Merrimack (NH) Police Department’s “ANTI-Autism” Agenda

Posted on November 5, 2015 by Clickford, Steven M.

2017 Preface: this has been edited to redact names of individuals despite them being public officials. New Hampshire regulations have limited First Amendment protection against anyone under authority as I learned in 2016.

However as of this past April the Merrimack Police Department’s social media pages did not use the LIUB campaign. (But may had a huge impact after mocking the Retweet on a poster sized board outside of my house basically holding the department’s feet to the fire…is that proper to say?)

For outsiders looking in the various parties made errors.

You can fight Town Hall, but sometimes you can win the fight, and sadly you’ll loose and that idiom lives to its name.

As of November 2015, I’ve given up the fight from defamation, insensitive actions by my local police department and have avoided being in my community because of the continued fear of people in uniform.

The situation involved the town Merrimack, New Hampshire Police Department and an initial innocent interaction of the Chief of Police, in April 2015 who I alleged took advantage of my disorder and used it against me in a police report I had no idea was written.

The rest of this post would be the original narrative I was going to read for the record to the Merrimack, NH Town Council, who had denied my request to go onto an agenda item because of personnel reasons and that they stand by their woman, the Town Manager and their man, the Chief of Police,

I’m here before the Council with deep regret to report what I believe is misconduct by public officials against their own citizen. This is not how I want to start my first public statements in this community.

In about the next several minutes; I’ll be discussing two events that occurred on April 1st and 2nd, and another series of events April 27th and the 28th. I’ll explain myself for a little bit; walk you through the two events and request a call for action – sadly after 6 months of the fact. I ask for you to please listen through the whole narrative and reserve reactions, remarks or clarifications after. I need to stress the importance that the story will tell itself and all the details need to be explained without interruption. If you do get “lost”, refer to EXHIBIT A* of the Outline of Events. I will refer to the people by their title and not by name, to ensure compliance of RSA 91a without needing to be in a non public meeting. The story will be told in real time, from those two events.

* 2017 Footnote: I did this because New Hampshire is a very formal and legalese state, I basically danced along to get along.

I moved to Merrimack for a number of reasons; a better quality of life and being closer to areas like Nashua and the Mondonack regions for travel and leisure. I also am one of the many residents in this jurisdiction who has a developmental disability and who’s also not a child ether. I am one of many who had moved ether in town or elsewhere in the Nashua region to receive services as other area agencies have not serve me as I would like to. I’ve had early signs of an autistic disorder as early as a few months. I was in an early education program when I was around 3 and was non verbal before I turned 5. I was diagnosed formally at 7 and was mentioned to me directly when I was 12. I was placed out of district and went to a program in the Seacoast and a program in Massachusetts which made me evolve from a happy, friendly boy to a scared to death, sometimes bitter old man.

The rest of this story is not all “rosey”, it should hit a nerve. I like many others of my type stayed in the school system till 21. Some areas had great “transition plans” between the SAU and the area agencies and some had not. I was the victim of the latter. I had no true transition plan, and the last three months of school put me into deep nightmare. Factor being on the state’s “wait list” for nearly 16 months, I had continued to struggle transitioning to adult life in the community. As a result of a real life nightmare, it has put my life into a screeching halt that has yet to be fully turned around.

For many years I’ve been a victim of prejudice and inaccurate judgment thanks to the general leadership or the lack thereof on the subject on autism – in this little state of New Hampshire. While I am in a “day program” now and trying to get into a work study program; the day to day living and being out in the community is like having an X on my back. Unlike other “advocates” my stories are often the unfortunate realities of an oppressive special needs system, where adults should not be focused, and all resources should be in the special ed departments at the local school districts. And dealing with many stereotypes that all autistics are lost little boys, or very big and fat socially awkward people. You never hear a lot of positive messaging here in this state.

The State of New Hampshire’s Bureau of Developmental Services has believed for adults with all types of disabilities to live in their own community, instead of being in state schools or institutions; services should be provided in their own community and live with their own people. Federal laws are also going to move to “community based supports” going into effect in a few years.

However, as the cliche goes, it takes community to build a village. If the community has various views that might have bias against the group of developmental disabilities; then this would break the framework of what the state wants out of their citizens. This framework is far from complete, as the system still has lingers of stereotypes and individuals could be getting better treatment and services, but this is not part of the discussion tonight.

With that introduction, I’d like to discuss the events that has lead me to address this to the Town Council.

APRIL 1st (Citizen reaches out to fellow citizens to NOT LIUB and/or NOT support Autism Speaks)

On April 1st, the day before World Autism Awareness Day (and where most of the state was in Concord to protest against budget cuts for the disabled), I decided as a citizen of his own community, he should wake up the locals to not “Light It Up Blue” . LIUB is essentially to get people to buy blue colored light bulbs at the local Home Depot, as they have been a corporate sponsor of Autism Speaks, which in return is the sponsor of LIUB. I went on Industrial Drive literally on the median/island to ensure I was within town DPW or NHDOT right of way and not near any private properties such as the Merrimack Premium Outlets or Fidelity Investments, as such demonstration probably would’ve required permission by lawyers. So as a result, I obviously used common sense and made sure I was within reasonable grounds to practice my constitutional rights.

I used a DSLR camera (which has the ability to record video) to tape me with my iPad with a video message with mostly brief words and pictures in silence in sync to It’s a Very, Mad, Mad World (mixed in post production.) This was originally was uploaded to a inactive YouTube account that I once used. The three minute “package” was designed to be professional looking including a “roll cue”, chyron like lower thirds explaining why I was doing this, and about myself in general etc. As a result of most Apple products, direct sunlight or daylight doesn’t mix well, and the fall back was to show hand written signs with spiffy wording and heavy on probationary symbols with blue light bulbs or the single puzzle piece to inform the locals to not LIUB. The shots showed me standing up and holding the signs, mixed with shots of people driving by.

