Please help any advice, I posted this on legaladvice on my other account. But the post was locked and this keeps haunting me . I still can't figure out if this is okay or not, I feel so alone. My parents don't really care this happened so I don't know if maybe it was okay for them to do or if I deserved it. Any advice or similar stories, I feel so confused and alone. I have level 2 autism

I am just wondering if this was okay for them to do. I was menstruating and they took my underwear with my pad in it, so i was bleeding on the floor. They didnt tell me why they stripped me at first. I thought they were going to give me new clean clothes, but i woke up a few hours later i was still naked. i finally got someone to answer me and tell me why i was naked, and it was because i was on suicide watch.

i didnt know why i was on suicide watch, because i had just gotten out of court shortly before and had slept the entire day before that. it was 24 hours before the psychiatrist arrived to take me off suicide watch. i was just naked bleeding on the floor and bed and myself. i was given a heavy blanket but nothing else. there was a big glass window facing the jail, the had a sheet/paper thing covering part of it but it kept sliding down so i did not feel like it helped cover me.

when the psychiatrist got there, she talked to me all of 2 minutes, if that. she told me it was because i hit my head and said i would hang myself when they were taking me in to the jail 36+ hours prior. then just cleared me.

really, i want to know is this okay? it may be, because i did hurt myself. it was just very confusing. i have level 2 autism and have never been arrested before this so i feel lost. thank you in advance for any input and i am sorry if this post is not appropriate here

(Sorry for the potentially incorrect flare)

Ngl I should've known better in hindsight than to believe he just wanted to be my friend, and yes the police are already aware.

The SCPD Implemented This Policy After My Incident

On September 1'st 2018

The Suffolk County Police & Sheriff's Department Of Long Island, NY confused my Autism Symptoms as someone under the influence of drugs and arrested and hospitalized me in custody. I had a 7 year legal battle with them and won my Lawsuit on April 26th, 2024.

Arresting Officer (Gregory Sandbichler)

Sheriff (Nicholaus Blanchard) is the one who hospitalized me

#policebrutality #falsearrest #longislandny #suffolkcounty #officergregorysandbichler #sheriffnicholausblanchard

My friend and I both have autism, both From Virginia. He is 17 and will turn 18 this year. He started living with his mom and grandma a few months ago, and it has been awful for him. His mother verbally abuses him so much that he feels depressed and overwhelmed a lot of the time. Every day is just argument after argument. He never had depression before, but since moving there everything is going wrong. He has tried to argue back and tell his mom to stop yelling, but she just keeps going.

Then it got worse. His mom lied and used the system against him. She had him put in a mental hospital for a week, saying he was aggressive and wanted to hurt himself. None of that was true. He was there and it was terrible. They didn't tell him about his medication and tried to put him on Seroquel, which is a really strong antipsychotic. He wasn't having a bad episode or hurting himself. His mom just talked to the doctors and made up a story to make him look worse.

I am close with his brother too. Unfortunately this is exactly what his mom did to him. She doesn't care about medication side effects, she just wants to "calm him" She put him on strong antipsychotics all through his childhood and teenage years until he developed IBS, obesity, and dystonia. His mom does not care about side effects. She always tries to abuse the system and put them in the hospital.

So my friend was there for a week, but then she put him in a hospital again. This time she lied to him and made him sign himself in. He was there for two and a half weeks. As far as his brother and I know, they put him on Latuda plus Clonodine extended release. It was so much that he was peeing himself every night because of the medication. The worst part is that nobody told him about his treatment and nobody told him about his discharge plan either.

It gets worse. We don't know what else they are trying to do, but his mom talked to his brother while I was there. She was angry and said he needs a mood stabilizer because he is out of control. Keep in mind he does not have a mood disorder. He was just depressed because of his mom. Now he is at home. He has been asking about the medicines but they refuse to show him or tell him. They also refuse to explain anything and get aggressive when he tries to insist. He is getting slower and seems sedated and has gained weight since coming back from the hospital. We believe they are giving him more stuff than he is supposed to get, like more antipsychotics. He really does not know what to do and he is not even allowed to have a phone.

Remember, he is not psychotic. He is not depressed or suicidal. He is not aggressive or anything. He is being put on medication he does not need and he is not being told anything. They are refusing him his right to know.

