Why Autism Awareness is Unhelpful

Shining a light on all. autistic community. And now, here's your neurodivergent host, Orion Kelly. Welcome my friend. That was we I'm alright. I am all about providing validation and My podcast, My Friend Autism. It's a video podcast, which means you can listen to it in the audio form wherever you get your podcasts, or if you'd like You can watch me and listen to me on my purpose-built podcast YouTube channel. Either way, it's nice to have you along. I don't want to scare anyone, but

Just while my intro was playing, there were orbs in my room. I could see it on the camera. I'm not trying to say that there's something supernatural about this episode. I'm just trying to say I may be hallucinating. All right. In case you're wondering, I only care about making myself.

So that's we've got that straight. I pity the fool. That's the t-shirt I'm wearing right now, by the way. If you if you're not watching, if you're only listening, I have the bestest Mr. T T-shirt that says I pity the fool. And and he might go, Who's the fool? Everyone but me. I made myself laugh again. Oh, good times. Good times. We are laughing. You know why? Because this is one of those podcasts where you're gonna go, holy jeepers, what have I come for? What has happened to me?

If you survive till the end of this podcast, you will tell your grandkids about it, even if you don't have grandkids.

Doesn't make any sense. So welcome along everyone. At the time of at least recording this, it doesn't mean when you're listening to it, but at least recording this is the very start of April 2024. Welcome along, my friend, to the worst month of the year. Okay, potentially December's worse, but nevertheless. Why, Orion? What's your deal, mate? What's your beef, Brian? My name's Orion, by the way. It's not Brian.

Okay, my beef is autism, or I think it might be called World Autism Awareness Day. It's on the 2nd of April, so it's been a goal. Now, for some reason or another, it seems to branch out to a month. Okay, so there's like there's like World Autism Awareness Day on the second of April, and then you've got your whole month.

Which is like world. No, let's start again. Which is like Autism Awareness Month. Maybe. I don't know. The whole thing's a croc if you ask. Anyway, let's go back. What's the day that comes before the second of April? I'm allowing you to answer. I mean I can't hear when you answer, but I'm allowing you to answer. The day that comes before the second of April is April first. What is April first also known as? That's right. April Fool's Day. Gotcha!

So the this is this is actually a thing. The day after April Fool's Day is the day we've picked to shine a light on the autistic community. Thank you so much, world. That means a lot. Okay.

So we're off to a good start. Now, I want to talk about this through the lens of A couple of really important factors. The first one is why? What what it why does it exist? So World Autism Awareness Day, if that's what it's called, I actually don't know. Is Is it is what's the word by the way? Is it declared? I don't know. I don't know. Anyway. It's established by the UN, the United Nations. Okay? So it's legit. It's a legit day. Right? It's a real day. It happens.

And every year they come up with a theme. A theme they think the world should discuss or focus on to help autistic people. Now every year it's usually It's usually kind of I don't know, it's hard to say. Specifically broad. So that doesn't make any sense. But you get what I'm saying, right? So, you know, there's like technology and inclusion and employment and like all these things, which clearly are broad. Well, this year it's a whole new level, my friend. This isn't a joke.

This isn't a joke. You might have slept through the day. I wish I did, to be honest with you. The theme this year is, in effect, from the UN, the United Nations. Taking autistic people from surviving to thriving. Now, you heard the words and your brain's like, whateves. Stop for a second. I want you to eat those words. Really taste them. Taste those words. The UN have said to the world

We want to focus on getting autistic people to go from surviving to thriving. The UN has said to the world at large: we've had a look. Snuff around. Is that a word? We've done some sniffing around. And autistic people on planet Earth. are barely surviving. Autistic it's been acknowledged by the world at large that autistic people Ain't out of the gear of survival. In other words, every day we wake up, we go to sleep, and in between that, we are stuck in survival mode.