The goal was to get people talking, because chances were people would tune to the news, go onto Facebook and then maybe text someone and say “Hey I saw a guy in town with some message about Autism Speaks or to not Light It Up Blue”.

All this was done at the time what I felt was within my rights as well as trying to contribute to his own community and try to make a mark in life.

LIUB was created and fully marketed by Autism Speaks. Founded 10 years ago by an ex NBC Universal chairman, the organization evolved very quickly from good intentions to severe unintended consequences. They’ve framed the autism disorder as if every single individual is like a “tragic burden” (described by self-advocacy groups), or that all people with autism are lost little boys or they just run away and that your kid won’t have a prosperous future and the autistic kid would be responsible for divorce. It is not to say this could be true, it’s messaging isn’t objective. The war on the autism narrative between AS, the National Autism Association (NAA), the Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN) would make advocacy groups for juvenile AIDS, diabetes, or cancer groups jealous. The subject of the autism spectrum disorder has a lot of money and power and control up for grabs between these groups. Autism Speaks never has allowed anyone on the autism spectrum (including those who are non verbal) to even speak about their disorder – themselves. They are doing the speaking for them, which really doesn’t allow the disorder to speak for itself.

This type of misinformation caused on a national level is possibly causing an autism crisis here in the Granite State in terms of funding and service delivery for not children, but adults, such as the “first generation” types who are in their mid to late 20s, some even in their 30s

It is very important to know that autism is short for the autism spectrum disorder and is a wide range of abilities or inabilities; some can be verbal, some may not; some will run away, some may not; some may have pre-existing physical impairment or have mental disorders and be dually diagnosed.

One of the signs I also tried to show was for people to go onto YouTube and look for Autism Everyday. Searching this term online can give you related terms such as “Autism Speaks Murder Suicide” “Autism Everyday Double Murder Suicide”, etc. Why? When seeing this film; it will give you a chill down your spine. For the time constraints, I suggest you look up the video online. This organization is basically inhumane, and we have a chief law enforcement officer with a simple retweet and indirectly supported an organization that believes in murder against a human race.

Again, the purpose of this demonstration was to wake people up from believing in the stereotypical propaganda spewed by Autism Speaks.

APRIL 2nd (Run in with the Chief of Police and Twitter interaction)

The following day, on April 2nd, I did a similar demonstration on the intersection at Amherst & Continental and at Greeley & Camp Sargent. Again, I held these signs on the sidewalk which I thought at the time was within the right of way. Around 12:50 to 12:55, I was at the sidewalk by Burger King and turned my back and my attention was called by a man that looked like the Chief of Police. His tag stated “M. Doyle” and was fully uniformed with firearms, radio, etc. The Chief read a sign out loud passively which at the time I held “Auti$m $peaks Does Not Speak to any Autistics At All!! Don’t Light Your House Blue!”

The concern apparently from the police department’s point of view was my camera as he asked what I was doing with the camera. I asked 2 times if I broke any rules (such as non-compliance of doing the demonstrations or taping drivers or myself in public.) I told him it would be used for private use. ( I would in fact upload the video package on YouTube then later take them down in the fear of legality concerns.)

He asked me if I needed any assistance and to call the department. The exchange was civil, but I was skeptical. When the Chief went back into his car, he got into a gold Ford Five Hundred sedan with a civilian license plate, and not the state mandated Municipal Police plate. I kept one eye on him to show that I was being observant of my surroundings. At the time on April 2nd, that afternoon – I was under the impression he was off duty, I found out several weeks after on the 28th he wasn’t off duty.

About an hour later, the Town’s Police Twitter account and the Chief’s Twitter account retweeted the LIUB campaign, time stamp shows it was posted around 2:20. The Police Department and Chief basically did against what I suggested my fellow citizens to do.

I felt this was a slap in the face to me and to everyone who lives in Merrimack with a developmental disorder.

As stated in the title, I attempted to interact with the Department on Twitter, by giving them the link of the day before and showing my dissent in a civil way, seen on the left. Little would I know this would be used against me.

After challenging them within civility (since I thought their Twitter or Facebook accounts weren’t used to monitor crime), I was blocked access to their Twitter. I did report the department’s account to Twitter on the subject of “encouraging self harm” per to the Autism Speaks narrative. The Retweet, at last check has not been deleted.

(For the purposes of the Hopeless Autistic, as of November of 2015, the Tweet still is online and has not been deleted by Chief Doyle’s and the account for the Police Department. Ed.)

Prior to late April, I was gathering information if there was a bias against a certain groups of people (considered to some as “ablism” or even “racism”). Part of this included a recollection from someone I knew from about 3 years ago who told me that the Merrimack PD officers that would play in off duty rec games in town and would say “retarded” very loosely – coming from a source that has zero tolerance for use of the “r-word.” After ascertaining other network of sources, I felt there was a case of bias against the developmentally disabled people in town.

APRIL 27th (Electronic Confrontation with the Chief of Police)

My folks still were not aware of what I had done a few weeks before, because as my own guardian, I feel my maternal family does not need to know every little thing in a day of my life. However, they became aware after the following events.

On the evening of April 27th, I pre planned to send an email to the Chief to confront my concerns with the department. I decided to avoid a telephone call, because I was verbally assaulted by another department head in the winter time. People have complemented me on my writing, and I thought writing a through email a serious complaint would be worthy. (Sadly, the timing couldn’t be worse as I found out the events of the Baltimore riots just before 5:00 that evening, and feared I would be framed as a police hater.)

