This is more a vent/rage on behalf of my fiance. We met at the start of last year, and sadly it has been a long-distance relationship due to his work and the fact that he's based in a town 600 kilometres or so from where I live. But even with necessarily brief face-to-face time over the last two years, and a lot of MSNing, I worked out pretty quickly that he was on the Autism Spectrum. He never mentioned it, so I figured he was either working up to it or didn't figure it mattered all that much given that we get along just dandy.

Anyway, in July this year he, his parents and I embarked on a Epic Trek across the top end of Australia. He and I were on his beautiful BMW motorbike, his parents were in the 4WD/support vehicle. At one point on the road, my boy and his father got into a rather heated discussion, so his mother and I retired to further up the road so as to not be in the way. By now my curiosity had been piqued, and I figured the middle of nowhere was as good a place as any to bring it up - she's a nurse and I used to be one, so I'm familiar with the touchiness that can go with having various diagnoses within the family. I straight up asked her, "Is there an Autism Spectrum thing at work here with *boy*?" She laughed at me. "Have you only just worked that out?" "Actually I've been pretty sure for about a year, but since nobody mentioned anything I thought it would be a good thing to ask."

The kicker? She and his father have known since he was a child and they never told anybody. Including him. He's spent 26 years wondering when he's going to start understanding body language and sarcasm and not being awkward in social situations. At school and church both (they're Latter Day Saints) he was and still is almost totally ostracised from his peer group.

I'm so monumentally pissed off on his behalf it's not funny. I keep thinking "If his teachers had known ..." "If the elders and youth leaders at his church had known ..." "If he had known and been able through adolescence and beyond to explain to people why he behaves the way he does ..." It breaks my fucking heart and I just want to tear his parents new ones over their handling of it.

Yes, by the way, I told him what's "wrong" with him while we were on our Trek. He himself is currently having some anger issues with his parents about the whole thing. They're shutting him down though, mostly through using the guilt trip of, "Sorry we were such bad parents!" He doesn't know where to go from there. Being a sarky bitch myself I'm very close to suggesting he make them a pair of crosses for Christmas and allow them to climb on up and nail themselves to them, but the only practical suggestion I could come up with was to agree with them. Agree with them, yes, you were sucky parents, and now that we've established that, can we move past the guilt and blame and bullshit and discuss why you were sucky. Why you chose not to share the diagnosis with anyone. What thought processes were gone through to arrive at the decision that this was the best course of action. I think he needs to understand, but I'm not on the spectrum myself so I'm not sure.

Any spectrum guys reading this, could I maybe have some insight or suggestions? I'm trying to get him in to see my shrink to talk out some of the anger, but being the holidays it's pretty difficult. Is there anything I can do or say to help? I hate seeing him so upset and depressed and mad. Especially because he tries to make light of all this when he's around me because he thinks that my physical disabilities trump his emotional problems, so he doesn't want to complain around me in case I think he's being a wimp. Sigh. (Yet another example of Patriarchy Hurting Us All. /feminism)

So yeah. That's my vent. Thanks for reading.

So, you called me to take an appointment for a process I did online, and I'm glad I live with a hearie, because they insist on contacting me through phone (and yet ask my email), have nowhere where I can tell them "no sorry contact me by email I can't use the house phone" and don't take relay numbers. Which wouldn't help all that much since this apartment doesn't have a tty in the first place.

So I go, take an appointment, mention I was called, they ask my info, oh, okay, sorry we don't have your information (wot?) are you sure you received a phone call from us? "No, my mother did since we share the same number for both apartments, I'm Deaf." I point out that since I did this online, I would have appreciated if there were options other than phone since it's at best inconvenient, and more on the unusable side of things. She then asks for details, and I give and she's still saying she has nothing. But we can take an appointment. What about next week? So I take for the 29th, since they close the 28, and she asks after all that if I want to be told if my files appear during the day. "Oh is there a way online?" "Oh, no we call you."

At this point I lost it, took out my hearing aids, asked if she understands what the word deaf means. "If you don't want to we can also just not tell you." I get the point, tell them to call, mumble something about inaccessibility, get out.

WTF is with the callous disregard for accessibility there? >.