any child, autistic or not.

Also, real autism appears to be genetic, as it runs in families (my father was clearly AS, two of my six brothers are AS, one is HFA and my sister is autistic). These days many children who are diagnosed as autistic are simply brain damaged by environmental pollutants, in my opinion (I know, many here don't agree). That is not the same as true autism.

I am sure we are all glad that Albert Einstein's parents didn't have ABA available to them! He was quite low functioning as a child and was considered *** by his teachers. As we all know he was anything but ***, he turned out to be brilliant! Never good socially, mind you, but being weird seems to be acceptable if you are a genius. If you are not, you are considered defective.

I agree with Bonnie. If a child is being made aware that he/she is a big problem, and that in order to be accepted he has to become an NT clone, rather than being able to be who he is (while getting help with problem areas in a sensitive way), how can this child develop any self esteem and a sense of self worth?

These days much is made of multiculturalism, and accepting people who are different from us by culture. It would be very nice if that would extend to being more tolerant towards people of the same culture who are different. I will look forward to the day when the term 'normal' won't describe such a narrow sliver of the general population. In fact, most people who claim they are more normal than me are usually quite odd in my opinion and don't really fit the 'normal' stereotype at all.

Again that comment was meant to make the comparison that Autism should be just as well known as cancer, AIDS and diabetes.

Maybe so, but be we are still being compared to conditions that are killers in the own right, that is what hurt. They are illnesses, Autism is not an illness, we are not at risk of dying from being on the spectrum and so far as I am aware, there are no good points to cancer, AIDS or diabetes. Maybe if you had made the comparison to something that isn't something to dread or loath I'd have gone easier on you.


People usually dismiss the unknown, if we all knew more about it, as I said in another post, maybe people wouldn't be given dirty looks or unecessary rude comments.

You aren't helping that situation.

Several points here:

First of all, the research on the above illnesses is done to eradicate them, rightfully so. Autism isn't an illness, and to eradicate autism, you have to eradicate autistics. Because, despite popular belief, there is no 'normal' person inside the 'autistic shell'. There is no autistic shell, as the inside of the autistic person is as autistic as the outside. I don't have autism, I am autistic.

Secondly, if you want to make autism as well known as cancer, AIDS and diabetes, you might as well stop now, because they haven't been eradicated precisely because very little is known about them. More people die of cancer now than they did when 'the war against cancer' was declared more than twenty years ago. And diabetics still only stay alive by taking insulin, which isn't perfect, as it doesn't prevent all the complications of diabetes.

And telling only about our problems, and declaring autism an epidemic is giving us the wrong kind of awareness. People already think that being autistic is a horrible thing, because that's how the media portrays it. Even my own husband thinks I am mentally ill, because of what he has heard about autism.

Perhaps I would invite someone to write something, but I have to tell you I'm not very encouraged by the comments on this forum.

Until now?

I've never shied away from controversy.


However, I'd partly agree with you that parents and carers are a part of the Autistic community in the same way that parents of gay people and other gay community supporters are. I don't think many complained about people's mums and dads showing up for the gay pride march. I won't argree that people who want to wipe us from existence are part of the community though anymore that I would say that Nazis are part of the Jewish community. Generally, anyone trying to bring about the destruction of a group of people aren't a part of said group.

Bonnie, the above link doesn't work.

Cris, you seem you assume that at AFF we're all people with AS, and it's easy for us to say that we don't want to be 'cured', since we don't have severe problems.

Actually, we have members here who are nonverbal, who communicate very well when using a keyboard, but don't talk. And guess what, they don't want to be cured, either!

That said, I have absolutely no problems with a kid having therapy to learn to function in the world, and to learn to talk etc. But helping an autistic child to fit in better will not cure him. Some people think that a child that has learned to suppress his natural ways of being, and has turned into a perfect NT clone is cured. And then, when this child grows up and all the social problems resurface when things get more complicated, it is then said that this person has regressed. The truth is, that you can't cure autism. It is still there, even if it is suppressed.

It is much better to teach these children ways to deal with this world, while still allowing them to be who they are. You have no idea how much strength it takes to pretend to be normal! I've tried all my life until last year to be 'normal', without much success. The result has been severe depression.

I am not against you. I just don't like it when people say we should want a cure, when they obviously have no idea what it feels like to be autistic.

Autistic people can have many problems, and it would be nice to be able to get rid of those. I wouldn't mind if all my sensory problems would go away, I could do without the Tourette Syndrome, dyscalculia, CAPD and dyspraxia, and it would be nice if I could understand hints, sarcasm and jokes, and would be able to stop myself from always saying the wrong thing. But I wouldn't want to change who I am. Those comorbidities are not me, they don't define my being. The autism does.

Geez I definitely don't and now you are comparing me to Hitler. Real nice.

Almost as nice as being compared to cancer. Hurts doesn't it?


I'm sorry, but I just rather you refrain from ever using Hitler and my name in the same sentence again.

I'm sorry, but I just rather you refrain from ever using cancer and Autism in the same sentence again.

Perhaps now you will understand our 'bitterness'?