I wrote the following:

Within 5 minutes, he immediately replied the request on the last paragraph

Steven
Any reports are available by requesting same through our records division, Monday through Friday, 8A to 4P. Please let me know if you should need anything else.
Chief Mark Doyle

He doesn’t address anything else, including improper use of English on an Outlook app. My signature had my contact information, and yet my phone never rang.

I felt this response showed arrogance, because I feared perception that I was a cyber punk by the Chief. I felt he wouldn’t want to resolve any problems or conflicts and I replied within the next 10 minutes threatening him that I would take this to the Town Council.

APRIL 28th (Failed “Call for Action” request to the Town Manager)

The following morning, realizing the next line of order is the Town Manager, not the Town Council, I escalated this concern directly to the Town Manager by forwarding the thread with the following statement. (A second paragraph has been redacted.)

The Town Manager almost immediately responded back on the redacted paragraph only, and not about the Chief of Police and only replied with a single sentence. After challenging her to respond about the complaints against the Chief; by 9:04, a political wildfire occurred electronically. Within 90 minutes after the initial forward – the town exploded their side of the bridge. The Town Manager brought up the off topic subject matter (seen below) yet again, and once more in another reply at around 11am, meanwhile speaking to me like I’m a child or if she was annoyed with me. (Is that unprofessional?

Dear Mr. Ayotte,

As I stated this morning, I have spoken to [name redacted] and staff with regard to your complaints. I have spoken to the police chief this morning regarding your complaint as well reviewed his report. I find neither of these complaints rise to the level of action on my part.

She ends the email with the following:

Please do not expect any further communication from me on this matter

The Town Manager also carbon copied this thread to your board without my explicit permission, which I find it unprofessional for people to carbon copy others without asking for permission from the sender first.

At the time, I did not understand what “report” the Town Manager was referring to, initially thought of a daily briefing with department heads, but as the day went on, I would find out the Chief of Police had actually written me up as a police report even when I asked the Chief on April 2nd to confirm that I wasn’t breaking any rules – two times. As clarified by the Town Manager the following received that evening at 6:55:

There is no report between me and the chief. We spoke on the phone and he told me that he wrote up a report on his interaction with you. Would you like a copy?

I’ve spoken to state Commissioners, department heads and town managers of competing communities and was disturbed how our Town Manager closed this reply with this…

This will be my final email to you on the matter.

The story ends with the police report, according to the report it was filed within 3 hours after the encounter. I have been a law abiding citizen and never thought I’d ever get a report to express my reasonable free speech rights or the basic principal of contributing to the community and be punished with it.

Not only will I say that I never thought I’d get a report, but I will go on the record to say that the report is false I can testify against what was claimed in the report and I’ll quote the narrative part of the report in verbatim as the report contains grammar errors etc.

“On today’s date at approx. 1300 hrs., I observed a subject standing on the sidewalk, holding a sign (that, from the distance I was at, was illegible) while standing next to a camera mounted on a tripod. I noticed this same subject on the other side of Continental Blvd on the sidewalk, adjacent to the Gulf Station, yesterday, holding a sign as well.

I pulled into Burger King, parked and approached the subject, identified as ‘Steven’ who was now standing on the sidewalk on Amherst Rd. I asked him what he was doing and if he needed anything…he explained that he was taking a few selfies (video) of himself holding an ‘Autism Awareness – Light it Up Blue’ hand-written informational sign for motorists. I thanked him and advised that if there’s anything he needs from us to just call

The campaign is directed to ANTI-AUTISM awareness, as shown in this YouTube video:”

He would then would link both the Twitter and YouTube accounts (both defunct.)

The problem was, the sign stated “Auti$m $peaks Does Not Speak to any Autistics At All!! Don’t Light Your House Blue!” the video was clearly not “ANTI-AUTISM awareness” and secondly the term selfies are not used in professional video production.

More disturbing, the report was updated to have the inclusion of the above email on the evening of April 27th as a follow up including my full name, startup business and telephone number that came from my email “signature” used for business purposes just like everyone else who uses email for professional uses.

He said the following, quoting the same report

“On 27 April 2015, at aprox 2240 hrs. I received an email from and individual named Steven Ayotte, of Merrimack… the text of that email and my response follows (FYI: only at this time):

The Chief recklessly pasted that earlier email without appropriate redaction or deletion when posting the report and a report with improper use of grammar and cryptic languages.

The Town Manager made a major mistake for making a swift decision about me without me knowing the full story from the Town side, by attempting to shut me up at 9:30 that Tuesday morning. Do you see how that could be questionable, and why are you continuing to defend the Town Manager by citing your charter as your board “has a vested interest” with her, can you see how there could be a problem?

Is this how Merrimack, NH address “progress” with the developmentally disabled, by targeting the said groups and then taking advantage of their potential inabilities to fight back by writing a false police report and risking his career and reputation by assuming that someone like me is naive? That even if I claim to be autistic that its ok to just take advantage of me? If this is the case, the State’s Department of Health and Human Services’ Bureau of Developmental Services needs to know because “Community Based Supports” can only work if the community is tolerant – most importantly on the municipal police level.

The story ends here and now I am going to ask the Town Council if they can begin an investigation addressing my concerns I have against the town’s Police Department, the following questions are listed below, that can be addressed at a later time.

