Missing the point.

I'm going with the flow again. Just because the nuances about what happened with Uta Frith being showcased first, by Naomi Fisher, are still irritating me.

And I'm procrastinating today so am on Facebook instead, avoiding some chores, and a bit psychologically stuck, in a transition glitch.

So I'm typing this, I'll over analyse it, edit 50 times, before I press 'post' knowing I should put my phone down and do something more useful. Breakfast and cup of tea is now cold beside me.

I'm Autistic. Anyhoodle.

Dear Naomi.

When we are overwhelmed with negativity, when we are tired advocating, when we are picking up the pieces of those whose mental health are crumbling, and you know that, then it is not ok to inflict us with a new harm.

When we are all at a good level of safety, when we are all regulated, then we can hear debate and listen with logic, to arguments that differ from ours. That's ok. We can do that if that's what you had wanted. We like to do that even, because many of us are persistent and detail orientated and look at things from all angles.

What you did however was the equivalent of trying to talk to a dysregulated child, when they are already in meltdown.

Our community is in meltdown with Send reforms, service cuts and hightened threats to our community.

You are asking us (when we are on our knees trying to prevent unaliving, when we are overwhelmed and in Burnout) to respect and listen to the view of someone with immense privilege whilst they give us a sermon on our lived experience.

The timing was wrong.

The order was wrong.

Your lack of response to the MANY calm responses, was wrong.

Your choice to publicly respond to only the 'disrespectful' comments is wrong.

Your lack of any attempt of Empathy towards us is wrong.

I am not being rude nor disrespectful. I am not name calling. I am giving you feedback that I have also emailed to you.

The privilege that you have, can be used to help us, not hurt us.

You could say that we aren't forced to listen to you and if we are so exhausted then we could 'walk on by' without reading your content.

This was the ultimate hurt because we do keep ourselves safe, we all have to. But you led us to believe you were safe and that you were in our very small circle of safety so we leaned in with trust and faith.

Our reaction was shock, being let down by someone we had truly thought understood our vulnerability.

Sometimes safe people do have to break bad news, say no, let us down.

But as Autistics we benefit from detail, information, prompts, consistency and necessity.

We can cope moreso, maybe, with context and consideration.

And you of all people, you who we thought knew us, let off a bomb with no warning and no necessity.

You could have done it differently and you didn't.

It is HOW you did it that caused such fallout and was wrong, yet you do not acknowledge that.

Instead you refer only to a) the need for us to listen to different perspectives and b) comments that may have indeed been a bit brutal (ie those from a trauma shocked/pained position).

Naomi you are missing the point.

There were many valid respectful fair responses given to you.

Our need for accountability and fairness is big. Justice is rightfully hugely important to us because we have a lifetime of being wronged.

You should know this. We thought you knew this.

The huge irony is that you seem to have forgotten that we are Autistic.

You seem to have forgotten that us Autistics (Autistics themselves that are Professionals, the Researchers, all the Autistics, who Dr Frith and yourself have upset) have needs that lead us to Burnout, to crash, to be hurt.

Because we are Autistic.

And yet you did this to us.

Do you know an extra harm you just caused?

We now won't know who to Trust.

We now won't know if the next person we Trust is going to let us down too.

We won't know if someone we currently trust, is going to let us down.

Therefore, you have harmed our faith in our own judgment, leaving us uncertain of our ability to recognise who is safe.

We all make mistakes Naomi. I know I do. And when I do, I profusely apologise.

You just needed to own your mistake, acknowledge the nuance of what you did wrong, and apologise, with the respect we deserve.

Jill

Pic description: Me, Jill, sat on a teal sofa, yellow wall behind me, I'm smiling, a gold paper Mother's Day crown on my head. I have shirt blonde hair. Behind me is a messy table with painting stuff on it and bikes (because the garden shed is being tidied). I'm Autistic.