To wonder why neither the Left or Right give a flying f#@& about adults with ASD or learning difficulties human rights abuses???

[calpolatdawn]

This is a tad goady maybe, and yes very emotive, i havy skin in this game, relatives and children. I deliberately left this a few days with everything going on, and truly its something that's bothered me for a long time and if anything has been made clear recently its if something is uncomfortable its probably because people need to hear it. Its been well known for a while that in matters concerning detained adults with learning disability its usually radio silence. only usually journalists and people who are usually talking about these issues, usually the parents, talking about this. The report from the Human Rights Centre dropped a few days making it clear adults with asd and learning disabilities locked up in cells in detainment units, their human rights are routinely being abused (no shit), (if you are on twitter users like Bethanysdad, rightfullives and oliverscampaign are very informative regarding this issue.) And a part of me sort of hoped, that someone out side of the usuals with a massive platform will talk about this? draw attention to it?.... nope, even with all the virtue signalling narcissists on twitter not one, absolute tumbleweed, it won't appear on anyones IG story, they wont be any hashtags no outrage inciting social change, i realise im largely shouting into the void here but i am angry, and so despairing now, the message is loud and clear. no one cares.

Sorry I found your post a bit confusing. Yanbu if you are saying that our society treats people with learning difficulties like shit. Yanbu if you are saying it seems like noone cares. Do you mean that they are treated like shit in detention centres or all the time? X

That at a society level noone cares about injustice towards the learning disabled.

whats happened?

i'm not on twitter

sorry the report is here committees.parliament.uk/committee/93/human-rights-joint-committee/news/146834/coronavirus-has-left-young-people-in-detention-facilities-highly-vulnerable-to-human-rights-abuses/

They want a report of how many times these people are being kept in solitary confinement to be published weekly . A fucking report . I am not involved in the learning disabled community at all. Obviously I was aware that they are treated like shit, but even in my worse nightmares I couldn't have imagined this. Horrific.

I'm afraid I only managed the summary before crying xxx

I'm so sorry that I rudely forgot to ask how your relatives and children are getting on. I hope they are ok and you can visit them soon xxx

I agree that adults with learning disabilities and autism are sidelined in general. And when reports like this come out, showing the injustices they face it is very hard to get support, or even to get a discussion going about it. After the programme on the abuse that adults with autism were receiving in that supposed 'hospital' in the north-east, I was shocked at how little interest there was on here and other social media. I think that if it doesn't affect people directly, they are not interested

I can't face reading that report at the moment, but I will force myself. I've just finished reading a book called 'A Bit of a Stretch' by Chris Atkins, who spent time as a prisoner in Wandsworth. He trained as a 'listener' for the Samaritans and listened to vulnerable prisoners. He makes the point very clearly that the prison is terrible for prisoners' mental health, with symptoms of distress punished as bad behaviour. For people with autism and learning disabilities it will be even worse.

And sadly, as you say, people with autism and learning disabilities are not cool enough to be a trending hashtag, and detention and prison reform won't get many likes either. So people without a voice go without support.

No worries playdonut, thank you thankfully my sibling is in good care and constantly reminded of how lucky we are but it shouldn't be luck!, Completely agree with previous posters.

its so horrific isnt it playdonut? that's why the hero worship of the nhs made me uneasy sometimes, the people abusing these people, slipping DNRs in secretly are NHS workers aswell

We live in a society were disability is seen as the absolute worst and generally not worth bothering with. It is a prejudice and ignorance that is universally accepted and us worldwide in its reach. If we listen to the anti vaccine people it seems that death is preferable to being autistic and whatever the hell else the vaccines allegedly cause.
Most kids with disabilities attend mainstream schools, certainly in autism that figure is around the 80%. Whilst some kids get support, many don’t and flounder in an education system that sees any flexibility in approach or assessment as snowflake ideology.
The impact is, that many of these children develop diagnosable mental health conditions when approaching puberty and adulthood. This is partly due to the education system being inflexible and due to being treated badly by peers - low level persistent bullying is the norm for the disabled people and they are largely ostracised.
The expectation of a global society places the responsibility of “acting normal” firmly on the shoulders of the disabled population who simply can’t meet those expectations. A person in a wheelchair cannot grow new legs, a person with a form of dwarfism cannot be stretched out to make anyone feel more comfortable. An autistic person cannot have a brain transplant to not be autistic.
Look at the Olympics v Para Olympics. The emotive violin music as the presenter explains in sympathetic and low voice that Mary has overcome all the hurdles of her disability to swim. Fuck off mate, the biggest adversity Mary overcame was dealing with ignorant ball bags like you making assumptions about her and then not letting her join in your world. Sit down ball bag, and can that music, Mary is nailing it.