I ask the Town Council to perform an investigation if the Merrimack Police Department currently or historically within the last 5 years of bias against people with developmental disorders including but not limited to the Autism Spectrum Disorder, Down’s Syndrome, Asperger’s Syndrome, Rett’s Syndrome, Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) Pervasive Developmental Disorder – Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS), and other disorders related to developmental disabilities, as outlined in EXHIBIT C
Does the department considered promoting women to higher force, as they have generally have more tolerance, sympathy with the less fortunate?
Are there members of this force who have been trained specifically to be sensitive to members of the public who have a form of the Autism Spectrum Disorder, if so how and who did the training, and approximately how many in uniform or non uniform, such as support staff or dispatchers?
Are there checks and balances (appropriate ones) to prevent fraud (like what I allege)?
Is it normal for a police report to have grammar issues and recklessly pasting emails without citizen knowledge and not redact personally identifiable information such as phone numbers on an email signature?
Similar to the Town’s Social Media Policies, does the Town have email policies on how town officials should communicate to constituents. Emails seem to be very deflective or require me to make telephone calls or use very de standardized phrases such as “Expect no further communication from me on this matter”. (this was originally part of an agenda item request for the August Town Council, but was rejected because the “chairman” wanted more information, thinking I would use it as a loophole to discuss this subject tonight.)
While board members will nitpick spelling and grammar errors when approving meeting minutes (spending hours annually); give time checks to open and close public hearings (when it’s actually not needed); why are details not a concern for town employees as well?
Has there been any complaints about “subjects” on sidewalks, similar to the high school kids doing fundraisers on a Saturday morning, putting their lives at risk? Are there reports?
Is the Town of Merrimack’s Social media policies apply to town employees, and if so is the Chief in violation per stated rules outlined in EXHIBIT B?
Is the Chief responsible for criminal defamation per to the RSA Title LXIII, Chapter 644:11 I & II as he insulted a constituency of the Merrimack, NH residents by supporting an organization that encouraged murder suicide?
Is the Chief responsible for violating RSA 641, and if so could he be charged or misdemeanor as outlined in EXHIBIT D?
An FTP IP address is shown on the police report I’ve obtained, but the “class” of that IP address is for private use. Is there multiple network cards or “gateways” that could be tied to other networks such as NCIC, a state issued crime database or the NSA? A single computer can be tied to multi types of internet connections, and how do can the public be certain that false reports are not in the eyes of other black boxes?
Is the Town Council serving the interests of the citizens or serving the interests of department heads?

I like to reiterate, that I never threatened any Town Employee’s life or property, other than threatening to bring the Chief’s actions to the Town Council in public, because in a sane department head, if you make such threat, you would want to talk as adults to work out a problem, and not risk loosing your career, or face jail time and loose your badge correct?

My support people at my area agency had checked against all emails and have confirmed I was within my rights both in public on April 1st and 2nd and the emails on April 27th and 28th were within reason. My family is now fully aware of the events and sadly I wished I could appear before you in another capacity.

I ask the Town Council to address this issue throughly but in a progressive manner and update the public of any decisions. I want to prevent another incident if someone else like me wants to do something like I did. I feel like the Town of Merrimack, New Hampshire believes its not appropriate to question government officials of this municipality and will do whatever they want to throttle one’s reasonable rights by picking and choosing various classes of people and equipment they are using on right of ways. As mentioned earlier I believe there is racism and/or discrimination on the Town’s part, and in the Police Department. The actions are something you’d expect in 1995 not in 2015.

Thank you,

The State of Affairs for Autism and Relationships

Posted on August 27, 2013 by Clickford, Steven M.

There is a bunch of problems going forward for the next five to ten years for autistics and the “leadership” thereof about relationships and building friends, etc., etc.

To go into further detail of that statement; we face problems such as trying to fit every possible individual into one unified group instead of unifying 1 and 88 people with autistic or pervasive developmental disorders; secondly the research and assessment (or diagnoses) often compares us to the normal functioning peer groups; which is also an unfair and inaccurate portrayal to the autistic community.

There are a bunch of people who go around the world to speak about autism, to lecture about the subject or even speak badly (even with it being unintentional.) This problem is also a multi pronged issue too. One is the lack of editorial judgement when delivering these messages to the public; secondly the medium is the message; especially in the world of the Web and social media; and how the people take these messages. I’ve said in the past that for a long time people in the Millenial generation (born from 1977 to 2001) were the most intolerant generation of people with developmental disabilities; however that number is slowly going down – but not a lot. The problem here, is those numbers are becoming tolerant because of a career path they have chosen, not really because they want to be tolerant from the heart.

And the last point is what becomes the most dangerous part for ANYONE with autism; the message, or the medium may mislead these future professionals of the special needs industry; there is still some mixed messages that all autistics are mute and dumb, and often they are lost little bastards; and often its boys; because its only boys who are bad; and its only boys who are into science and math; and again guys are socially retarded; and that all autistics shall not have a life like everyone else because of their alleged social dysfunction; and they really should be friends with their neurological peers; and shall not even have the chance of getting married and having offspring that might reproduce another autistic.

The entire boldface was the subliminal or innuendo messaging of what is taught in college, or in professional development (bitter people training.) There is a lot of psychobabble about “social pyramid”, “social capital”, “social this” or “social that”. And many of this BULLSHIT has anything to do with social skills!

So in closing, the state of affairs for autism and relationships are bleak and will have a dark future. Not because “progressives” want to make a movement for change and acceptance; its really for people who want to be career mothers or career slanderers to make blaintely false and misleading statements that all autistics are bad, all autistics should be sent to Laconia or a state that still has a state school for developmentally disabled people. And yet we have to settle with the fact of “they are being honest” and “they are telling the God honest truth” but yet if I make a “God honest truth” I’d be charged for hate speech even if there isn’t a hate speech law in my state.
The only option is to settle with the “facts” with the hopes these people will die to hell sooner rather than later.

