January 2019.<\/strong><\/p>\nI am pleased to announce that we now have our Arts Council of Great Britain funding. \u00a0We have a bank account, a mini tour organised and yes, we always want new venues. \u00a0We remain the same merry gang of neuropunks and have new ideas for shows.<\/p>\n
We will be having someone employed to find us bookings and do our administration. \u00a0We will be paid an honest wage from our budget for our work. \u00a0This has been an issue with autistic people being used to speak about themselves by the likes of charities, apparently thinking they were doing people a favour giving them a space to do that and did not need to pay them. \u00a0Well you do, like anyone else who works and prepares what they say and then shares their private lives with you.<\/p>\n
Each of us in the company does a lot of thinking and considering about what we do, and will go on to do. \u00a0For me it has become a way of life. \u00a0Being a trainer with the Nas means you go around the UK telling people what it is like to be me. \u00a0I am allowed to say what I want and thus, people in all professions and roles get to hear the best I can summarise of what’s going on in the global autistic scene. \u00a0Teachers, council (local government) workers, psychiatrist (I had a room full of them in Leatherhead two years ago. \u00a0I’d crack a joke and there would be this low grumble of thinking and reacting coming off them. \u00a0I didn’t think I’d get out of the place without a straight jacket on me. \u00a0I asked one fo them…do you ever meet anyone who does not require psychiatry? \u00a0She said….no….).<\/p>\n
People who run shopping precincts (malls for you 21 st century types) people who work on Gatwick airport. \u00a0An actual pharmaceutical company. \u00a0(I did what I could to explain to them that at some point, you end up testing your ‘mind altering’ drugs on people. \u00a0In order for them to cease to manifest being what they termed as autistic. \u00a0Which meant you were going that deeply into changing someones brain and behaviour. \u00a0No risk there, surely…)<\/p>\n
I’ve been up to Scotland and all over the UK. \u00a0I also took my Guerrilla Aspies solo show around for a series of supporter events the Nas staged. \u00a0This meant I got to play Saint Andrews psychiatric hospital, outside of Nottingham. \u00a0I considered this to be my ‘San Quentin’ show. \u00a014 inmates, all sectioned aspies. One of them was in the audience and joined in the show. \u00a0Thank you, and good to meet you sir. \u00a0The staff all carried assault alarms which were radio linked. \u00a0So if one person activated theirs, everyones went off. \u00a0We had about 3 alerts whilst I was there. \u00a0Racy stuff…<\/p>\n
Gateshead seemed cursed. \u00a0I went there once and got amazing food poisoning due to catching the Noro Virus off someone who had just recovered. \u00a0An entire night and the next morning being sick and not sleeping. \u00a0Yet still, 28 hours past my last meal, freezing and shaking I insisted on doing my Nas training for an audience of care and social workers. \u00a0Man, was I proud of myself. \u00a0Then it was off in the taxi to Newcastle train station, back to London and a \u00a350 taxi on the company to our house. \u00a0That is what it is all about.<\/p>\n
On a previous trip, I had performed in the Edinburgh festival then got the train to the Gateshead hotel. \u00a0Next morning I could not speak. \u00a0I mean I was so hoarse from the shows I’d done and had some sort of infection that was going around the performers. \u00a0So I gave up and went back to Edinburgh, where I amazed my company colleagues by appearing in a show I was meant to miss.<\/p>\n
I used my iPad to tell the audience I could not speak, and everyone else read in for me. \u00a0Teamwork…<\/p>\n
The third grim occasion my colleagues and I had to battle through thick snow to get to the training centre there. \u00a0We had to give up the next day and head home due to the weather. \u00a0So I ended up trying to walk back to the train, with bad sciatica at that point, through tons of white doom. \u00a0I gave up and they got me a taxi…<\/p>\n
Did I mention I am getting on? \u00a0I am now 55 and have achieved the ambition I gave up on around 1988. \u00a0That’s a story in itself. \u00a0I gave a talk about this aspect of my life in an arts event in Holborn last sunday, and have it on film. \u00a0I found a way of making my dreams come true, which meant I then had to live in the post – fantasy became reality phase. \u00a0Since 2015 I’ve performed each year in Edinburgh festival and did the Brighton one one my own in 2016. \u00a0We as a company first started there in 2018.<\/p>\n