What are we, cavemen? Did you see what now, let me ask you this. If a world body said you, as a human on planet Earth, was stuck in survival mode. Would you think that's a good thing or a bad thing? And in addition to that, wouldn't that make you angry, angry, angry, upset? Like, there'd be riots. The world would get burnt down.

If a large enough group of people was told, you're barely surviving, mate. We need to work out a, you know, like, I mean, that's not a way to live. That is not a way to live life. And that that like upsets me because it's being acknowledged. No one cares about fixing it, but it's being acknowledged. You know what? We're not gonna be able to fix it with this, you know, stupid day, right? But

Or at least gonna tell you. Yeah, we agree, man. Of all the people on earth, autistic people, that they are they they they're just surviving.

Now, here's another question. And there will be a test at the end. Does and it'll be timed and you'll get no special considerations as an autistic person with different processing time. Sucked that. Okay. All right, here we go. I've forgotten the question. God d now I've got the question. Do you think it's a natural progression in steps to go from surviving to thriving? So is the next step after surviving thrive?

Now, of course, let me answer that question for you. I know you've had a long brain day and you don't really want to answer any questions, and that's fine. Okay. No, it's not the next step. It's not the next step. You don't go from never running in your life. To gold medalist. Hey, we want to take young kids from never running to gold medalist. Well there's a lot of steps in between there, champ.

Do you see what I'm saying? There's a lot of steps in between there. So, what I'm saying to you is it's a fanciful, completely Ignorant? Naive, Ludicrously ridiculous. Theme to say, you know what? We should go from this, which is autistic people, surviving, and get you up to thriving. That that's that that's not even a real thing.

Right. So there's steps along the way. And here's the next thing. Okay, so what we're gonna do, we're gonna get autistic people around the world talk about their experiences in their region. Now, that's a UN term for their, you know, their part of the world. Okay. And what's great. So you're gonna get autistic people to talk. Cool. All right. Well that's gonna go well because th presumably that means that there'll be

interviewed by neurotypical people, there'll be time constraints, they won't get to say what they want to say. They'll they'll have to rush it. They'll be overwhelmed, sensory in all sort other ways, and they'll come out of it feeling like they've been exploited, abused, or just feel horrible.

Right. That's gonna be helpful. But then more broadly, how's it gonna be helpful? Tell me, I want to know. Well it's not. Autistic people talking about being autistic is not the magic bullet here. Right? Autistic people. See, it's not the end of the sentence. It's not the magic bullet. Or here's the magic bullet. Autistic people sharing. their experiences living as an autistic person on planet Earth and how their life is only in survival mode and providing those experiences and stories.

That being heard by the wider community. That being then properly digested, understood, accepted. Really, wow, okay. I hear you. I feel that. I believe you, as in other words, I accept that. And I now feel that I can help. The next step Is the non autistic people, the wider community then actually take responsibility. Their their part take responsibility for how we've got here. Don't tell me that autistic people in twenty twenty four As per the UN, are just surviving because of autistic people.

That's utter rubbish. Autistic people in 2024 are just surviving because of the world at large, the community at large. And there's nothing we can do about it as autistic people. What do you expect us to do? We're we're making content and talking and experiencing and and expressing ourselves in any way we can and nobody cares. Nobody listens. Nobody takes action. We're a ticket box patronizing token thing at best.

And a good example is because I got a bit of a profile, you know, uh it's alleged, you know, you you get asked to do radio interviews during April. And that's happened to me again this year. And I'm happy to do'em because I feel like any opportunity for an autistic person to be on mainstream media and to be autistic, which effect means I get a bit huffy puffy and ranty and excited and just tell'em the truth.

Is good because it exposes people to autistic people. And we're all different. Okay. But in fact, It's like less than five minutes. You don't get any questions in advance. It's very stressed and rushed. It's it's done in a way that you feel regardless of what you try to achieve, you're just gonna fail. Right. And and it it depresses you. Um

That is that's the level of buy-in by neurotypical people. All right, I'll give you five minutes, I'll ask you a couple of questions, you say your piece, we'll move on, the world will be fixed. And the questions are always the same, right? They want to know what it's like living with autism. Now of course I don't I live with my wife and kids, I don't live with autism. I am autism. I have all I have an autistic brain.

