Why I despise discrimination on Asperger's Syndrome or ADHD.

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stevenjacksonftw7
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17 Jan 2013, 12:55 am

I have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and I was recently fired from being a worker in an Autistic care home as soon as they got a hold of my medical records that indicated that I have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder since they believed that I was there to crack jokes, to break the rules, to hurt people, to be 'uncoordinated' and to irritate the f*** out of everybody since people with Hyperactive form of ADHD are known to be this way unfortunately, when I had no known incidents of doing anything bizarre to these kids and when they were actually ecstatic around me. Their way of firing me wasn't just saying "You have ADHD!! GET OUT OF HERE SPAZ!", it was them saying "You know what? You're a hysterical guy and I think that other folks should get to know you. Have you ever considered joining a comedy club since you're hilarious? I'm going to advise that you go do that since you're fired since we don't want to have a risk of a rule breaker here!" when it was clear that they got a hold of my medical records since they had a copy of them in front of them and I walked by them when they were talking about how folks with ADHD are clowns and rule breakers (which they are not on average, so it was discrimination).

I seriously don't get what's so bad about having a disability in a work force when a lot of the ones who have them are either genius's who excel, or people who could do just as much as anybody else. I view disabilities like ADHD and Asperger's Syndrome (which aren't the same) as 'labels' of their weaknesses and of who they are rather than actual disabilities. People often overcome weaknesses with time and aid as well, and an actual disability would be a person with Cerebral Palsy who will be stuck in a wheelchair for life or a person with a profound intellectual disability who will never be able to do anything outside of drool (not to be offensive). Not everybody with these two so-called 'disorders' overcome their weaknesses (in Asperger's Syndrome it would be social skills and jokes/sarcasm, and in ADHD it would be focusing, organization, reading comprehension, being loud and excessively talking) but there are a number of milder cases where people kind of grow out of it. Both disabilities often offer some pros as well (in ADHD it would be with how they are often enthusiastic, creativity and would often be entertaining to be around. While in Asperger's Syndrome it would be the fact that not all, but some are exceptionally brilliant, creative and would be able to focus for many hours straight in a lot of cases). Shouldn't work places be wanting these people if these two disabilities don't define these people and are nothing more than personality traits that offer positives a long with a couple of weaknesses? It should depend on the person and not on the disability (or 'label') if you ask me. The truth is that neurotypicals have weaknesses and often struggle in jobs more than anybody else, and there's no discrimination for them.



MacGyverAspie
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17 Jan 2013, 1:06 am

I'm not sure they had a legal right to access your medical records unless you happened to sign something giving them the right to your records.

Them firing you may be an Americans with Disabilities Act violation let alone simple discrimination, you can't be fired based on assumptions, you actually had to have violated rules to have your firing justified. I would suggest getting legal advice since I don't know anymore than what I said if you were to pursue getting your job back but then again it may not be worth it, I don't know.



stevenjacksonftw7
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17 Jan 2013, 1:08 am

MacGyverAspie wrote:
I'm not sure they had a legal right to access your medical records unless you happened to sign something giving them the right to your records.

Them firing you may be an Americans with Disabilities Act violation let alone simple discrimination, you can't be fired based on assumptions, you actually had to have violated rules to have your firing justified. I would suggest getting legal advice since I don't know anymore than what I said.


One of them is a doctor and they were suspicious of why I refused to show my medical records to them.



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17 Jan 2013, 1:29 am

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I'm not sure they had a legal right to access your medical records unless you happened to sign something giving them the right to your records.

That's correct; not only do they have no legal right to access medical records of volunteers without written permission; they would have absolutely no way to obtain them without written permission.

HIPAA laws (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) in the US are taken extremely seriously by institutions and health workers because violating them levies huge fines for institutions and costs workers their jobs. Health workers all sign papers in acknowledgement that HIPAA violations are grounds for immediate dismissal.

The OP was given a copy of the documents he signed upon acceptance of his position. I'm pretty sure that he will discover that he signed permission to access his medical records, because he was also asked whether he had been diagnosed with any mental or psychological disorders. He needs only to read the document he has to discover whether this is true.



Sean_91
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17 Jan 2013, 9:57 am

This is clearly an ADA violation, and grounds for a lawsuit. They can't fire somebody because of their opinion of somebody with any kind of a disability. It's very clear those workers were prejudiced towards ADHD, and resorted to extreme measures to ensure that nobody with ADHD could keep a job there. They're the ones who deserve to be fired, not you.



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17 Jan 2013, 12:22 pm

I know how you feel. I was dismissed from my post as a part time administrator at a Nursing Care Home this week because they say they aren't able to make the reasonable adjustments necessary for me to do the post. The adjustments they listed weren't even ones I'd asked for and I'd been doing the job fine for 2 months prior to the incident that caused all this, which was me standing up to a bullying cover manager. I disclosed my Aspergers after the incident.

No disciplinary for her for bullying me, just the sack for me for having Asperger's Syndrome. The wouldn't even hold a meeting at my house while I've been off sick as a result of the mental stress, due to my 'unpredictable conduct' at a previous meeting at head office, whereby they said they had been 'scared' by some of the things I'd said!