The talk was meant to explain that there was a period of the dreams, followed by a huge one where you stopped doing that and found the ideas you entertained silly. \u00a0Then I made the shows and my book, happen. \u00a0Then you found yourself having done those things at the end of that process. \u00a0Okay, who are you then? \u00a0How do you feel? \u00a0What direction does your life go in, after you marry the prince and live happily ever after? \u00a0It’s just not that simple that the story ends on a good note. \u00a0People go on. \u00a0I mean it’s all good and I am not complaining.<\/p>\n
The main issue arising is for me, how much did my work contribute to the history of autistic self advocacy? \u00a0Nowadays with the internet you can have retentions to everything you post being global. \u00a0These things do not last forever, but has my work done and been good enough to dent a chink in the wall of history? \u00a0Did I achieve a better future for us all, or help to some degree to point everything in the right direction. \u00a0This is the thing.<\/p>\n
Any feedback anyone can give us all is appreciated. \u00a0But beware that any onslaught of writing, at great length, may not get the effect you desire or expect. \u00a0Just because you have a concept and experience of what you mean and what effect you want, it does not mean others share it. \u00a0Believe me when I say that after 14 years in the neurodiversity self advocacy game, this is something that needs be spelt out.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
More January – the infamous Spectator Article.<\/strong><\/p>\nLast week a bizarre article was printed in the Spectator article. \u00a0An autistic man who would rather not be autistic penned a piece, that challenges the readers maturity to decipher. \u00a0The poor man gives a lot away about how his life is, and how he would rather it was.<\/p>\n
I made a complaint to the Independent Press Commission which is currently being processed by them. \u00a0Here is my letter to the Spectator, which I think covers many issues. \u00a0I have a huge nearly 5,000 word version of this what was part of my complaint, but that is a thing for the future.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Sir.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I am working with a number of other autistic self-advocates to initiate an action through the IPSO, against The Spectator over your ‘The danger of ‘neurodiversity’ article of the 19th January this year.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It is essentially, a paranoid fantasy piece. \u00a0Neurodiversity advocates are just scattered individuals who want to be positive about their identities. \u00a0His ‘movement’ is nothing more than a growing army of adults who are trying to help everyone. \u00a0Are we not allowed to have our own opinions? \u00a0Mitchell says no.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mitchell’s descriptions of our aggressive behaviours are in reality, how he sees people arguing with himself on social media, as well as others he identifies with. \u00a0It is not physically possible to prevent parents doing anything to their children via the internet, let alone if they want to pay for treatments they think will stop them being autistic. \u00a0Get all the help you want – we need it too.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Neurodiversity advocates believe the very concept of ‘curing’ autism is a fantasy and that support and understanding is the way forward. \u00a0It is that simple. \u00a0Further, Mitchell uses the term ‘autism’ is as if it were a finite and definitely known thing. \u00a0In fact the term merely denotes a set of characteristics or is seen as a sub set of Neuro-atypicality. \u00a0it depends who you talk to. \u00a0It is also slang for being Neurodiverse.\u00a0 Science has not decided what exactly is going on in the brain. \u00a0Where does he get his certainty?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
His absolute and unimpeachable tone has deeply upset and offended neurodiverse people, who are just trying to make it through life and gain understanding. \u00a0Try and find cures and get help all you want – good luck we say. \u00a0But if that fails, we the neurodiverse are here to support your family and yourself with a positive identity and the best scenarios that parents could wish upon their children as they grow older.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Thank you,<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Paul Wady<\/p>\n
London SE12.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Well, as you can see the piece was relevant to the companies work, as it basically said that autistics who do not believe in cures and say so, are trying to forcibly block treatments and supports for children and autistics who do not want to be autistics. \u00a0Oh and any kind of support. \u00a0Which is ridiculous. \u00a0What are we doing – blockading clinics and putting picket lines across universities?<\/p>\n