I am really worried about his safety because me and his brother know his mom is telling the psychiatrist he is aggressive so they will increase his doses or try really strong antipsychotics. We need help. We want to know what he can do to help himself. We want to reach an advocate or someone to report the abuse. They are over medicating him. On top of that, they are denying him his noise canceling headphones even though he is really noise sensitive, and they are forcing him to do ABA therapy that he hates. He says they are trying to make him into something he is not.

Edit: his brother and i are able to contact him through his mom or grandma's, he's scared of them yelling and scared of creating an argument so has been taking these medications we don't even know about we just know the clonodine for now. But we do know they're hiding and also that he is something else they don't want us to know about, his mom used to tell his brother about the medicines my friend is taking but since they tried latuda she started getting passive aggressive and stopped telling us. But he was really clear and doesn't wanna be in a lot of medication that he doesn't need

I'm very concerned about gender specific hate speech online. I just had this disturbing experience on another platform of a profile presenting as female going into graphic detail as she attempted to dehumanize male autism and conflate it with various disorders and personal shortcomings. It was extremely alarming how many people seemed to be helping her and few people tried to call her out. Some males were even claiming to be autistic and legitimizing what she said. It was extremely disturbing. These are incredibly sick individuals spreading this garbage. I want to urge everyone to challenge hate speech and report people who degrade people based on race, gender, disability etc or spread false information about a disability. I cannot ever remember seeing such vile falsehoods being promoted like this. I'm literally in shock.

They are known for being sexist, racist and homophobic.

I doubt they will give autism people the support they need.

Especially after watching dozens of cop shows.

I’m sorry this is not positive. Trigger warning for... well many things. This is the consequences of exclusion from society and a lack of support. I don’t know where else to put it. I’m starting to shutdown.

My routine is gone. Not part of it, all of it. In one fell swoop.

I want it back I want it back I want it back. They suspended my licence for one singular speeding offence at the lowest level. I know it was bad I know it was wrong.

I asked legal aid for help and I told them I didn’t understand what I was supposed to do. I told them I didn’t understand. I was not given equity or accomodation and the court did nothing. They watched me shake and stumble and mumble and panic and did nothing. I didn’t even know what was happening, what I was supposed to be doing. I tried to learn by watching. And what did I see? Patterns. What did I forget? People hate me more because I’m different, but can’t admit that because it causes cognitive dissonance.

But now I can’t work or go anywhere. I don’t have support, I don’t have family here, there’s no one to help me. I have no one other than me.

I am in the highest risk category of suicide for people with ASD. I am a woman without an intellectual disability and I am completely independent and isolated. I have been assaulted and abused by multiple people multiple times and just got out of a domestic abuse situation. I built myself up from nothing. He took it all from me. And I did all the work, suffered for nothing. I was never going to be allowed to live. I was meant to die a long time ago.

And now I have nothing. It’s all gone. I need my licence for my job and I’m probably going to be fired. It’s a non-for-profit. I don’t think they can afford to keep me if I’m not working for 2 months. I don’t think I can make it the two months financially. I was saving up to go on my first holiday. But it still won’t be enough without an income. It’s all gone. All my work was for nothing, all the pushing, gritting my teeth day in and out, for nothing.

I don’t want to endure a world built to exclude me. I don’t think any of it was worth it.

I’ve endured abuse, I’ve endured everything you could possibly think of. I am a statistical improbability and yet I have screamed and cried for help and gotten nothing. I am diagnosed, Level 2. I have ADHD & CPTSD too. I’ve developed traits of OCD that compels moral perfectionism as a function of preventing harm. Not even that was enough.

I can’t do it all on my own but I’d rather die than let someone hurt me again. That’s all that happens when I try to ask for help. I am ignored or exploited. I can’t take it anymore. I’m back where I started. I was fixed. I was doing so well. My routine was perfect. It’s all gone. I can’t go to work, I can’t go anywhere freely, I can’t go to the gym or to the beach or for a hike and everything is different. I can’t cope. I can’t cope. I have no resources.