How “Friends” Selfishly Communicate in the 2010s. (V.2)

Posted on October 15, 2012 by Clickford, Steven M.

My grandmothers birthday was recently. She lives in another community as we are preparing for her to move to our house by the end of the year. She is the last member of my small family to move into our new home that we have been living for the last couple of years.

We were going to plan to celebrate over the weekend, but it got postponed. I remembered her birthday on that specific day, and I sent an actual birthday card, and obviously it arrived a few days later. I need to call her and check up on the status.

My grandmother is as analog as you get (she lives in such old social standards, like sending a card that is HANDWRITTEN of a thank you via post mail. She doesn’t like the ideal of Facebook (because she’s an extremely private and quiet individual, therefore she doesn’t like how people would post their entire lives on the internet. In some ways I don’t like that because my general ideal of excessive privacy leads to troubled and corrupted lifestyles – i.e. my own personal views of local government lead me to be somewhat opposite to her views.)

She never used a computer outside of work (only using a specific mission critical app in the last decade), and she again, as an old lady prefers phone calls and letters. Because she’s a “farmers girl”, she views the world as “little” and revolves what my former town being “small town” like 5,000 people small which wasn’t the same in over a half a century ago.

Well I am someone who tends to not focus on the past (thats the family curse of afraid of change) but I try to live in a semi reasonable, but progressive society. At some point people need to adapt and stop reliving like my town is still a small town where everyone knows everybody, etc.

Now that ends to a point, and when my nostalgia comes into play.

I often don’t celebrate my birthday (and its becoming just “another day” beginning this year) because it was generally forgotten. People would not remember, often they need some aid to help them, like using Facebook – that’s if someone publicly publishes their birthdate/day online. The “friends” I used to have were really not friends. These people never seemed to look beyond your default picture or album. I had my birthdate as my handle on my MySpace, YouTube and Twitter accounts, but no one seemed to ever visit them, or even question what 3 digit number meant, especially when I used to put strong synergy across all my profiles.
They never reciprocated, and never went the extra mile (because that was dirty work for these entitled jerks.) Now granted, I did send emails, and not cards via mail. But an email is now the social standard to the old fashioned “letter” but digital and in fact is more personable than opposed to text. If you use Microsoft’s Outlook like I do, email gets stored into a computer file and can be read on any modern email client, etc.

Text messaging, however is the lowest standard for communication. Why? Its because the text messages can easily be deleted, and one touch of a button and the message disappears for good. This isn’t good if you want to keep a breakup letter for eternity as opposed to a letter or an email. Its much easier to send a half-assed thoughtful message via SMS as opposed to taking 5 minutes out of your busy life to type up and send an email birthday wish, etc. (For the record, I was never a fan of online greeting cards.)

Now back to Facebook, often if a birthday occurs, it gets published on the frontpage, then one starts the wish, then it extends to everyone else when people start to notice that trend on their News Feed. I did a test in 2010, made my birthday private, then made it public later that day. Guess what happened? These alleged “friends” wished my a happy birthday after. How fucked up is that? These same people who didn’t care that I turned 21 ether, never offered to have a drink together or what, as these people were social alcoholics to begin with.

Facebook, and all these other iDemented devices are really dumbing down the “normal” population and the groups who were forced and mentally raped of social standards, and socialization protocols, and other CAN’T dos, are actually going to be the best and the brightest because we socialize like robots by doing protocols and ettiques, while the “normal” population have an open license to be a jerk.

I try to be the good guy, and yet I get punished.

Work

Posted on September 24, 2012 by Clickford, Steven M.

Note: This post was written during the Alpha/Beta stage. I wanted to bump this up so you can read my views on why I am not in a work program yet, and how my (allegedly made up) social skills issues and the ever so confusing understanding relationships at the workplace has put me into a long and screeching halt. At the same time, I am going to take time off to sort out various issues as I noted on my other blog just now. I am hoping to come back and try to calmly write my frustrations on relationships again. I can’t imagine what others like me go through, let alone someone who is “normal”
I’ve not been in a job since early 2008. It had nothing to do with the economy, it was because it was part of my school program and the company was unable to hire me permanently under their payroll. The company was billed by my school and the school program in return would give me the paycheck. At that time, the company had some seasonal difficulties, though now they are doing much better because they are allegedly the suppliers for a famous phone made by a California tech giant.
With that being said, my last day was within the following week to my 21st birthday, which is when any special needs student looses their school services and land into the real and crazy world of adult services, which in the beginning can be very difficult. (Hereto, I’ll leave the rest of the technical stuff for The Forgotten Autistic, since I normally cover these general and personal issues.)
So I have struggled finding the right work program. I’ve dealt with one a few years ago and it was an utter fail. Now I am in a new area, therefore their might be some promising options or work programs.
There are a few issues with work programs outside of a school program
1) is the “image” of the programs. Some programs I had seen were “white collared” like jobs. Sure, white collared jobs are fun, I’ve experienced it a little bit over time
2) with that being said, there is of course a responsibility, accountability, and maturity, and the job “coaches” or “trainers” often have to push and push the clients. I have done very poorly with people pushing me. I won’t go into the details, maybe its something I don’t fully know yet.
3) another issue is, in one of these “startup” programs (and do I love “startups – insert sarcasm) the applications are lengthy and dare I say intimating. My mother probably would say that most places do that, and its what life is and how workplaces work, and blah blah blah. Well, can anyone understand that maybe it has to do with how the label changed my life, most importantly the “social” aspect?
4) whether or not I choose a work program or not, there is a roadblock. Knowing I have social difficulties (whether its real or synthetic) I’d feel awkward doing some even simple blue collared job (something more up my alley!) Or even a turtleneck job! How would I be able to interface with “normal” people in a retail environment? Some of those teen/college age stores are people ether much younger than me or if they are on or close to my age, they probably are perfectly tolerant to illegal aliens, homosexuals, physically disabled, other backgrounds or races but not for developmentally disabled people! I bet there are people in such places that have used the “little bus” joke just like they did in high school!
The deprival of my “social skills” and replacing it with fear, intensive self-doubt and over-thinking is the major road block to a future of a 20 hours or less work program. I have not properly addressed this to my support team yet. Part of it is the lack of listening of some of the people. I still have the office skills from the previous employer, its like riding a bicycle, its just the social part that is severely stopping my life. If anyone is willing to hear me out.