They want to ask things like, you know, so it's the standard stuff. You know, oh well, the um there's some statistics that say that more people than ever are being diagnosed or disagreed. This is the big question. In getting autistic people to go from surviving to thriving, they're asking you questions about the legitimacy. Of you being autistic or others being autistic. Well, a lot of people seem to be getting diagnosed recently, huh? It's exploding. So tell us.

What do you think about that? Now, what what do you mean? Here I am trying to get go from surviving to thriving, and all you're doing is judging autistic people for being autistic and saying it's some sort of con job. What in the world? By the way, the statistics are only based on medically diagnosed autistic people. So people who have gone to healthcare practitioners who have diagnosed them, right? We didn't get it out of a cereal box or write it up ourselves. So, what are you arguing with?

And and in addition to that That discounts the many, many people. Who have barriers to diagnosis, who can't afford it, who the waiting times are too long. or who potentially look to see a healthcare practitioner and because they're a girl or a woman or they talk or they're intelligent or all these ridiculous And completely um, you know, um myths mistruths is is myths, whatever you want to call'em, right? They are misdiagnosed or not diagnosed, right?

These are real issues. But no, no, all we're talking about is wow, what's the deal with more autistic people? And th so you wonder why we're already in survival mode. What do you mean, O'Reilly? Okay, well if my day only revolves around justifying that I'm autistic to people who don't want to listen to my experiences, just want to ask me why are so many people autistic. Isn't isn't everyone autistic these days?

That is survival because all I'm doing is fighting for my own right to exist. I'm I'm basically a caveman fighting off Creatures trying to kill me. I don't get an opportunity to go any further than that. Right? You enter the world, you open the door. Wow. Everyone's autistic these days, huh? You're autistic. Really? You're really I wouldn't have really that's all oh wow. But you talk, you went to school. Uh huh.

See what I'm saying? This is the problem. There is no thriving. There will be no thriving. That is not going to happen. And you know, I've said this in in a few videos and I've I've talked about this a bit. I would I'll just say briefly here in the podcast, uh, in case this is the only way that you get my content. Maybe you don't. Um

Maybe you don't like anything else but podcasts. That's cool. I mean, you're not you know, uh you're not helping me because if you don't watch my YouTube videos, how am I ever supposed to um get any kind of um, you know, financial support to keep doing this? Right? Like I mean Just watch the YouTube video. You don't d do anything, you just watch it and

And eventually I'll get a cent from from from YouTube. That'd be nice. But no, no, no, just just just stick with the podcast, mate. I appreciate that, you bloody freeloader. No. I know I've completely lost my time. I completely lost what I was gonna say. Um This is the point I want to make. Oh iron.

Forty years ago there were way less people diagnosed autistic, but now it's exploding. And that's a very simple answer. And here's the answer to give to those people. No, no. The numbers are just wrong. See If you were born forty years ago, you were born autistic forty years ago. And you get diagnosed today. That's a statistic that should be actually. Reflected forty years ago. Huh? So if you were born 40 years ago, you were born autistic forty years ago.

The fact it took forty years for medicine to catch up to recognize you as an autistic person Shouldn't mean you would, you know, you'd you're diagnosed autistic today. I mean of course you were, the doctor m recognized it today, but see, you can't acquire autism. You can only be born autistic or not.

There's no in-between. Didn't happen in the 40 years, right? You see what I'm saying? So if we actually statistically did it correct, which is, well, in fact, we've we've we've we've learnt more and we've recognized that these people are autistic. They were born forty years ago. You put those numbers to forty years ago, suddenly, sure there's still an increase because of knowledge, but it's actually probably a lot more even.

Do you see what I'm saying? Because that's the thing. You're either born autistic or you're not. You're not going to catch it or acquire it. It's not going to sneak up on you. Late diagnosis is purely based on where the medical system viewed it when you were a child. Now, if you were a child 40, 50, 60 years ago, even 30 years ago, And you weren't a white boy?