Now I can’t change my clothes or leave my room. I have nothing to live for and will likely end up homeless. Again. None of it was worth it. I have been tortured. For nothing. No reward. No bright side. There’s only ever punishment. I am treated like an idiot, manipulated constantly, people just explain away the pain they cause. But it’s not in my head. I can see the patterns. Every man in that court got more leniency per capita, and I had the lowest level offence with no criminal history. There is no order. The world is madness, everything is rotten, disgustingly immoral. I don’t want it. I want my routine back. I want my routine back.

It’s too late. The consequences have started and I can’t function. I can’t function. I can’t function. I can’t afford anything. I can’t afford my therapist anymore and my stomach is hard and distended and I can’t afford a gp. It hurts. It’s not going to get better is it?

I think this is the only rational outcome. It’s not going to get better. It doesn’t matter how much I try. I did everything I was supposed to do. I got better and I was able to scrape by. This is not scraping. This is full breakdown. There’s nothing left. There’s nothing to live for. I was born to be used and hurt and to beat every single odd, and it never amounted to anything. It was never going to amount to a positive outcome. Every time I make progress I’m dragged by the ankles back to the beginning. This is pointless. I’m genuinely done. This is it. Contact my best friend when I’m brave enough to bite the bullet, she knows what I want at my funeral.

I did last month and it sucked luckily all my charges were dropped once the police realized I was having a mental health crisis

A friend of mine is very active in autism advocacy in the midwest. He is male, but an ally and advocate for autistic women. He is also asexual.

Anyway, he was banned from Autism Society of Greater Wisconsin events for talking about menstruation in a general sense. Nothing inappropriate was said, but someone was offended by a man talking about menstruation and because of this he was banned for "sexual misconduct".

As an autistic woman and mother I am irate. I don't want my daughters growing up in a world where periods are seen as anything but normal.

Hopefully everyone here knows this, but the sexualization of women and their bodies is a huge problem in this world. I don't know of anyone who considers periods sexual. This attitude shames people for talking about a normal bodily function and is very harmful, especially to younger women and girls.

Periods can be a real struggle for autistic women and girls. Many parents struggle with explaining menstruation to their autistic daughters and this just makes it more difficult by acting like there's something wrong with talking about it.

I'm very disappointed in them. Please consider joining me in reaching out if you believe periods are normal and nothing to be offended by.

So... what do we think about this idea?

Just something I read on here the other day but I was struggling to verify this afternoon. Anyone help me out?

This is a long post, thank you for reading if you do. I’ve changed names to protect identity. If this post is not allowed feel free to delete.

I am 27F. I was diagnosed with autism (and ADHD) around 2-3 years ago through a psychiatrist. I’m not sure what level I am considered, I know the term “high functioning” is outdated but I guess I could be considered level 1. I can do 99% of most tasks other people can do and you probably won’t know I’m on the spectrum until you start talking to me.

I have worked in retail since 16. I have been employed at a retail pharmacy since 2024 and did quite well until my old store manager/assistant store manager (Addie and Sue) were both let go and I transferred to another store within the same company. My previous peers were quite aware I was autistic being they have children on the spectrum, so I had a lot of leeway at that store that most people don’t have. I was also pretty open about it, regardless.

I did okay the first few months at this new store. I was open to all management I had autism, and that I also had other health issues. I told them I needed help, I explained how I functioned better with direct tasks and lists. They have a way of submitting a request for accommodations, but because I don’t typically need help, (and I didn’t want people to think I was dumb) didn’t think it was necessary to file paperwork. And I wasn’t really sure what I needed to be accommodated for? I would’ve been more than happy to fill out paperwork, but I struggle with documentation and have trouble understanding stuff that isn’t clear or the words are big. I usually have someone help me so I don’t make a mistake.

Around February, I started getting the feeling people were just tolerating me while on shift. I had a shift lead (Mia) make some unkind off hand comments towards me, and the new assistant manager (Keith) made some comments about my old bosses Addie and Sue (who are both still with the company.)

My hours got cut pretty drastically (which should have been my red flag) and because I was gone often, I started forgetting how to do things in the store’s photo lab which is where I primarily am checking people out. I can do small projects, but it’s hard for me to do bigger things because there is so much to remember. I should also point out I was never trained in the photo lab. I have had to just “learn as I go” even though I’ve asked multiple times for a day to just be in the photo lab to learn because I do better when I do repetitive actions to learn. But I was always told they were too understaffed for that.