All I'd said was that I was very wary of my colleagues knowing I had Aspergers Syndrome as I could imagine their frame of reference for Aspergers Syndrome possibly being a headline in the Daily Mail whereby a person with Aspergers had killed someone. How is this scary?

This was written down in the notes they took at the meeting as me saying I could end up killing someone!

No need to bother writing down what was actually said when you've already made your mind up eh?

I'd call it discriminatory in the extreme and so I'm taking them to an employment tribunal and you should do the equivalent of that in America in my opinion.



metalab
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17 Jan 2013, 12:43 pm

nessa238 wrote:
I know how you feel. I was dismissed from my post as a part time administrator at a Nursing Care Home this week because they say they aren't able to make the reasonable adjustments necessary for me to do the post. The adjustments they listed weren't even ones I'd asked for and I'd been doing the job fine for 2 months prior to the incident that caused all this, which was me standing up to a bullying cover manager. I disclosed my Aspergers after the incident.

No disciplinary for her for bullying me, just the sack for me for having Asperger's Syndrome. The wouldn't even hold a meeting at my house while I've been off sick as a result of the mental stress, due to my 'unpredictable conduct' at a previous meeting at head office, whereby they said they had been 'scared' by some of the things I'd said!

All I'd said was that I was very wary of my colleagues knowing I had Aspergers Syndrome as I could imagine their frame of reference for Aspergers Syndrome possibly being a headline in the Daily Mail whereby a person with Aspergers had killed someone. How is this scary?

This was written down in the notes they took at the meeting as me saying I could end up killing someone!

No need to bother writing down what was actually said when you've already made your mind up eh?

I'd call it discriminatory in the extreme and so I'm taking them to an employment tribunal and you should do the equivalent of that in America in my opinion.


insecure people will grab at whatever little bit of nonsense they possibly can to make themselves feel better and more secure

I've found people more secure and confident in themselves and abilities do this less. Like when I worked at a grocery store, everyone would pick at every little thing, pretty sure I was fired for being 'odd', pretty sure most people where thinking "I can exploit this guys oddity for better job security!". When I worked in a architecture firm where everyone was a proffesional making 8 times as much, never had the slightest hint of a problem.



nessa238
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17 Jan 2013, 12:54 pm

metalab wrote:
nessa238 wrote:
I know how you feel. I was dismissed from my post as a part time administrator at a Nursing Care Home this week because they say they aren't able to make the reasonable adjustments necessary for me to do the post. The adjustments they listed weren't even ones I'd asked for and I'd been doing the job fine for 2 months prior to the incident that caused all this, which was me standing up to a bullying cover manager. I disclosed my Aspergers after the incident.

No disciplinary for her for bullying me, just the sack for me for having Asperger's Syndrome. The wouldn't even hold a meeting at my house while I've been off sick as a result of the mental stress, due to my 'unpredictable conduct' at a previous meeting at head office, whereby they said they had been 'scared' by some of the things I'd said!

All I'd said was that I was very wary of my colleagues knowing I had Aspergers Syndrome as I could imagine their frame of reference for Aspergers Syndrome possibly being a headline in the Daily Mail whereby a person with Aspergers had killed someone. How is this scary?

This was written down in the notes they took at the meeting as me saying I could end up killing someone!

No need to bother writing down what was actually said when you've already made your mind up eh?

I'd call it discriminatory in the extreme and so I'm taking them to an employment tribunal and you should do the equivalent of that in America in my opinion.


insecure people will grab at whatever little bit of nonsense they possibly can to make themselves feel better and more secure

I've found people more secure and confident in themselves and abilities do this less. Like when I worked at a grocery store, everyone would pick at every little thing, pretty sure I was fired for being 'odd', pretty sure most people where thinking "I can exploit this guys oddity for better job security!". When I worked in a architecture firm where everyone was a proffesional making 8 times as much, never had the slightest hint of a problem.


Yes I agree. Care homes are not where the brightest people on the planet tend to accumulate - and that's putting it tactfully!



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17 Jan 2013, 7:33 pm

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One of them is a doctor and they were suspicious of why I refused to show my medical records to them.


So, did he access it through his job, without your permission? I'm pretty sure that's illegal.



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18 Jan 2013, 4:50 am

Just today I tried to explain the effect of unexpected distractions to my boss - I have ADHD and Aspergers - and she literally laughed in my face. She apparently thought I was just trying to make an excuse for what she thought was rude behavior (because my tone of voice was flat on the phone when she called). I tried to explain that I wasn't being "dismissive", I was distracted and trying to maintain focus on the task I was in the middle of, and my voice often sounds like that anyway. Needless to say, no accommodations for either condition at my place of work (soon to be my ex-place of work).



