Aspie-specific suicide helplines - any links you know of?

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If possible please use this thread to post links to any AS-specific helplines for suicidal AS people in your country. (I am not suicidal, this is a general request).

Also if you have called a general helpline (not targeted for AS people) and found them helpful when you were going through a very dark/suicidal phase, please post the details here (name of service, phone number, anything that will help any member going through a suicidal crisis).

I also wonder if there are members who would be willing to temporarily "buddy up" with members going through this kind of crisis to offer one to one support. You will need to be a good "PM listener" and be able to support with judging and offering unsolicited advice, and be able to just be there for another member so that they know they are not completely alone and uncared for.

If you have used a helpful helpline for suicide but don't want to post the link and your experience under your own username, you can PM me and I will post your feedback anonymously in strict confidence, so you won't be identified.

https://jeanettepurkis.wordpress.com/20 ... -services/

Thanks, B19.

I have never found a single helpline that has actually been helpful to ne during my times when I feel suicidal. But I am willing to help any of you the best I can. I think the best people to help Autistics who are struggling are other Auristics who know what it feels like to have similar struggles

It would be amazing if we could start Autistic crisis call /text hotlines

It would be relatively easy to start a helpline that functioned for email contact only designed and run by AS people for AS people, but the harder part would be training and supervision for the volunteers. Not impossible though, where there's a will there is usually a way.

Jeanette Purkis has previously made this important suggestion:
Creating a designated position for an autistic liaison officer in healthcare settings, including mental health settings

Both of these innovations would help as a start, neither is a total solution but progress is made in steps, and the situation for suicidal AS people is so dire that it is well overdue for even the first steps toward adequate service delivery to be taken.

The groups (like Autism Speaks) which are rich and claim (falsely) to speak for the interests of AS people will never spend their mega millions even in small part to save AS lives. Meaningful change can only come from within the AS community. It's part of a much bigger struggle to stop the overall dispempowerment of AS people. Admittedly, a lot of AS people have been taught from an early age to give their power away totally to NT experts. So I'm not minimising the difficulty of claiming back power. It is never an easy struggle, but always a valid one for any oppressed group.

watch Neil Degrasse Tyson on youtube, his lectures on the afterlife and scientific theories is quite eye opening that the mere thought of the end of someones life is a permanent thing, you were nothing before therefore you will be nothing after.

I would be very interested in helping to get Autistic crisis hotlines out there.

Scorpius, not sure if your post relates specifically to topic of competent helplines for AS people, perhaps you could create a thread on that topic in another forum.

Thank Skibum. Any website designers here who would like to add a brainstorming session here on how to create a very user friendly one?

Can we sticky this thread? It is vital to keep it visible. This is such an important topic.

I'll inquire about this Skibum.

...

The process was overused and was suspended some time ago. If other members are like me, they tend to forget about stickies most of the time, distracted by new posts. However I too think this topic is extremely important, and deserves bouncing from time to time, as it is never not going to be relevant to the AS and WP communities, until viable options are created and available.

And I hope that will happen during my lifetime.

I hope so too. We can keep this thread bouncing back to the forefront.

The road to hell, as the old saying goes, is paved with good intentions. This article (linked below) on suicidal crises experienced by people on the spectrum is full of good intentions, but is deeply flawed by the perennial assumption that NT systems and service delivery automatically serve (and are as valid for) AS needs. They are not. The real reason that these services and ideas fail AS people so much is the old problem of trying to trying to force "round pegs into square holes".

I am constantly surprised that NTs in this field with a high level of education and experience do not get this. I think it is a theory of mind thing, partially, on their part. They know what services exist for NTs, and genuinely hope to encourage more AS people to use them. They appear to lack knowledge or the theory of mind capacity to understand why these services so often fail AS people.

They might as well say, "Well, you are experiencing suicidal despair, so just pretend you are an NT experiencing this and fit in with our model that suits NTs".

The time has come for very far reaching change in this area of conceptualisation, service design and service delivery. We need tailored and targeted services for AS people, and we need different designs for AS children and for AS adults, that are age appropriate as well as AS appropriate.

For me, it beggars belief that those service deliverers and defenders who point out the outrage of high suicide rates in the AS population are still locked into framing it as a one size fits all issue.

That is a dangerous and discriminatory mindset.

I would urge concerned members to consider making submissions to their members of parliament about this, to professional bodies of psychologists, to mental health advocacy organisations.

It also amazes me that well known AS organisations and advocates ignore the need for targeted, well designed services which are AS compatible.

Sadly, I suspect that avoidable AS suicides have occurred even while I have been composing this post. It is time for action which is long overdue, and it is profoundly evident to me that nothing will change until AS people take a leading role in undoing the NT mindblindness on this issue.

https://www.sciencemag.org/sites/defaul ... Crisis.pdf

I have contacted the organisation which published the article linked in my previous post, and copied them my post in response to it, and have asked them to contact me with feedback after they have considered the points raised. Will update the thread with any response from them in due course. If there are none, that too will be a sadly revealing response.

I am excited to hear if they respond to you. I will also copy your previous post and email it to my contacts. You know who they are.

By the way. I've got great news. I finally got food stamps today. $140 a month. That is massive!! ! I have been financially eligible for over four years. But it took this long to make it happen. Things will happen if we believe and perservere even when it's hard. I believe this Autistic helpline will happen as well.