Last Thursday, a few days before Mother’s Day, we were very busy in the photo lab. I did what I could but it’s a lot to handle being the only cashier. A customer came in, demanding we make her canvas order ASAP, which was 3 canvases and she got mad when I told her it would be at least an hour. I tend to freeze up and my mind blanks when people yell. I knew I was gonna get a line anyway and it can take awhile to bring a line down so I the shift lead Mia to come put together the three canvases. She could get it done faster than me anyway. Mia comes out, is clearly mad (I think I interrupted her lunch?) and goes to work on the canvases.

I was focused on getting my e-learnings done between customers and photo orders because it was what I was told to do. I had 6 to do and because I’m not there often, I was having issues getting them completed and the store manager (Robert) was getting frustrated with me. Anyway, Mia proceeds to yell, “can you come over here and do something so it looks like at least one of us is actually working tonight?!” Again, I don’t do well with yelling so I immediately became very emotional. I tried to help her but she said something else and tossed the bag of tools to me and again— I’m in panic mode my mind is blank and I tell her “I don’t remember what to do.”

She gets more mad, so I go to fill other orders instead that I knew how to do while getting progressively more upset. After I left to check some people out I tried to ask her what happened to like stand up for myself. It was such a blur because I was so upset and I ended up yelling/sobbing at her something. She tells me “well you can just go home.” So I left because if I had stayed I would have had a full on meltdown and just gone non-verbal.

I texted the Keith, told him what happened and said I’d call the following day to speak to Robert. I ended up going to the doctor for unrelated reasons, really sick ended up not calling because I figured something as bad as walking out mid shift— the manager would call me. My next shift was the following Thursday.

A week goes by. Radio silence. Wednesday I get a text (not a single phone call from anyone) from the Keith asking if I’d be coming in. I give him a brief overview of what happened through text because I honestly can get my feelings out better that way than through talking. I said I could come in, I know walking out is a fireable offense but I won’t if I don’t have to. I reiterated I was autistic. I said I’d also be happy to come in and give my side of the story, if not then to consider the text my resignation.

He replies: “Thanks for the heads up. We appreciated the time you were here.”

I spoke to Addie and Sue. They said it was a form of discrimination and poorly handled. This isn’t the first time the company has done me dirty, and Sue said I should definitely call HR again and I should say I will get legal representation, and contact the media if to get them to actually do something. But more of like to scare them. I don’t intend on making this a case, but if I have to then I will.

So my question is, would I even have a case? I am not documented through company records, but I was incredibly verbal about my disabilities at work. Sue said that accommodations are really more for people who have medical issues and need extra breaks or a chair to sit in if they can’t stand. I am documented through psychiatric records and medical records as well.

I am not sure what to do next. Thank you for reading.

I lost my job. The only feedback I got was that it was mandatory to have my license, that I was good at my job, but that was policy.

Getting that job was so hard.

I don’t see how I can possibly get another one in my industry with no license, no current employment. I’m going to lose my housing.

In short. My life is over. Because of the most minor speeding offence I could’ve committed.

There’s only one way out of this. My career is over. I’m out of options.

Thank you to everyone who tried to help.

There’s just no point in trying, there’s just no point when I know the outcome.

None of it was worth it and I have no one.

Even if I did I’d just end up trapped with some abusive asshole, again.

I always thought if I tried hard enough, if I was good enough, I’d be allowed to exist and live. Be an equal. I was wrong. There’s no point. I knew I was never going to win but I just wanted to survive. Guess not.

I was illegally put on a 5150 (there has to be action taken for the hold to be legal and there wasn’t. I did not attempt to harm myself or anyone else). I called my county’s medi-cal behavioral health hotline to get therapy referrals. The guy over the phone asked me a lot of questions and I answered the questions honestly. He offered to have a crisis team evaluate me and said it would be completely voluntary and that I could refuse. I said yes. After he sends them, he tells me the cops may come.

I never would’ve agreed to this if I knew the police would be involved. I refused to go to a crisis center and they 5150d me and put me in handcuffs. I was in cuffs for 3 hours and I spent the night in the ER with an IV in my arm that bled while I slept. I dealt with nurses in the ER and the ward who were physically rough with me when doing my vitals.