Question: How would you change lessons on Social Skills?

Posted on September 13, 2012 by Clickford, Steven M.

I think there needs to be disruption to the special education world. For one there are too many women of a certain age and background. With that said, there is HORRIBLE leadership in this group. If you need a reminder, these people have effectively put scare tactics on my group of people of what I CAN’T DO. Remember, these are the same groups of people who get after the PDD groups on focusing on the negative. And of course, they never stop harping on strict social skills because we have to be 100% accurate and never make 1 mistake.
So with that said, I’m going to ask:

How would you change the same ol’, same ol’ practice of teaching the autistic/PDD groups on social skills?
Would you include the “normal” groups to act as the “equal opportunity offender”?
Would you teach on how to “humanize” the PDD groups, instead of focusing on turning them into goddamned robots?
Would you focus on the “grey” issues or attempt to teach “black and white” standards?
Is there a “social standard” and if so, why in the hell is there not a “manual” that most autistic people would looovveee to have and read?
Would you abolish the “sexual harassment” lessons in the high school age?
And would you be willing to treat everyone as different groups of people and not attempt to paint everyone with a broad brush?

I know there is a lot of questions, I am just putting it out there because I am sick and tired of motherly women controlling the special education hackerama and not only screwing up these vulnerable citizens; but not only that to ask Uncle Sam to pick up the tab for unnecessary pain and trauma and leaving the adult services programs to reprogram these people of how the “real world” doesn’t work like how Room 112 was teaching for most of their high school years (and I am including the younger ed classes as well.)

The entire tell all about my concerns about “relationships”

Posted on August 24, 2012 by Clickford, Steven M.