I have felt very angry for more years than I care to remember that disability has never been a focus. Disabled people by the way often get turned when emigrating to another country because “they will be a drain on national resources”. Fucking disgusting

Wholeheartedly agree, in fact the thread below on the use of disablist language is horrifying to me, ok perhaps they haven’t watched the same words being thrown at their child, high school was particularly bad due to exactly those terms!

I don’t get why racism and Homophobia is rightly championed, and treated as the crime it is..yet those with learning disability are great for Micky taking, and worse, outright abuses, and frankly crickets!

Many LITERALLY have no voice, we are their voices yet as a society we are badly letting them down. Someone mentioned woke... no this is not being “woke” this is trying to ensure their simple human right to be treated with respect but it so rarely happens worth bearing in mind, there but by the grace Etc... it only takes one accident

Oh absolutely! frizzcat and shouldhavebeenkat, the people who get worked up about certain slurs will almost certainly still use the word retard casually or other names, the irony misses them, "its not the same" yeah id love to see some of the people complaining about silence about social issues actually take a stand about this like you said these people are largely voiceless.

im glad of the responses so far i don't feel so alone in my opinion.

I completely agree with this, DH and I were discussing BLM, trans rights etc which we totally agree with but then we realised that no one will ever treat our ASD DS with anything other than loathing, contempt etc. Even our own family members do it. Also before I had an ASD kid I didn’t realise how many homeless people, people with addiction issues etc probably have ASD or similar issues and have been totally failed by ‘the system’. Outwardly my DS appears NT but he has significant problems that mean he will most probably never be able to live independently etc. He is in mainstream school but independent as they are far more flexible. DH and I work hard and all our spare cash goes on privately funding help for our boy and stashing away money for his future. I know most people don’t have the resources to do this and it is disgusting that the government don’t do more.

Its so distressing. They cant fight for themselves, their families are exhausted fighting for them that they cant gather together and drum up wider support. Even covid deaths they ssy it goes round 'care homes' and show a picture of an elderly person - not a learning disabled person and the death rate for young people in care homes has been high.
My son has asd and he had no school place last year at all. I went on marches about SEND funding. The general attitude was my son was 'faulty' and didnt deserve an education. I do follow bethslanysdad. Its a living nightmare. Im terrified my son eill end up detained in a facility that doesnt understand autism

its terrifying isnt it? and even before Covid19 the population of learning disabled adults died young 4x higher than the general population from avoidable death , wheres the report on those deaths???

oh dear whats gone off there ^^

Casual disabilism makes me rage. To the point where I leave the room rather than point out again that yes, you can be disabled and have a job but need a blue fucking badge that cost no body anything you ignorant fuck.
Ds is neurotypical but has a processing disorder than makes him seem “autistic” in inverted commas cause it’s amazing how many people can diagnose autism from across the car park. I’m either told it’s great he copes so well so he can be normal one day (presumably when his brain regrows the missing bits) or not to make such a big deal of it (presumably because if I ignore his difficulties they’ll go away).
I cannot fathom having to hand over his care to someone else. If only they were soldiers with missing limbs who we could be proud of eh?

I must get more involved with supporting the rights of disabled people and can’t just keep raging into the void.

Sorry to keep banging on about autism but it’s the area I work in and my ds is autistic.
Autistic people live on average around 17yrs less than their non-autistic peers. 17yrs! Biggest issues heart disease from years of anxiety, suicide for non treatment of mental health issues usually caused by non acceptance by the mainstream world. Lack of support to access medical help and co morbid epilepsy.

Carers live 10yrs less than their peers on average.
There has been a huge surge of deaths amongst autistic and learning disabled people during this pandemic - no mention of them anywhere

Please don't apologise this is absolutely the place to rage about it. 17 yrs! i imagine institutional neglect plays a large part aswell,

Your post hit me with a body slam. Thank you for posting, I am very ignorant of disabled issues but I'll learn more. The government are shocking in this area.

RedPanda thankyou for your post, its nice to see people be like not oh its unpleasant don't want to know,

i meant be like you, and not

it's interesting how the pandemic gave society a real chance to change in lots of ways including making education more inclusive for those children traditional ways of schooling fail, instead all I hear is people demanding things get back to normal as it suited them. It's a shame.