The psych ward I was at was awful. I was terrified. I only stayed one night in the psych ward, one night at the ER. I couldn’t imagine being on a 14 day hold- those poor people. We didn’t have individual therapists. They refused to give me my meds for one night. The group “therapy” was like a kindergarten class.

I was telling a couple women there that it isn’t go to the psych ward or nothing- that they deserve actual treatment (voluntary residential/php/iop) and how they can get it. I feel bad for everyone at the facility.
They all need help and instead they’re in a mental health prison. I especially feel bad for those who have no visitors. This was the most traumatic experience of my life. I have never been so terrified in my life. I was privileged enough to be able to have an attorney to help me get out sooner- I feel for those who don’t have this privilege.

The place I was at had a lot of medi-cal (California Medicaid) recipients so I’m sure they think they can do whatever since these patients probably lack financial resources. I’m just an adult who aged out of being able to be on my parents’ health insurance but I have family with the money for an attorney.

I was able to get out for these reasons:

My family paid for an attorney that specializes in cases like mine. They determined I was illegally held there, which allowed me to be released a day early. Now, I need to appeal this decision to ban me from owning a lethal weapon for 5 years. I know I have a solid case considering there was no legal reason to 5150 me.
I was clearly lucid- I was the only one that was.
I was pretty much cooperative. I followed the rules. I did my best to keep my emotions in check to not make myself look bad. I didn’t cause trouble for the staff. I didn’t have problems with the other patients.
I said that since I got there, I had no thoughts of hurting myself or others.

The attorney I got practices law in California. If you are interested in this person’s services, DM me and I will give them to you.

My advice to you to not get 5150:

Be extremely careful who you tell if you have suicidal ideation, homicidal ideation, or thoughts of harming. Do not tell a behavioral health line this. In my experience, 988 and the friendship line along with the peer run California warm line have been safe.
Do not go to a crisis bed center. They will easily send you to a psych ward. Do not have a crisis team come to your house. NEVER I MEAN NEVER tell police if you have thoughts of hurting yourself and others.

What to do if you get 5150d:

Cooperate. Do advocate for yourself but pick your battles. I was cooperative but insisted I be given my meds that help with my mental health (not controlled substances). Go to the groups. Remember, your number one priority is escaping the hellhole.
Stay away from assholes/crazy patients.
Don’t get into arguments with other patients. If someone is being an asshole to you, just ignore them. Don’t debate staff or patients.
Be as emotionally levelheaded as possible.
Tell them that since you’ve arrived, you haven’t had thoughts of harming yourself and others. It doesn’t matter if you do or don’t have those thoughts. Never tell them if you have thoughts of harming yourself or others. These places are mental health prisons- they will not help you get better.
Have an aftercare plan in place. At minimum, say you plan to get weekly therapy. Involve family in the aftercare plan if you can.
Tell them about the goals you want to achieve when you leave. They’ll ask what you plan to do when you leave. Ensure your answer talks about doing things that are productive and meaningful.
Get an attorney who specializes in these cases. If your family will pay for it, let them. If anyone offers to pay for the attorney, let them. Even if you aren’t on great terms with the person helping pay for the attorney. Even if your hold is legal, you are still entitled to a hearing in front of a judge. An attorney can advocate for you to be released in this hearing.
Don’t talk to people on the phone who will upset you. Don’t have visitors that will upset you or lash out. Avoid reactions.

Everyone deserves real help for their mental health. Do not share thoughts of harm to self in others in the ER, to cops, crisis people, or people in psych wards. Find a therapist who is a safe person to tell this to. If you want treatment that’s more intensive than individual therapy, look into support groups.

Or residential (not psych inpatient or crisis res), PHP, and IOP programs. I did PHP/IOP for 7 1/2 months and discharged from the program last year. This program greatly helped me. I wouldn’t go for a PHP/IOP program affiliated with a hospital as those places are way more likely to 5150 you. Private or nonprofit practices are less likely to do that.

Also my empathy goes out to fellow autistics who have been in this situation. I am autistic and it’s definitely worse for us.

We know tech loves autistic traits on a billboard. Less fun when an actual autistic person shows up asking for adjustments.

I applied to Apple's R&D team, body animation for their XR headset - Vision Pro. The tech that lets you be present in a virtual space without your body having to show up. For someone autistic and agoraphobic, that's not a career move. That's a way out. I'm sure many of you may agree.