Update: 08-27-2012 @ 10:25pm/Eastern Time
I have created the page that contains items from this post. It has been edited and expanded and I will keep this post intact for the near future.
“RELEVENT” HISTORY
I am 25 years old. I have a form of a pervasive developmental disorder known as having a form of the autism spectrum disorder. So I am 25 (I may come off as a younger person and maybe fall as a minor with my looks and sounds) but I am feeling like I am getting old. I feel sometimes like a teenager with some rebelious attitudes. With my autism, I have had struggled with socializing when I was very young. I started to build some social skills at the second year of my fifth grade school year. Why was there a second? Because I had anxiety moving over to my local middle school, and to elievate the anxiety, the IEP team decided I should stay back so the transition to the local middle school would be easier.
Well it all went down to hell within two months, and I was placed out of district as per to my mothers demands having to go through that pain. At the same time, I noticed that the girl I had the hots for in the second year of fifth grade had treated me like crap by the end of that summer meanwhile an alleged hot-ticket-Itailian type would get away of verbally atacking me and just being very mean as those two months fell apart*
* I admit I was no angel, I remember attacking this girl of interest, but the girl just put a huge scar and those wounds haven’t (or may never) be fully healed
While in high school, I went to school in Massachusetts, an area that is one of the most liberal states on the East Coast. My teacher was 25 when I came to her program, so this was 10 years ago – same age as I am today. However, she had a 6 or 7 year spread from her graduating her high school and prior to being hired at my school. She had focused on lots of mixed message on romance and friends. By Mass law, she was required to teach sex ed (or at least was supposed to ensure we got it in some way or another) but she opted to instead preach on psuedo science lessons like on “relationships” and “healthy” vs. “unhealthy relationships” and more and more pseudo BS about love and romance. I actally fell for much of her advice about relationships, but actually this came from someone still with a high school mind and instead of a wise and mature professional.
PEER PRESSURE – EVEN TO THE SOCIALLY INGORANT
Even with my developmental disability, I still feel like I want to be like “everyone else”. I have been ether screwed by my ex friends or had to isolate myself to feel “safer” from being hurt because a) I didn’t go to a normal high school. I also didn’t retain the friends from elementary school, b) I didn’t build newer friends and didn’t go to college. c) I didn’t have a job since my 21st birthday so I haven’t been able to build from there and d) I don’t have a significant other.
The latter is the one that really hurts
LOVE IS FOR THE SOCIALLY PRIVILEGED
I understand as much as I am different and it may be good to celebrate my differences, its very hard to find people like me. I can be very mature on different interests. Most 20somethings would rather play Halo than to build an Active Directory. Most “kids” would rather mess around with an iDevice rather than using an Apple with a fancy UNIX operating system. While most dumbasses would want to send texts (which has less personable communication than to email which in some ways replaced the handwritten leter) where its so easy to delete a message and is harder to retain compared to email. While most drama queens like their “friends” to be in the know on their Facebook profies, some would like a tiny ammount of a little off line, real world communication. I’m not asking for too much. But a pretty girl to look up or lets say just north of 30 seconds and acknowledge that a guy might be flirting with them by saying shes got a sexy skirt, even if the guy can’t fully say it.
So there is a syhtentic autism that is growing to the “normal” population, which is devestating to the legitmate autistic population. Its like the movie WALL-E happening in the real world less than 5 years after the release.
Onto the flirting, thats a whole other issue. Many people with PDD have experienced some degrading lessons on socializing with other people, in the sexual sense. Now in the PDD or the autism spectrum, you can have normal looking people and some “creepy” looking people too. But of course, since most SPED schools or programs could not do “indvidual” based lessons, they had to paint them with a broad brush that you had to stay restrained. The liberalism/feminist movement had really made issues a lot worse than actually fixing issues such as hostility at the work place. Thanks to the “sexual harrassment” laws, the special ed schools had to teach them because of course, the creepy boys would be the first target. After hearing that phrase over and over, it got drilled into our own BootROM. So since about 6 years ago, after one of my first sex ed lessons, my BootROM has essentially been drilled to stay away from being around girls or women, to avoid excessive (or any) flirting, and avoid using phrases such as “sexy”, “horny”, “hot” whatever, because it can offend women or even older men.
SEX – YOU DON’T THINK AUTISTICS AREN’T SLUTTY IN THE HEAD?
My thoughts on people and sexual types of questions keep popping in my head for my own safety and health (and just for plain ol curiosity). Like when I see these hotties whether or not they are in a group or alone, Is that chick thats with that guy her bf? When did she stop being a virgin? Did she start puberty early? because she look too mature for a 20 year old. How many times did they get screwed during their time at college majoring in partying? Do they have an STD? Should I even touch her? And what in the hell does it mean when you are “In a Relationship”? Does it mean you are a boyfriend or girlfriend? How serious is it? Are you fucking one another every night? Are you doing it with or without protection? How often? Does the girl take the pill to prevent any pre martial knock ups?
Then I think about her physical prefs. Is she dressing to just show off? Why is she covering her lower back if she knows if it exposes her area or her thong or tramp stamp? Why does she just tighten her belt to make her feel more comfortable? Why you are so offended at the people looking at your clevage. Its not my fault someone upstairs gave you a gift to be at least a hottie! Why do girls tease?
Why is it that I am told to be careful to look at girls in case I offend them when they are doing it to themselves? Why do girls get so damn offended on Facebook or MySpace websites of “creeps” “stalking” their profiles when they just pin themselves up for the same type of attention!
So I have some odd turn ons or fetishes – again “odd” compared to the “normal” people. But flirting does entail complementing someones physical looks (even if it comes off as sexual.) So I been so shy (thanks to the liberal establishment) to hit on a girl to say she’s got a hot belly piercing, not only could get worse if a guy is nearby protecting his friend or girlfriend. I’ve had thoughts of asking (again: asking) to kiss her belly I found it sexy. I like some girls who wear short shorts or skirts showing off her sexual attractiveness. I can’t even say shes “got hot legs” or “I like that sexy skirt.” Or what if shes wearing a nice belt, depending on the type. I feel awkward to say I love that sexy belt, or how snug it looks or how comfortable it feels, etc. Or if a girl is wearing a nice push up bra and her bust is nicely lifted (read: I love your sexy cleavage – or your are making me stiffy.) Since those tight fitting chokers are not in fashion, sometimes those can be a turn on and I can only say I like your necklace. I could go further with such sexual thoughts as flirts, but probably they are bedroom material. But of course, that will not happen, because who would want to date an autistic or even fuck with them?
While I am on the sexual note, I feel if I get older and are a heluvla lot less people my own age* that are single, I fear that my dream girl (that isn’t really that far off from reality) won’t be around. Again, I want substance (maybe not in the department of managing office phone systems, or understanding state and local government – again because they arent that many hotties that are smarties) but I also want a strong sense of style. I like the ladies in the Hollister outfits, the American Eagle tiny shorts or the skimpy tank tops from Aeropostale, or some evening dress or dresses from the juniors department at the local anchor mall store – or last but not least a girl wearing cutesy PINK outfits from the collection at Victoria’s Secret. I do like all types, some curvy, slender, but not boney skinny and not any kind of athletic build, as some are boney in some senses too. Girls are not supposed to show bones. And girls** start to peak of their sexual attractiveness at their mid 20s. So their bodies start to change after then. I see lots of couples get touchy and feeley (as I could press charges at them for “sexual harassment” ) and I feel like I am missing something. I’d love to be touchy and feeley (but maybe not in public as much to be modest.) I’d love to hug, kiss touch a part of her leg and get all frisky and stuff.
* It has been preached on many occasions that we should stick to people around our own age (remember the “2 year rule” as a 14 year old? This practice was still pushed in my late teens in the high school program ) because of the creep factor)
** no intention of degradion of such class of geneder is intended.
FRIENDS (“They won’ t be there for you”*)
* The TV Series was so overrated
So as I mentioned earlier, about my “friends” and how they had made me a massive fail. Friends is a vague definition, and it is open for translation. Temple Grandin (the know it all on autism, since she herself is a proud autistic) defines a “true friend” as “…true friendships are built on shared interests, or shared ideas, or shared principals, that you both hold meaningful; there’s always some common thread that binds you together.” Well the hard problem is there is no concrete definition and I can say that the “normal” groups are likely the ones that are abusing the definition.
When I moved to another town almost a couple years ago, whether or not it was by coincidence, my “friends” were starting to drift away. I admit that I was at time a nasty individual, but I also felt felt forgotten. I was still reeling over the mess from the previous decade and the post 21 debacle (thanks in part to inferior over regulations on the state and local level prohibiting the school support staff to be humans instead to be bureaucrats above the law) but even that, they should had understand. About 2007 and onwards, people had no idea on how the depth of a potential Doomsday would happen on ones 21st birthday, other than they are legal to get drunk if they so choose to.
I will use one example, a friend thats now an ex who allegedly has Asperger Syndrome, graduated at his original class back 7 years ago. He’s a bit over confident, admitting he wants to have a triple digit IQ. He has since gone to a local community college, and is getting transferred to the state university. In the summer of 2010, he started to make references of a “girlfriend” which got more and more serious. Recently they had their “2 year anniversary”, something that should be inappropriate for a boy/girlfriend “relationship.” This girl does exist, and she lives in the area, and it wasn’t any of his old alleged “girlfriends’ he had chatted on whatever IM client he was using. So this really was boggling my mind and to this day I still can’t fathom. Meanwhile another friend of mine (who happened to be that high school teacher that we started to become “friends” after her dismissal of the school program) she is an extreme liberal. She still subscribes as of 2010, the pseudo science of psych-o-logy. She had treated me as a mute and dumb person as per to the actual DSM definition of PDD, Autism or whatever current definition mute and dumb is. As I moved to my new town she said on the way back to my old home from a lunch (which was our only get togethers out, since I wasn’t good enough for her for anything else – maybe it was my bitterness) “Now that you don’t live in [XXXX ] anymore… now I won’t see you much anymore”
Wow, what a promising statement coming from such a whiny Valley Girl type! By this time my original Facebook account created in March of 2007 was already purged. By that fall she wouldn’t return constant phone calls and after number of failed phone tags, I started to give up. By that January, I wrote an email entitled in the Subject line “Termination of ‘Friendship'” she would reply back that her father was getting sick and she couldn’t get in touch with me. Well her alibi was allegedly false, meanwhile at that time, she had her public website, mentioning that she opened an art studio for special needs and was in local hyper media outlets during this alleged claim.
So my “friends” prior to the end of 2010 – were not meant to be for today. If figuratively my house was burning, they wouldn’t come for help. They had such attitude of arrogantly being independent, I’d be dead. Friends are supposed to be there when you need them the most. And these people had excuses upon excuses. And maybe I lived too far, but that shouldn’t had been an excuse. So the theme song on the TV series Friends would not ring true for my cases of such social courtships
To sum it up: I came to a damning conclusion that I might not have a hopeful social future in 2010, 2011 came to the realization and in 2012 the acceptance phase that I need to kiss having “normal” people with “normal” interests, having a healthy balance of work, family and friends, and most importantly a “girlfriend”.
Well after 2,400 words in the 1st draft, I think I got some story web of thoughts and emotions, and most importantly, the cement mixed up to start the foundation of this new blog. Lets kick this bitch off and hopefully we can hit many posts well into left field like I did with my other blog, on family, friends, romance, sex and damn the negative bias known as “social skills” to hell where it’s supposed to be! To screw the autism elite! To give the salute to the morons making socializing a pet project! To shut up the damned far-left liberals and their “zero tolerance” and their thin skinned approach of everything being “offensive”! Let’s upgrade this bitch to Beta stage and open the doors to this blog and do a grand opening, of a go-live, a premiere date of September 10th!