The Spectator makes its living from inflammatory articles and they did well with this one. \u00a0I see it as a battle cry to challenge the views of autistic people. \u00a0If you consider how vulnerable we invariably are, you will appreciate my concerns.<\/p>\n
The company remain as neutral as they can over this. \u00a0It is mainly myself who will engage with such things in order to maintain that political neutrality. \u00a0But I think that such things drag people into debates and confrontations whether they want them or not.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
So in conclusion the work has just begun, to address the lobby of parents seeking support and cures, and the small group of autistic people begging to be turned into people that they were not born to be. \u00a0Time will tell of course. \u00a0I for one am glad I see neuroatypicality as a hereditary reality and am entirely neutral about its impact on everyone. It is neither a good nor bad thing for me. \u00a0It’s just a fact of life and the individual has to do the best they can with it.<\/p>\n
Any kind of support is surely to be attempted. \u00a0But are there harmful things out there that may be done to autistics, in the name of caring, help and love? \u00a0Ah, I won’t go in to the list of controversial treatments. \u00a0But its there and the debates are not dying off around all the things I could name.<\/p>\n
Neither is the number of self advocates, or the ‘neurodiversity movement’ the author mentions in his piece in the Spectator. \u00a0Which sounds like S.P.E.C.R.E. or some card carrying organisation. \u00a0It’s just a load of individual autistic people trying to be positive about their identities and saying so. \u00a0So far, no one has possession of a shotgun and the address of Autism Speaks. \u00a0Stay tuned… \u00a0\ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
February 2019<\/strong><\/p>\nIf you look at the drama work of other autistic people, its usually the product of a lot of workshopping about their lives. \u00a0You then get dramatic pieces in which they go on about their sensory issues and how the world does not understand them. \u00a0You get representations of square pegs in the round holes of human society.<\/p>\n
You get the constant referencing of a non autistic world in which everyone else relates to each other, and can have jobs and relationships. \u00a0There is this constant theme that autistic people do not have the luxury of the peace of mind and stability that the non autistic have. \u00a0This is reinforced by the eternal and universal model of non-definable-as-autistic people being normal – and autistics having a disorder relative to them.<\/p>\n
I get this creepy feeling now, after all these years. \u00a0Is it that simple in life?<\/p>\n
This is one reason why we are seen as some niche mental disorder, and there is nothing else involved. \u00a0No. \u00a0Autistic people are not some new thing about a bunch of afflicted children. \u00a0If you are old enough and been around long enough you look back and realise just how many of us must have been or may have been around all the time, but no one knew.<\/p>\n
There has been suffering okay, but due to hiding and masking. \u00a0I would go as far as to say that an entire sub set of humanity, a sub culture manifest in may ways such as science fiction fandom or niche interest groups, or even the civil service and academia and religion, have never known who and what they were.<\/p>\n
In which case they have all lived in fear of themselves, and have either accepted their eccentric natures (me) or suffered for the lack of not being ‘normal’. \u00a0This explains the titles of the shows I have innovated (I love that term) Guerilla Aspies my solo show, and Stealth Aspies the company. \u00a0There was a need to express how hidden and suppressed a minority we are.<\/p>\n
Representations of autistic people as ALWAYS about stimming, ocd, adhd, etc and how awful they are, or get in the way, or you ‘manage’ around them are simply not enough. \u00a0They are just a fraction of the greater whole. \u00a0There is so much more to say about the experience of being an autistic person. \u00a0In fact that is one reason I use the term. \u00a0It’s bigger than a lot of boo hoo, medical model stuff.<\/p>\n
This is what we strive to discover as much as portray.<\/p>\n
I will keep saying this. \u00a0Diagnosis needs to factor in personality, intelligence, character, masking and social skills.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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A page maintained by Paul Wady. First entry, 2018. Hello. \u00a0My name is Paul Wady, and I started it all. \u00a0Blame me if you would prefer a different account of autistic people. \u00a0You know, disabled, defined by deficits, less than a concept of able and normal that never does get defined. There seemed to … <\/p>\n
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