10 interviews. 3 months. Engineers, managers, a VP. Apple considered my background, I've done the work, prior companies, MSc with Distinction which was very hard, but I did it. Apple's recruiter said expect an offer within 48 hours.

So I did the thing you're not supposed to do. I was honest. Autism, ADHD, DCD. Asked what adjustments would help. Asked what they actually meant by "reasonable accommodations."

Removed.

Apple's own internal documents say something completely different from what they've told me and the courts. There's a lot more I'm legally sitting on. What I can share is in the article.

20 months. Two courts. No lawyer. Apple has one of the biggest law firms on Earth and a senior barrister. They accused me of "browbeating" them. Me. On disability benefits. Browbeating a $3.8 trillion company.

It took four medications prescribed by my psychiatrist just to get my body to sit in the High Court for one hearing. Apple spent £60,000 on the same hearing. Now they want me to pay for it.

Disability Confident employer. It's written right there in the recruitment email. Why would they lie?

My advice, never disclose your Autism, in any job process.

My court Hearing is public. 14–20 April, London.

https://edgecaseexistence.com/articles/apple-50/?v=2

They tell us to think different. They just don't want us at the table.

Happy to answer any questions.

As an autistic person and a scholar, I am interested in autism research. While surveying the recent papers, I came across a growing trend of using AI to evaluate autism from facial features and expressions. Point blank, this is not acceptable.

These studies train a model on facial images of adults and children (mostly children) with autism with the intention of making your face a diagnostic tool. I understand that there is an urgent need for better diagnostics but this cannot be the way. You cannot look at somebody's face and tell that they’re autistic. Autism has nothing to do with facial features. Reading the studies describe autistic facial features in detail reminds me of 19th century race ”science”. The whole idea is pseudoscientific and deeply offensive. Ignorance and bias reeks through the texts of the studies with mentions like, diagnosing autism early is important so it can be ”cured”.

Since there is no scientific basis for what these studies are doing, all they achieve is reinforce ableist stereotypes on what autistic people look like and how they act. The stereotyping is so severe that one of the studies recommended evaluating autism by facial expressions made while playing video games. These biases are being encoded into AI and presented as a valid inquiry for a diagnosis. 

Diving deeper into how some of these models are trained, I believe I found the source of the training data that is used in many of the studies. It can be found publicly by searching ”Autism Image Dataset”. It consists of many thousands of facial images labeled autistic/non-autistic. There is no mention on where these images come from. There is no mention of informed consent. It could be that these images are just stolen from social media or elsewhere.  Especially since many of the images are of young children it is absolutely unacceptable that no source information is given.

With all these ethical mishaps it is enraging to me that dozens of studies like these have been published in peer-reviewed journals from publishers that claim to value quality and ethics. The lack of ethical oversight is disappointing and revealing of deep rooted biases against autistic people. 

Some of the recent studies I found:

K, P. R., Uma, S., N, V., J, J., T, S., & G, T. (2025). Optimized gated spatiotemporal graph attention network based diagnosis of facial expression through video games. Pattern Recognition, 175

Dongare, V., Badwaik, M., Bendkoli, K., Joshi, P., Mahajan, M. (2023). PRELIMINARY STAGE AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDER DETECTION.

Alamgir, F. M., Zaman, T., Hossain, M. S., Hassan, M. M., & Alam, M. S. (2026). ASDnet: Classification model for individuals with autism spectrum disorder using facial grid-wise expressions features and dual-branch visual transformation. Biomedical Signal Processing and Control, 120.

Dénes-Fazakas, L., Mateas, I. C., Berciu, A. G., Szilágyi, L., Kovács, L., & Dulf, E. (2026). A real time multi modal computer vision framework for automated autism spectrum disorder screening. Electronics, 15(6), 1287.

So to start things off, I don’t think that I would abort my child if they were autistic. BUT I firmly believe that a person has the right to abort their fetus at any time for any reason. Not only do I think that they should have that right, I don’t believe anyone should give the pregnant person any comment about how they don’t think they should be having an abortion, because it is nobody’s business but the pregnant person.

And yes, if this means that autistic people go extinct I don’t care, because I value the right to abortion infinitely more than I value preserving the autistic bloodline.