Presumably, who didn't talk, uh you know, who may potentially had some sort of intellectual disability, right? If you weren't that, you weren't autistic. But of course you were born autistic. But then there's no diagnosis up until now because you just assume because the world told you, no, no, no, you're not autistic, you're just bad. You're just broken. And then maybe you had a kid.

And they were they're just like you. And they went to the medical system day one. Bang, now this is absolutely an autistic kid. I can see it right now. 2024, this is an autistic kid. What but but she's a girl. Yeah, yeah, that's fine. Right? So, and you well, that's me. So in the meantime

It was just told to you by the world. No, no. So you're in you're stuck in survival mode. And then you get it. You get to have a kid or a diagnosis. It changes your life. But we're putting statistics on this day. And I don't think that's fair. I don't think that's that's the right way of looking at it. Based on the idea that some disabilities can be acquired. That's factual. Autism is not one of them.

That's my piece on that. Anyway, I've done many rants on on that. I just I'm so sick of hearing this. It's a bloody stupid argument. Okay. So What happens is I don't know how this happened, but the month becomes kind of like an autism appreciation or acceptance, or whatever you want to call it month. I don't like the idea of awareness. I think awareness is a complete waste of time and and it's it's a generic phrase and it means crap all. Now you might go, it's all semantics. Um I disagree.

You can be aware of something and still have absolutely no understanding or appreciation for it, right? I can be aware of a certain topic, but know nothing about it. So if we're gonna spend an entire day trying to tell trying to give the world awareness of autism, that's that's borderline brand recognition. That's all it is. Right? Hey, we just want to know the brand. Welcome to the brand of autism. Okay, great.

You see what I'm saying? So we're branding a disability and trying to get brand recognition. That's what awareness is. See, acceptance, understanding, appreciation is being aware of something, but then going further and actually learning about it. Now, in my opinion, regardless of anything in life, If you decide to learn about something, to go past awareness and to learn about something, to try and understand something to any degree, you develop what I call an appreciation for that something.

That's just how learning works. You appreciate things more if you understand it. Because you you you actually get it in a nuanced way. So the point I'm making Is we can do this brand recognition awareness crap every year for perpetuity, but it's not going to do anything. Well, how do you prove that, O'Rion? 2024. What's the UN theme? How many years has this day been going? Quite a lot.

So we've been doing it for years, and you're saying in twenty twenty four the UN have gone, you know what? Autistic people are only surviving. So what the bloody hell has happened in all the preceding years? Bugger all. Aside from Good brand recognition. Suddenly we're a commercialized product. Before a marketing company, asking them how they can help us with brand recognition. Hey, when you're on the shelf of disabilities, we want people to reach for autism. Great.

So when they're in the sh when they're in the shop shopping for a disability and they look at the shelf and they see all these disabilities, we want them to think straight away, hey, autism. Autism! The Coca-Cola of disabilities. That's all it is. Get stuffed. I don't need it. Cause then they just get these stupid bloody questions. Oh, everyone's autistic these days, huh? Well, so many people, oh yeah, wow, yeah, yeah, wow. Give us a spell. And you wonder.

I've got more weight to add to this argument, by the way. I'm just getting started.

Oh yeah, so yeah, autism awareness isn't is is is bad, is it, Orion? Yeah, what do you what do what do you expect? What do you want? What do you want? How about this? In in Australia, the Senate in twenty twenty two released a report. They looked into the lives of autistic Australians.

You've seen me talk about this and hear hear me talk about this. And they said in basic terms, the lives of autistic Australians are unacceptable. You know, we're talking twenty to thirty year less in life expectancy. A horrific, disproportionate, chronic underemployment, unemployment, lack of housing, lack of safe housing, lack of relationships, lack of acceptance, lack of inclusion. Right through education, healthcare, mental health services, everything.

