An Aspie friend who has just got published read how some 'militant culturalists' out there dissect me (how respectful and human of them after all I'm a 'celebrity', surely not human enough to be 'one of them'.... anyway, I decided that in spite of the fear I'd go have my say in some of the most militant, politically correct of forums.

To have an issue is one thing, to put down a person is another, and to inadvertently scare the crap out of a lovely new writer who is now terrified she hasn't properly kissed everyones politically correct butt is a real shame... this will stifle what we hear and one day nobody will dare step outside of a whole new set of boundaries. I believe in culture, but prescriptive culture can free as much as it stifles. Someone wrote, why doesn't anyone else come up with theories... I'm sure they wouldn't dare if they value guaranteed acceptance and popularity. I prefer to belong to the label, 'human being'.

So am I a 'culturalist' or a 'curist'? Do I believe in medication, institutionalisation, compliance, suppression?

I'm a Taoist. I believe in balance. I take EVERY situation on its own merits. So come Scrooge, let me show you where I've been.

I've been in houses where the walls are all punched in, met two parents black and blue and terrified, every appliance in their house smashed in one of a succession of houses in a chain in which they were progressively reduced to poverty.

I've seen a man pop his own eyeballs in despair and a mother who cannot leave her daughter for 5 mins for the toilet without the daughter bashing the crap out of herself to control the mother and force her to stay joined to her at all times.

I've seen grey and yellow children toxic from supplements, and children half starved on diets from hell, I've seen stoned kids on toxic addicted diets off their head almost murder a sibling and animals thrown and killed.

I've seen pathological normality mongers and children whose biggest problem is the environment itself.

I've seen people who can barely breathe or eat or hold anything because of tics so bad they have no relationship to their body and had people with untreated mood disorders kill themselves who should be here today.

I've had a parent ready to murder themselves and their child out of a lifetime of untreated co-dependency and made sure everybody stayed alive and safe and finally took the action to ensure it stayed that way.

I met a predator and a psychopath who hid their crap behind the label of Aspergers.

I've met a child so abused and helpless in a family I felt ill for months and people in institutions good and hellish with staff the same.

I've seen a man reduced to an untreatable animal with external overcontrol and others damaged equally by family fear of medication when it was needed as those who were damaged by using it and overusing it when it was not.

And I've met some of the most beautiful, most caring and often talented, human beings in the world.

When I write, I live with all this diversity, diversity that landed at my doorstep when professionals were at the end and parents no longer trusted and children were way too damaged. Here I stood at the end of the lane where the rubbish bin was and I caught these people where I could and tried to do what I can.

I have many supporters and healthy open minded critics with equally open hearts. And I have critics too with open minds and closed hearts who dissect human beings like reckless detached scientists and assume a label is a qualification. If they have walked in these shoes, week after week for almost a decade as a consultant, got their hands dirty, met these people in their darkest moments, face to face, and left their presence still lingering, unerasable, then they know what they criticise. If not, they are criticising what they don't know, an image, some public 'icon' (and I wrote a poem for them called 'Icon, I am' in Not Just Anything). Anyone who read my Autiebiographical works knows that as a child and young adult I had seen more than any person should. As a consultant in my 30's I saw it all again to the point I finally closed the door and said 'email consultations only'. It is easier to hear and know about these things 'out there', where its still 'their lives' and it doesn't so easily move into your own.

What I wanted from life was to escape horror, but when shown more horror, my compassion had me unable to turn away. But I also saw many things that moved me, and beauty, and hopefully brought a little where it was lacking too.

I find sanctuary in my ARTism. I'd like to believe it helps me and them, somehow, but that it is my place of freedom, for freedom means so many things, freedom of speech, freedom to be, freedom to BE.