User blog comment:Sonamyfan666/All People who want Cindy Robinson to stop voicing Amy Follow this link to help out./@comment-1669199-20121207111100/@comment-168506-20121209033250

I have autism.

That raised my hackles. Now, you have forced my hand. I usually stay away from blogs lamenting on this or that, but once someone plays the autism card, I have to step in.

Sonamy, you're not the only one who has autism, and do you want to know how much of a difference that makes in anything? Not a single difference whatsoever. It does not entitle you to any leeway on the Internet, a place where disability has no meaning. And to use autism as an excuse for one's own behavior is, to be blunt, a cop-out. On Wookieepedia and Star Wars Fanon, we have an equality policy. That means that everyone is equal. We don't care if you have autism, Tourrette's, cerebral palsy, Parkinson's, bipolar disorder, whatever, you are still expected to follow the same policies. There is a vast majority of people on Wookieepedia with autism. They follow the rules and do not dare to use it as an excuse. They don't use it as an excuse to win any arguments, either, as I can tell you from personal experience and my own observations that it doesn't work.

On a forum that I moderate, we have a clause in which a member can be reprimanded for using their disability as an excuse for poor behavior, judgment, trying to win an argument, anything. This clause was put into effect because the administration team all had autism (in the past. Most moved on and now the only ones with the disorder are myself and another member). This clause was brought over from yet another forum that I had administrated in the past where we actually banned someone with autism. Their father tried to get us to overturn the ban, citing the disorder as an excuse. Since the entire administrative team had autism, we told him flat-out that autism is not an excuse for poor behavior. If that kid was incapable of following our rules, he can go somewhere else.

That said, I want to leave you with this piece of advice from years back. I was working with a caseworker in a job-training program, and when I would suggest a job that I wanted to do, they kept bringing up the fact that I have autism and that it will never go away. I told them this:

"Autism may be a part of my life, but I will never allow it to be my life."

You are in control of your disorder. Autism is a "label." It is a "diagnosis." It is not who you are. Once you define yourself by your diagnosis, only then does the disorder become a disability. That is when you allow it to control you.