StoneDog

***hugs*** it can take us ages to settle. Sounds to me like you are doing everything right. ***hugs***

Glasgow City Council has a long running and influential Working Group on Autism. I am one of the diagnosed representatives. We are looking for people who want to find out more about being a Rep, or being part of the focus group that guides the Reps. You can find out more via email, or face-to-face at a small meeting held in Glasgow. This involves Attending formal meetings (up to 20 people) every two months. Collecting views and information from the community on a variety of topics including health provision, education, criminal justice, housing, diagnosis, support, social work.... everything that the City Council does! Preparing papers and speaking to them. Speaking as part of the discussion on things you haven't prepared. Listening and processing what other people say. Transmitting the discussion and decisions back to the community. You can also be a less formal Rep who comes and observes, perhaps speaking on a topic of special importance to you. We are trying to develop training materials and remove barriers to access, using the valuable experience of current and former Reps. Through the Autism Resource Centre we are hoping to run a focus group which meets before each Council meeting so that people can find out what is happening, have their say, and talk to their Reps. This is where you can find out what happened in the last meeting as well. You can also contribute by email or the Aspirational board. Please send me a message here if you would like further information. I can try to answer any questions you have. We welcome your ideas about how to carry this forward. PLEASE NOTE: You can only be one of these Reps, and only contribute to the informal meetings, if you live in the Glasgow City Council area. Expressing an interest doesn't oblige you to take on anything

By the way, I joined 25 July 2010 (I think). How long would a new person have to wait so that when they post aswarrior doesn't do this to them? I was shouted at by youths on the bus today becuase I was too slow in co-ordinating moving down to a seat. Coming back to you doing this feels like just one more bit of being bullied for being spectrum. I hope you have really enjoyed this becuase it's wrecked my day. Going back to lurking. People here have too much good info to not read what they put but I'm guess you want to keep being allowed to post just for people you like and approve of. What I don't understand is how you decided you hated me enough to do this. It is /just/ like the people on the bus.

Absolutely stunned ASwarrior. Where is the respect for me in your post? I replied to newbies interesting post and Robert and I were talking about it. Discussing it. On a discussion board. I think that's what this place is? I was going to ask about swallowing the garlic whole but I don't think I can do that now. I don't think I know what this place is for. I lurked for ages to try to make sure I got it right. Are you a moderator that you can just be horrid to a new poster like this? How do you reconcile your aggression with what you say? What's wrong with multi-quoting? isn't that what the tool is for? I was interested in what Robert was saying and didn't want to miss anything. If you are ASD I guess you don't have the same sequencing issues as me. And what is wrong with 5 posts? Are people only allowed to have 4? or is it wrong to comment on stuff people write? Maybe I shouldn't have said congratulations to the person who managed to get through the red tape and get a diagnosis for her child? That would mean I had only 4 posts and this would be 5 and then you wouldn't have been so rude. I looked for rules and guidlines before posting and I didn't see anything that says about how many posts you can be interested in or anything about sandbagging which I don't understand. Going back to lurking. Way to go for making new people welcome - totally stunning job.

In day to day speech "disease" and "disorder" are used as synonyms. Often it depends on what the person is trying to imply - if you want Alcoholism to be seen as an illness you can emphasise those aspects by calling it a disease. Disorder is often used for something without an established and accepted etiology, which has a varied array a symptoms - a spectrum in other words, So we have ASD - disorder not disease You certainly can't "catch" an ASD like you can catch a verruca! What context are people using it in?

hear hear! one facet of my Special Interest involves architectural details and I've experienced the same thing. I do always make sure I'm not including a bystander though - no reason my interest should cause them any inconvenience when it's as easy for me to wait 3 seconds. Having the Autism Alert card is good too - people in uniform round here recognise it and have come to say hello on another day and to see if I've found anything interesting which is pretty good. Non-official people tend to look nervous and back off - we have a theory that it's partly because our police force logo (they issue the card) is prominent in the design...

Well done Amy! and all the best to your wee one

with what? everything in both posts so far? I can't see where there is a suggestion that AS can be reversed. references? the ones I used to come to my view are the standard peer reviewed medical ones, anyone can find them. Am interested in seeing what you have found on the other side slight diversion: when I was teaching I did two evening classes a term. Better than evens that there was someone with a smell that made the other students avoid them - BO, food smells (especially garlic), aftershave or perfume. Saddest was the chap who was open that he'd come hoping to meet people - and he reeked of this really heavy scent. I bottled out of telling him why nobody wanted to be his partner for some of the exercises but looking back.... I do wonder if he was as lost as me in social situations and it would have been kinder to mention it?

It wouldn't occur to me to take legal action over the MMR jab becuase there is no good evidence that it is involved. Saying "I had it and am spectrum therefore...." is like saying "I woke up this morning and fell over the cat this afternoon therefore getting up caused the cat." Are you familiar with reading the raw research or are you relying on popular reports? Even the popular reports are recognising the error that was made, apart from the scaremongering types. It's great you are so proactive about your asd though and I understand about wanting to be as NT as possible - apart from anything else it sounds safer doesn't it? My efforts focus on my behaviours and activities - the things I have some control over which directly influence the way the world reacts to me. Of course, it's entirely up to you about to if you believe the MMR stuff - but if combating what you see as the problem isn't actually working then maybe you could put effort and energy into other things? There is a miniscule amount of mercury involved - many people seem to pick up more from the general environment (I'm old enough to have been given mercury to play with in chemistry classes at school lol!) I've see people get totally fixated on it and spend all their effort on it without results - except being worn out and poorer. I also think that eating raw garlic is more likely to exacerbate any social issues you may have rather than helping at all. Sorry about this but you did ask! I know that we get very fixed on ideas and it can be difficult to leave them and move on.