The struggles of being me. (EDIT V2)

Posted on June 26, 2012 by Clickford, Steven M.

I’ve had a long 25 years of baggage to wake up every morning and crawl out of my bed and trying to find the “next step” of my life that I have used for exactly 4 years now.
I’ve had more and more let-downs than comebacks. And that has nothing to do with my thinking, its the leadership of the ASD community, the leadership of adult services and the leadership of our political system that hasn’t help the manners. There has been quite a drama, and frustrations in Concord, and the political mess isn’t far from over. Its also not far from over with the the negative influence that people give to the individuals. The years leading to my last day of school on my 21st birthday, was really about the only thing going forward in my life was to work.
And lots of the skills were a decade behind the present standards, ranging from work ethics and how to find a job. I had my teacher saying in like 2007 that she was going to get the local Sunday newspaper because the Sunday editions have more classifieds. Around that time they were extinct in their existing form. Never mind the teachers of my school program were hesitant of teaching the students how to use Monster.com, Craiglist. Facebook was still in infancy to “everyone else” outside of the dot-edu addresses, and LinkedIn wasn’t even popular in the corporate world.
Oh and what drives me nuts, was even before the huge Facebook/MySpace/LinkedIn era, was the teachings of harassment, and the fear that was brought to us about the skeptical society. I wanted to give out business cards to pretty girls but after I was told that “after 9/11, people gotten creeped out” or it would be a “crapshoot in case” she was in a relationship or married.
What if I was doing a double prong approach to not only try to hook up, but you know, the networking word? The old fashioned way of giving cards out to people? Well since i am a “loner” type, I am often in the community by myself (thanks to my friends abandoning me) and you know i have that look that looks like I am the mute and dumb stereotype, I cannot do that. Then, thanks to elitists like Stephen Shore or Tony Atwood or Teresa Bolick, and other Asperger knowitalls of the world they, and including the school teachers also indoctrinate us about various “social” standards, “social status” and anything that has to do with “social.” At this point, it should be a vulgar word.
I can’t even be a salesman. My eBay record has really sucked. My resales of failed tech equipment, often had to be relisted on average of 3 times and a lack of interest. Its really crazy how a generation old technology can go down in price and be a lack of interest in only 9 months to a year! (Some of my Ci$co products were about 6 to 10 years old on the hardware side.) And I am not even sure if my Etsy account will do anything good.
I have been let down so much by various “adults” in my life, and what the hell am I supposed to do? I feel like I’m here without or I don’t have a reason to be here.
It’s a REAL SHAME to be suffering with what’s now becoming a “woman-made” disorder or disease, however you look at it.