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lunarc
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14 May 2010, 7:44 am

I can't take it anymore and it must be stoppped.
Background: I'm an Aspie. I found that out for sure when I broke down and crashed out of the rat race. And I crashed out hard.
Marriage and family gone. Business and career all over. Evicted and for a while, homeless. A trail of bills and debt left behind.
A long and lonely walk through hell but despite being through the looking glass, I have a roof over my head and a Centrelink pension payment every fortnight.

Of course it wasn't long after the money stoppped that the bank started calling.
At first they were nice enough. Even helpful. After a few weeks of back and forth, they realised the situation was hopeless and did the obvious thing.
They wrote off the debt and cancelled the account. This was back in January. Unfortunately, that was only one of the three accounts outstanding. The person who spoke to me said she would recommend to the other departments that they do the same.
Instead they did the opposite.

The collections department set their dogs after me and I have been hounded and harassed 3,4,5 times a weeks ever since.
They don't identify themselves, just a first name and the phone number is hidden. They call outside business hours and on weekends. Sometimes they say nothing and it's just silence on the other end.
Always the same stupid exchange. These people are Stepford Wive's programmed to ignore anything you actually say and just recite scripted demands for something that doesn't exist.

I've sent letters and had no response. I've had a friend attempt to intervene on my behalf.
These calls send me into meltdown, which may last a day or two. In recent times I've adopted a strategy of yelling and hurling abuse. This is good defense and the meltdowns are shorter but it will end badly.

It really must stop. I keep asking them over and over, "Given the reality of the situation, what do you actually want?" It has been months and they just won't answer the goddamned question.
So in desperation I presented myself to the local police station and stated my intention to seek the protection of the law and make a formal complaint of abuse, torture and assault.
Of course I was waved away.

My question now is whether to get serious and get litigious.
This meltdown thing is very serious. All the aspies I know can relate to it. Is it universal for us? Can it be defined?
And for the too many aspies found at the end of a rope, is it safe to assume there were episodes of meltdown along it's length?

So my position is this:
To knowingly and deliberately induce a state of meltdown in an Aspie is an act of violence.

Does it fly?
I'll put a RFC out there and see what y'all reckon before I lawyer up.



DemonAbyss10
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14 May 2010, 9:47 am

I highly doubt you can do anything about it other than sue for psychological damages (In the US anyways, no damn clue about australia.)

as for wether it 'SHOULD' be considered an act of violence and whatnot. Nope. The reason is simple. We all want equality and s**t, so they will end up treating us in the same way as everyone else, for good or for ill. Not everyone knows about AS either, so yeah, those of us who can pass off as NT get treated as such as well as getting the same expectations thrust upon our backs. In essence, we technically are be ing treated as equals in that respect.


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ToughDiamond
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14 May 2010, 11:08 am

The heartless bastards! :evil:

I guess it all hinges on Australian law, about which I know nothing. In the UK they used to have a "free" legal advisory service (though the gov still made the client pay the VAT :x ). And we have a "no win, no fee" system these days for court cases. If it were me in the UK I'd consider writing to my Member of Parliament. We have a Citizen's Advice Bureau but they're now so busy that it's virtually impossible to contact them. National Autistic Society might help, if you have one down under.

I've never had a classic Aspie meltdown but I know it's common. I just went kind of hysterical once, it was pretty scary and maybe that was a meltdown.

Can you change your phone number? Might give you a bit of breathing space. Or cancel the phone completely and go over to a mobile and use texts to keep the bills down? I've had debt collectors on my tail before once, and I was livid, though I was fairly safe because they'd got the wrong guy - somebody had given them a bogus address - mine - and ripped them off. I kid you not, I told them exactly what the situation was, and they still kept calling back, and doing that thing where they phone you but don't speak (that might be actionable). I did also notice that when I asked for their names they gave forenames only.......I was considering really putting them on the spot and telling them that the phone call would go no further until they'd properly identified themselves, and I considered tape recording the calls and telling them I was doing so, to weaken their resolve.....try to get them on the defensive if you can - they usually aren't very brave (a common trait with the kind lowlife scum that would do such a job for a living).

I scared them off by sending them a stiff email telling them that their behaviour looked like a pretty clear-cut case of harrassment, amd threatened them with a lawsuit and some bad publicity. They stopped instantly, though of course the fact that I didn't owe them anything probably strengthened my case. But check out your harrassment laws.



psych
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14 May 2010, 11:45 am

i tend not to pickup when the callers # is witheld.

btw when the line is silent, its often just a telemarketing machine - the recorded msg 'you have WON..'etc fails to play if too many of the people being messaged simultaneously pick up at once.