SuSaNnA
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18 Jan 2013, 4:55 am

stevenjacksonftw7 wrote:
I have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and I was recently fired from being a worker in an Autistic care home as soon as they got a hold of my medical records that indicated that I have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder since they believed that I was there to crack jokes, to break the rules, to hurt people, to be 'uncoordinated' and to irritate the f*** out of everybody since people with Hyperactive form of ADHD are known to be this way unfortunately, when I had no known incidents of doing anything bizarre to these kids and when they were actually ecstatic around me. Their way of firing me wasn't just saying "You have ADHD!! GET OUT OF HERE SPAZ!", it was them saying "You know what? You're a hysterical guy and I think that other folks should get to know you. Have you ever considered joining a comedy club since you're hilarious? I'm going to advise that you go do that since you're fired since we don't want to have a risk of a rule breaker here!" when it was clear that they got a hold of my medical records since they had a copy of them in front of them and I walked by them when they were talking about how folks with ADHD are clowns and rule breakers (which they are not on average, so it was discrimination).

I seriously don't get what's so bad about having a disability in a work force when a lot of the ones who have them are either genius's who excel, or people who could do just as much as anybody else. I view disabilities like ADHD and Asperger's Syndrome (which aren't the same) as 'labels' of their weaknesses and of who they are rather than actual disabilities. People often overcome weaknesses with time and aid as well, and an actual disability would be a person with Cerebral Palsy who will be stuck in a wheelchair for life or a person with a profound intellectual disability who will never be able to do anything outside of drool (not to be offensive). Not everybody with these two so-called 'disorders' overcome their weaknesses (in Asperger's Syndrome it would be social skills and jokes/sarcasm, and in ADHD it would be focusing, organization, reading comprehension, being loud and excessively talking) but there are a number of milder cases where people kind of grow out of it. Both disabilities often offer some pros as well (in ADHD it would be with how they are often enthusiastic, creativity and would often be entertaining to be around. While in Asperger's Syndrome it would be the fact that not all, but some are exceptionally brilliant, creative and would be able to focus for many hours straight in a lot of cases). Shouldn't work places be wanting these people if these two disabilities don't define these people and are nothing more than personality traits that offer positives a long with a couple of weaknesses? It should depend on the person and not on the disability (or 'label') if you ask me. The truth is that neurotypicals have weaknesses and often struggle in jobs more than anybody else, and there's no discrimination for them.

One horrid organization.

Don't feel ashamed on suing them, they are clearly discriminating you, and had violated the laws.
They deserve it.
If they call themselves Autism care home, but at the same time discriminate people with ADHD, like you, I don't see why it should be existing anyway.

Sue them for a large sum of money. They are the ones who are wrong, not you.

Quote:
One of them is a doctor and they were suspicious of why I refused to show my medical records to them.

He doesn't have the right to ask for anyone's medical records.



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19 Jan 2013, 5:28 am

stevenjacksonftw7 wrote:
MacGyverAspie wrote:
I'm not sure they had a legal right to access your medical records unless you happened to sign something giving them the right to your records.

Them firing you may be an Americans with Disabilities Act violation let alone simple discrimination, you can't be fired based on assumptions, you actually had to have violated rules to have your firing justified. I would suggest getting legal advice since I don't know anymore than what I said.


One of them is a doctor and they were suspicious of why I refused to show my medical records to them.


If you refused access to your medical records, then they need to be sued for illegal access. Furthermore, they should be sued for firing you on the basis that you have ADHD, as that is not a valid (nor legal) reason to do so.


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19 Feb 2013, 6:40 pm

i discovered just two weeks ago that my employer had accessed a portion of my mental health record and included it in my employee file (which human resources later found and mailed back to me to save their own asses im sure).

firstly, yes, they did break hippa law and could lose a professional license/accreditation and such. however, i do not think at this time that i could pursue a lawsuit if they end up terminating me and heres why:

laws provide people in power with a framework of how to screw people over anyhow. if i am functioning in my job, then im safe, but the sense i get is that if they want me gone they will just make tasks purposefully more difficult for me to complete until i either quit or they have just cause to fire me.

again, this is just my sense.



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19 Feb 2013, 6:59 pm

Are you in the US o_O

l am admittedly ignorant of the system but l don't think they can access those records without your consent here.

Some people in the US will actually disclose disorders WHILE job seeking which l personally would never do but some employers make allowances for them.

l have ADHD and a bipolar diagnosis from ages ago in my files, l don't think is very likely though. l didn't read your entire post. l've never had a problem anyway lol.

lf this were a common occurrance people with schizophrenia would almost certainly never be hired for anything. l have heard that certain types of jobs do require patients to disclose this kind of info.


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19 Feb 2013, 7:38 pm

I just want to point out to you guys that the OP was banned about a month ago for being a douche bag troll.



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19 Feb 2013, 8:33 pm

I agree that you should get legal advise because this could be actionable.

But as an aside there is a moral irony here- an organization dedicated to taking care of autistic kids fires an employee because they learn he has adhd.

Kinda like being fired by the NAACP for being Chinese, or being Jewish, isnt it?

A group caring for one neurologically deviant group fires an employee simply because he is a member of another neurologiclly deviant group. WTF?