I have issues with Autism Initiatives in Edinburgh!

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Last year, I got banned from working with a woman that supported me for a long time. Joanna is her name. I asked her to date me because I was lonely. However, I got one shift with her again last year in the summer, as a trial shift as her seniors put it. After that, I thought the folk in charge just fobbed me off about other shifts with her in the future. I got angry one night and posted about her on Facebook when I felt tired, then I got permanently banned from having individual support from her because she saw I shared a photo of her. I still see her if she sleeps over at my accommodation, though.

I had been working with a Spanish woman - Sara. She was my key worker and I liked her a lot. I had a crush on her I suppose, but I made the mistake of telling others I liked her and I think I know who it was that blabbed. Not long before Christmas, I text her a message with the word 'petal' in it and she was on a bus with me. She went back to my flat and I felt upset because on the bus, she told me we'd never be involved even if she left. She also told me she noticed others knew I liked her. Earlier the same week, she had told me she might go to South America one day to work with kids, so it'd be goodbye. So I reckon I could still impress her by working with her.

Then when we had future shifts, she had a bad attitude towards me. We went up a hill once and I hate heights, so I took my specs off. Then she ordered me to put them back on. The nice Sara was seemingly no more. On Christmas Eve, I stuck Home Alone on in the staff flat, as they have laptops with Internet access. She sat away from me, saying she needed to stretch her legs. We continued to work together until the first week of February.

I hadn't had support shifts with Sara in weeks after an afternoon where a senior went on maternity leave. A senior called Andrew kept getting me to come into the office to chat to him and he was acting really unusually nice, but he told me Sara was just temporarily working with others and that was it. He gave me the same spin for ages. And I knew something was amiss.

So over a month later on my resident friend's birthday on 11 March, I saw Sara in flat 1 (the flat is also an office) and I asked her when we were getting shifts again. Sara mentioned something about me going to a meeting. I realized I was being lied to, because I saw Andrew too and he had a ridiculous cocky grin on his face. So later that day, I emailed Sara something really inappropriate and I called her screaming at her because I thought they were at the ham. Then when I went to that meeting on 19 March, I was told I couldn't work with her or Joanna. Then I returned to the office and threw away my folder containing my daily reports and bank card for paying my support workers.

Over a week later, I emailed the staff vulgar things out of temper. I'd arranged to see Sara at a Costa the same day, but they got the police to stop me at around 6:35 PM, but they later claimed they didn't know the police were giving me a hard time. I ended up being charged but not prosecuted. Since then, I've had various meetings where upon reactivating my support service, people kept telling me that I'd never get Joanna and Sara back for support ever again, which has made me become furious. I ended up not seeing my friend Frank and I ended my Internet contract earlier than it was meant to run out. The seniors also disabled Sara's work e-mail address and changed her mobile number.

The company's assistant director Cathy arranged a meeting recently where I got to apologize to Joanna and Sara separately in a lounge at a place called Number 6. But that's not enough for me, because I want shifts with them again. I've also assaulted a senior and messed up the door to the staff flat a lot, so they have to keep cleaning up the mess I make. I'm in despair now.

Cathy knew I'd won the Number 6 snooker tournament (after trying for over 3 years) and they stuck a photo up in the staff flat, but to me, that amazing accomplishment was overshadowed by the fact Sara isn't my key worker any more. When she sees me anywhere, she looks uncomfortable and she ran away off in the street once and fled in a taxi because I walked after her. I saw her over a week ago after that meeting. I wanted to give her a nice cuddle and she yelled 'don't touch me!' as she bolted from the room. She also saw me a few other times and she had a rather gloomy look on her face when she noticed me.

I'm thinking about sending Sara a letter translated to her own language, where I can 100% honestly say sorry and maybe our working relationship can be repaired. I think I really hurt her feelings before and she doesn't actually want to forgive me. The meeting we had where Joanna and Sara accepted my apology was just a way to shut me up, I think. I miss them so much and I've been depressed over this for months and I even had to see a medium one day.

I'm sorry you are having a negative experience with Autism Initiatives, but from the sound of it your behaviour is extremely inappropriate. It might constitute assault or harassment. The support workers are under no obligation to be in your company, it sounds as though they are uncomfortable, and it wouldn't be good if you ended up being prosecuted...

