Autism Crisis

Emergencies can happen any time!

As part of my passion to inform and support older autistic individuals I also participate in some online forums. These are for the most part closed to the public and are designed as support and advice for autistic individuals exclusively. As well, there are a few public autism forums where anybody seeking information and/or support can join in.

Something that seems to happen frequently is that individuals on these forums appear with very urgent requests,
PM me
, Message Me,
Help Help Help.
It is urgent and immediately concerning, heartbreaking to get such requests from others in far away situations and no be able to provide information or help in a crisis.
Many times those messages may not reach others or provide the immediate aid the distressed individual is seeking.
Forums are not crisis lines or emergency hotlines. They are not meant to deal with emergency or crisis situations.

Lack of response can be triggering and lead to even more upset.

I would like to suggest that everybody has emergencies, distressing things happening in their lives, emotional or physical crises at some point.

We all need to be prepared ahead of time to have resources available when these emergencies do happen.

There are all sorts of emergency hotlines and helplines available today.
We can summon an ambulance or a fire team, we can call suicide hotlines, domestic abuse hotlines, we can seek urgent help for financial support, housing, food, and much more.

It is not unreasonable to spend a little time compiling a list of local to you emergency numbers to keep in a place where these can be accessed quickly.
Police, Fire, Ambulance, help and service hotline numbers are easy to find today using the internet.
Please take the time to prepare for emergencies ahead of time.
Write a list of helpful emergency numbers before you need them and keep them handy where you can find them if the worst suddenly happens.
You never know when an emergency or crisis will happen.
Help yourself find support quickly before you need to make that call.