It's up Crap Creek without a paddle. I mean, it's legit. The Senate of Australia tabled that report. It's factual, right? That's in twenty twenty two. But but the awareness campaigns are lying. Well they're not working, are they, mate? These are statistics, these are actual facts, these are tabled in parliament. What are you talking about? This report was so bad. In twenty twenty two the Australian government realised, oh no.

Oh no. We're going to have to actually do something. So they thought, Okay, cool, we'll come up with a national autism strategy. What's that? I don't know. It's another piece of paper that says our lives are crap. We need to make'em better. That won't do anything. It's like an awareness campaign. Right? Okay.

And now here we are in twenty twenty four. It's April twenty twenty four and the consultation period in Australia has opened up. So you can basically and I encourage you to do it. You you gotta look if you're an if you're an autistic person. You've got to look at this in Australia that is. Gotta look at this. And worldwide look at it just to see what if you can resonate with it.

Look at our draft strategy. Give us your feedback, right? We won't listen to it, but we'll implement it and then we'll go, we'll go from there. Okay. So that's where it's at. So this idea that autism awareness is a good thing, well it isn't. And I've statistically proven it. So I don't care for your petty, stupid little arguments. It's a load of crap. And then it becomes a month.

Okay, so we're gone from a day to a month. Now why a month? Okay, so the UN sanctioned a day, that's their bit. They wash their hands clean and the rest. But the month is used mostly by autism organizations. to, in my opinion, continue the brand recognition for them. So to get them, their organization, their autism based organization out into the broader community.

To create brand awareness and to sell products. Now these products can be anything related to autism awareness for the month, right? They might be t-shirts, hoodies, hats. Any kind of merchandise or propaganda, right, for their organisation. And they sell those. And they sell in April because there's autistic people that like to buy autistic stuff and there's family members and then and also two, you got your standard everyday people that feel, you know, look, if they

If they don't have to make any changes on how they view or treat autistic people and they can just buy a hoodie and feel better, then let's do that. Right. And that's what they do. Okay, so then these organisations do that. That's what the month is for for them. Brand recognition and generating money, fundraising.

Now why? Well, the nice Orion would say to help autistic people. But the real Orion will tell you that yes, it is to make money for their organization, but if they're helping autistic people with that money over the preceding years. I refer you back to the stats I just gave you. In other words, it didn't work, did it? Well it didn't. The UN said it didn't. The Senate said it didn't. The current strategy to help autistic people said it didn't. So what was it used for?

Frankly, it was probably used to employ and continue to employ a large portion of non-autistic staff members. Right from the board, CEO, management, middle management, and just regular everyday employees. Write down. Very little autistic people. And then in addition to that, the autistic people that will use throughout this month won't get paid Or w what do they get? Some sort of like what? Nominal little thing.

But that's different. Because the whole point of this is because we're underemployed or unemployed. We don't have financial means. We we are surviving. The UN says. You couldn't give us a job, could you? No, well, you got neurotypical people doing those jobs. So you've got neurotypical people using autism to make money to help autistic people, but them deciding how to help autistic people. And you and you wonder why we're just surviving.

That's why me, and I could be wrong, that's why me and what I guess uh quite a lot of autista people don't especially like April. My point of view, I hate it. People are constantly asking me to do stuff for them. Right. And it's all for free. Neurotypical media and all that kind of stuff. Well, it's autism month. You better talk about autism, mate. I'll give you four minutes and you you know, like you shouldn't and it's just uh it's like a dance monkey kind of thing. And that and that's hard.

So again, I talk about this in a lot of videos and I don't mean to get huffy and puffy, but I think sometimes we get bogged down in being nice for the wrong reason. There's no point in being nice. if there will i if being nice or being rude will still create the same result and that is someone will be offended. Because here's the thing. If I be nice

The people that are that are taking money from organizations, the government and just people to help me and autistic people, if if I'd be nice to them, I don't offend them, right? Okay, so then I feel I feel wronged. If I tell them the truth. They're offended. So either way, it's the same result. So you might as well tell the truth.