Well apart from the carry on I'm going through over them, there was a guy who they employed years ago called Patrick and he emailed me about my ex-girlfriend, pretending to be a guy called Bruce Ritchie, which is so not on. I met up with him last year. But I think the company has been deceptive towards me, a lot. If a support worker is not getting allocated support time with me, I'd rather they said why that is truthfully the case instead of not being honest. Andrew only recently said he'll do this from now, but a fat lot of good it'll do to bring back Joanna and Sara!

If he is not working for them any more then not sure they are responsible for what happened, but it doesn't sound good that he was contacting you like that and under a false name. I can understand why it would be better if you had been told sooner. Don't know whether you can expect to work with Joanna or Sara again though.

Yeah. I've basically been fleeced all my life by people I thought I could trust. Like 10 years ago, I fell out with a woman I befriended online (but I only knew her online, too) and it was a particularly traumatic experience that only time healed. She is way older than me, but I got attached to her for some reason since I was lonely and we fell out because I went a bit nuts when I proceeded to try to demote her from forums we had been on. All I could think about was her and how I hurt her. And then I tried to reach out to her and I confessed I loved her, but it was over. Her name is Mary, but her handle is Lucky. I've saw her on forums since then and she deliberately gets me banned. Then Laura my ex used me for my money last year, after we were apart for years. Do you see why cases like these could present trust issues for building future alliances?

It's the same with this Sara lady that I worked with. They all are the same. Basically, they could all be just tarred with the same freaking brush. They at first appear to want to "help" me, but then they get sick of me obsessing, since the obsessing side is bad, but that's part of me, sadly. But I have to question whether a lot of these support people even know much about autism beyond what they claim to. It's like they go to some uni, get a piece of paper for it and then they think they're clued up on my disability. Or in her case, Spain sucks for jobs so she come over here instead. I need real friends and a lover, and her saying to me we only met because I have autism was a bit cold. Obtaining both friends and a girlfriend is hard, but I'm not totally friendless. People at Number 6 like me. However, I want to branch out. Then this knocked my confidence. I'm feeling like I cannot trust anyone. All of the folk that support me have to write up reports, so I have to be careful not to leak out certain information any more. Do you see how awkward this is?

It does sound as though you've had a hard time with relationships in the past, I'm sorry that these are causing trust issues.

But Sara is not the same as those other two people. They were people you met who you didn't have a strictly professional relationship with. Sara might have been really great to spend time with, but she is very different from the other women because she was working with you. I know it might sound harsh or cold, but in a sense she would be correct in saying that she only worked with you because you have autism. That doesn't mean that if you had met in a different situation then things might not have been different, but she works in a job supporting people with autism, so basically the two of you did only meet because of that, and because of these circumstances it isn't appropriate for you to seek anything other than professional support from the relationship. I know it sounds harsh but it really is important. You can't blame or be disappointed in someone because they tried to preserve the boundaries needed for them to work in their job.

Yes. I get that, but that only occurred once. We continued to work together and then it was just one day no more. She did say I made her uncomfortable. I shouted at her sometimes because I wasn't sleeping at the right hours for a while and she said I made my anxiety problems an excuse never to go out. I mentioned a panic attack had startled me and she told me she had a panic attack at an airport, but these things should not prevent me getting on in life. Basically, an afternoon where your sleeping patterns are upside down could seem like the middle of the night to some people. So yeah - I did act inappropriately, which she has to report. But I think they blew it out of proportion and they mustn't have told me sooner she was removed from my care package, in case I blew up.

My mother thinks Sara had a hand in why we're not working together. Like i.e she might have told her higher-ups that this 'Peter guy makes me uneasy' and up until I officially lost her, she looked nervous. They would have taken all the stuff she said into consideration, which they did do.

I'm sorry she feels that way, but I think her behaving in this way is a bit harsh as I only have the highest amount of respect for her, but I guess that should include backing off from chasing after her as it's clear now it's over between us. For all I know, she probably has a boyfriend, as she told me at a Number 6 party once that she was seeing a male friend afterwards. However, that's reality.

It's good that you get that things are over and you should back off, it must be difficult to deal with knowing that things turned out like that.

Can't really say much about what you spoke about to do with anxiety. I know that anxiety can make it difficult to do things.

I omitted to say before that I obtained Joanna's address and that I told her. That was highly dumb. It would just make her uncomfortable. Prior to that, Joanna seemed sympathetic. She doesn't make the rules so she couldn't really say at the time whether she'd work with me again, but I kind of spat in her face because I ran out of patience. She then had no choice but to say she'll not work with me. So as you can see, I've just perpetuated a lot of the issues by being angry.