I don’t think that I care about anything more than I care about the right to my own bodily autonomy, and I’ve heard discussions where people say that people shouldn’t be able to abort a fetus solely for the reason that the fetus is autistic, and how aborting a fetus for the sole reason of it being disabled is ableist, but I just don’t agree. It doesn’t matter in the slightest why someone is having an abortion, because they should have complete autonomy over their body.

I am not pro eugenics. I am not pro eliminating disabled people from society. But I will never not be pro abortion for any reason, because I don’t think anyone has the right to anyone else’s body.

I’m curious to others opinions. Please be civil.

I’m extremely upset, discouraged and heart broken. My little boy, who has autism, was assigned a 1:1 school-based nurse as requested by his doctors for complex medical needs. After losing a wonderful nurse due to schedule conflicts, we were assigned a new nurse from a different agency. I specifically spoke to her in advance to ensure she understood my child’s health issues, I spoke about his autism, with great emphasis on how despite being a verbal engaging child, he can stop communicating the moment he feels unwell, hence monitoring during this time is essential because he might not tell you. She went with my son to school for just one day, no complains, no negative updates or particular events discussed with me.

Anyway, I got a call from the agency to let me know that the nurse didn’t feel comfortable working with a child with “behaviors” and that they would reassign a new nurse. I followed up with an email asking for definitions/examples of what said “behaviors”, only to be emailed that it wasn’t anything my child did, she just doesn’t feel comfortable working with children in the spectrum. Worst part is that they tried to justify this blatant discrimination on a lie: she claimed she didn’t know he was autistic—when I specifically spoke about his ASD during intake as well as the 15 minute call I had with to her starting.

I obviously sent them to hell and started the process of getting a new nurse from a different agency. Part of me wants to blow this system up but I am so jaded already. My husband thinks we have to let this go but I have learned with the DOE everything comes back to bite you. My head is pounding with anger. I swear I am reminding myself to breathe every minute. Never did I imagine that my son would be so blatantly discriminated against by a health professional, especially one working with children.

I just want to share this now because this is not okay. I was discriminated and banned at a pub for being autistic and having the traits of autism. I was even said ableist things by the GM including “I’m not your handler”, “you’re the only person bringing your disability into your life, no one else”, “socially draining”, and “can’t read social cues”. I want people to know this cause this is not okay and I have all the texts and screenshots for everyone to see. Cause this is autism acceptance month and this is not okay. No one especially with autism deserves any kind of treatment like this.

The Issue Darius McCollum is a 58-year-old Black man with autism. As a little boy, he was obsessed with trains, and he would hide in the NYC subway system. Transit employees gave him keys and taught him how to operate trains, starting when he was 9 years old. Eventually, Darius began taking over shifts for employees, and would take subway trains on scheduled routes. At 15, Darius was arrested for operating a subway for an employee who had Darius cover their shift. Darius never told anyone how he knew how to operate trains because he didn't want to betray his “friends” who were having a child with autism take over their shifts.

That arrest on his record made it impossible for him to do the only thing he loves to do- work for the NYC transit system. But he continued to operate trains and buses for his transit employee “friends” who took advantage of his disability. He continued to get arrested, spending years in abusive prisons that were not equipped to handle him. He never hurt anyone and never damaged any property- he usually took the vehicles on scheduled trips in place of employees, and always returned the vehicles.

Two years ago, a judge ruled that Darius is “dangerously mentally ill” and he is now locked away indefinitely at a state asylum for the criminally insane, with the most violent and unstable inmates. Darius is not, has never been, and will never be, dangerous, nor is he mentally ill. He has a disability.

We demand NYS Attorney General Letitia James realize Darius is not dangerous, and stop keeping him locked up with violent inmates.

Click here to sign the petition.

https://www.change.org/p/new-york-state-attorney-general-darius-mccollum-is-not-dangerously-mentally-ill?source_location=search

I feel like certain autistic activists spend too much time focusing on certain autism charities when the lack of government support is a much bigger problem for autistic people.

All I see online is focusing on autism speaks and autism moms, what about the adult autistic people who struggle to find work and their benefits are being cut? What about the lack of government aid towards families that need to pay for therapies for their child? I read somewhere that around 80% of autistic people struggle to find work.