In Sara's case, I just think she is uncomfortable because she probably believes I'm infatuated with her. That she won't reciprocate the feelings I have for her means she just avoids me like a plague, but I would rather we were at least on friendly terms. That's why she never does sleepovers. She's also locked herself in the office when I've been around. Although they have a duty to care for the staff, it's like I'm undergoing discrimination because I know I'm not going to physically harm her.

I guess maybe they just don't know that you wouldn't physically harm her, which is why they're being protective. They might think there is a risk of that because of some of the ways you've behaved in the past when you were angry. It would be good in those sorts of situations if people could hear each others thoughts to make sure if they are genuine, but unfortunately that's not possible obviously. Also, they might not necessarily think you would physically hurt her, she could just be uncomfortable being in the situation.

Have you ever tried to cope with your anger in any way, so that you wouldn't get into as many situations like this? Sorry if that's not a good thing to ask, it's just that what you've been saying makes it sound like you might rather not get so angry?

The trouble is that management thinks I'm obsessed with these two women. They have a company motto or something that the support matters more than who is supporting me, if it means work will get done. They're facilitating social opportunities and even if they're laid back people, they are not friends and therefore, I can admit that a lot of my shifts weren't used productively. I didn't mind just having fun shifts for a while, but it become my whole life and social circle eventually, which I figure is a bit of a mistake because I may get used to certain people that I'll "miss" when they're gone. Make no mistake about it - support workers are nice folk to chat to, but they are never likely to become friends any day as even after they go away, the boundaries remain. What if they had a similar career somewhere else but they got pally with former clients? That doesn't look right. That's why you can't add them on Facebook and they're instructed to block service users who attempt to contact them outwith professional boundaries. That would be the case as well if they left the job.

They feel Sara is a distraction for me. Since there are dozens of support personnel these days, it's no trouble at all to have me working with other people should somebody be removed, as was the case with Joanna and later, Sara. If relations got that bad, they could have me working with an all-male team, as I'm not bi-sexual. But that may not happen as they know I don't fancy all the women that work there. In the future, I just have to keep my feelings bottled up. It's never smart to be so revealing, but my autism does make me be quite open. But that can have its disadvantages. Snitching being an issue.

I also worked with a woman called Ruth years ago. I frequently would broadcast that I liked working with her, but my outlook on her meant to them that I liked her in a more personal way. Oh, she left several years ago and I talked about her a lot even after she departed. Her brother still works at the flat where I am, but he will not let on about where she is now. Why should he? He knows I'm curious. He will feel awkward being her sibling and I'm asking him about her a lot, so he will say nothing.

However, I wanted Sara and I to have a good working relationship until she went away. We were going to ride our bikes this summer. Now that is not going to happen and it truly breaks my heart. That's why I resent what I did. Although I partly blame the seniors for fobbing me off, I was not calm enough and it's cost me dearly.

I think that the best thing for you is to make a point of not making any advances towards (or asking out) any of the women who work with you at that place. I suspect that they are NTs and they are jumping out of their skin with the man with AS askes them out. They might rather misunderstand you.

My advice is to relax and stay calm, take up some sort of sport or other pastime where you can meet young ladies. With some luck choose one where fewer men are involved than woman, do not go there looking to obtain a young lady (pull). But if you do meet a single unattached woman who you get on well with then why not ask her out on a date.

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Health is a state of physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity I am not a jigsaw, I am a free man !

Diagnosed under the DSM5 rules with autism spectrum disorder, under DSM4 psychologist said would have been AS (299.80) but I suspect that I am somewhere between 299.80 and 299.00 (Autism) under DSM4.

Women people like us would label "ordinary" would never be interested in a guy like me, sadly. However, Sara is a professional and while she's a nice person, I'm now forbidden from working with her which is practically what the root cause of my anguish is now. It ended up making me feel more lonely and highly stressed knowing I lost her and that it was my fault for acting too headstrong, although I still say they'd fobbed me off.

As it is, I know I'm not attractive at all. I had been putting up profiles on dating sites, but nobody was replying to me in a nice way. A male support worker I was with said that I appear hunched over all the time in my photos. That's because I find it hard to fake being happy. It was only when I pointed out how fussy the women were on the sites that they pointed out in return that I had an attitude, yet they'd never bother to reply otherwise. In fact, a lot of the women I found attractive that I contacted just blocked me. Some even said they wanted to meet me, since Plenty of Fish has that feature. So I contacted them and after a few nice compliments on my end, I was blocked, just like that.

I realized that although it may seem harsh and it is hard to swallow, perhaps the ONLY sort of women that may be interested in me at all would be fellow autistic ladies, or perhaps women that have some other type of learning difficulties, like my ex Laura has. We just seem to gel. We do. Laura was a gold-digger, but we were still an okay match in other ways, if you know what I'm getting at. I just need to find a woman LIKE her, but one who won't milk me dry.

Normal women with model looks or even just good looks that don't have disabilities are quite often not interested in dating people with autism and they may talk to folk like me, but that would be merely because they're being nice. But I don't mean that in a bigoted way. It's just a fact I'm now accepting. I too didn't think it was "fair" that people said having autism wasn't a trait coveted by women, but it's like we don't always fit in with the normal side of society. I still reckon we could run rings around a lot of "normal" people, but yeah. Sometimes it can be difficult having autism. I try not to let it get to me, but this company I depend upon has really upset me and I'm now eager to get the things they cannot provide.

try a profesional ASD/LD dating agency like stars in the sky if are wanting a girlfriend as will never get one through support staff.

and very few support agencies are allowed to have proper friendships with clients,theyre banned from emailing, facebook etc, the only one am aware of that lets support staff make up their own rules on contact from clients is the NAS as am good friends with many ex staff of mine that had had years ago and theyre always visiting.
some of them chose not to get involved but that was there choice.

its hard for those of us who require support to detach ourselves from support staff once we have made a connection with them and its also hard for many support staff to see us as anything other than a job as its their way at detaching themselves from reality.

perhaps ask to be changed to a different service or to an all male team so will not get accused of trying to make support staff girlfriends,support services routinely give people all female or all male teams; mine is a two to one team made up of all females [not through choice as do not see a difference between genders] because of having high personal care needs-its hypocritical because if a male needs personal care support they can get women or male staff;its like the care industry still thinks males are going to be molesters.
one note of caution,having to have gender specific teams can get difficult;especialy for males and sometimes they have to cover with horrible agency staff.

autism initiatives are not the best support service around from own experience,was assessed by them many years ago back when they had just become established in their home town of liverpool plus started branching out into a neighbouring area; manchester, was refused any services from them because am LFA and have both complex needs and severe challenging behavior,those things are standard to come across in ASD support services,didnt mind as ended up in full time support and day services under the NAS instead.

I think I might be able to relate to you in that, when interactions with support workers or other professionals become a big/the biggest part of your life or the majority of people you spend time around. It really sucks, because you get to know them and like them but they're not friends. Especially if you don't have many others in your life (which seems as though it might be fairly common among people with autism, unfortunately). My experiences might be different as yours seem to be related a lot to attraction, but they might be similar in some ways I guess.

Woodpecker and KingdomOfRats' advice seems like it might be good to me.

It sounds good if you can manage to not 'pursue' female staff any more to look for a relationship, but it might be hard bottling things up as well. If it happened in future do you think they would mind if you told somebody about it, not because anything might happen with the person, but so you wouldn't have to keep it to yourself? I dunno whether that would be okay or not, just trying to think of stuff.

Earlier today, I emailed the guy that I believe snitched on me saying I cannot work with him again. It seems I'd be better off going to The Action Group for a fresh start. Part of me doesn't want to leave my flat however, as I'd never see Sara or Joanna again, most likely. But that just indicates to everybody on my end that I'm fixated on them.

I understand that if I open my gob and they are concerned about anything I've told them, they must for the sake of their jobs let the higher-ups know in case something happened and he or she had not revealed I'd gave away facts that may prove vital to the particular bad incident. However, because Sara knew in advance and I did indeed eventually mess up by my own admission, she was totally different afterwards, which was a shame, because she's a cracking lady. Suppose that's you though and you know the guy has the hots for you, then how'd you feel? You would probably feel uneasy as she did and want a new assignment away from the guy or lady crushing on you.

But I really didn't mean what I said to her when I emailed her months ago. It was quite racist actually, so she probably is safeguarding herself and not wanting to risk something similar occurring again. Even if I was angry at the staff leading me on, that was no excuse for saying all that mean stuff to Sara. It sounded the deathknell for us, in a way. But it's too late.