And the truth is that autistic people are being failed by not only the community, but but the organizations in the community who say supposedly they are designed to help autistic people. But all they care about in April is brand recognition and fundraising. And it doesn't matter if they think that's not true. I'm sorry guys, but the UN.

The UN guys has looked around the world and gone, autistic people are only surviving. If autistic people are only surviving, where has the money gone and what have you done? I'm sorry. It's and they they always give me this argument, Orion, you're letting perfection get in the way of doing good.

I hate that argument. Number one, because it's neurotypical people trying to shut me down. Right? I'm not being a perfectionist, guys. If you think You doing your work is only getting autistic people into the first gear of life, survival, and you think that's good work.

And I'm the one being pedantic or perfectionist, you're on a different planet to me. You've lost reality.'Cause trust me, if the UN, the Senate, the Parliament, whatever Say our life is unacceptable, we are only surviving, and you think your work is doing good. You are delusional, my friend. You are absolutely delusional. And the idea that these organizations get offended by autistic people explaining this.

is a major problem because these organizations take money from governments and corporations and people just like you and then shut people like me down when I say, What are you doing with it? It's not working. Because the and you know, the majority of everyone they pay for to be employed aren't autistic and somehow that's okay. It's not okay.

It's not this is not my opinion. This is the UN, this is the Australian government. This is real statistical information from right across the planet that says you are not doing your job. You are failing. You are wasting the money. Enough is enough. Like you you're getting half the money you could use to help autistic people and employing entire teams of fundraising to go and get money from people. But all that does is go back to pay your wage. So how's that helping? That isn't helping.

What a podcast, huh? All right. So let's get let's get to the facts. Let's get to the facts.

The draft of the national autism strategy. I've pulled it up on the computer. If my face seems a bit more blue or white, it's because I've got the computer going here, right? So the same computer. All right. So I'm going to start off with the easy read version because I feel like this is people go, oh, what are you saying? I'm stupid. No, I'm not saying you're stupid. I'm saying, in my opinion, the easy read version is is the equivalent of the executive summary.

And, you know, doing doing law school, executive summaries save your life. If you executive summaries are the are the are the go-to, my friend. It gives you the stuff you need to know. Uh, I mean seriously. Okay. So we've got as you know, we've got this this strategy, this need for a strategy to improve the lives of autism. All right. So let's get down. Let's get down to talking about. They're creating, this is Australia, the national autism strategy.

I don't know why they call it a strategy, but they're basically saying a strategy is a government plan for how we will do things in the future. So none of this is actually even really like saying this is gonna happen. We asked people, this is written, with autism. So they had a backpack.

A kid, a friend, a dog and a cat, and autism. To help us create the strategy. By the way, I was part of the the chairing of meetings for this, online meetings. I wanted to tell the autistic people at another meeting That these go quick. A lot of people want to talk. We're all autistic. It's hard to get everyone to be quiet or stop or give other people to go because we're autistic.

You're probably not gonna get to say what you want to say, but do your best. We're here to help, but it y I need you to be realistic. They heard me um heard my suggestion, told me no. You cannot say that. That is not true. We want people to think they will. And in other words, you can't tell the truth to other autistic people. And I was fired over Zoom. I was fired from that over Zoom. So that's bullshit.

It's simple as that. But they want to see how we can help, how they can help uh autistic people. And it says autism can affect how you think, feel, communicate, and connect and deal with others. Well, so I can be neurotypical with regards to autistic people. I love how it says in this document we say autistic people. 'Cause we ask autistic people and they like the they like to say autistic people. But then prior to that it says with autism. So the document's already a piece of shit.

Okay. This document is about a draft of the strategy. A document, or they're saying a draft is a document that isn't finished. Some things might change later. Well, that's not true. If the things they the the government have already decided they don't want to be changed will not be changed later. It doesn't matter what you say. We want to know what you think about the ideas in this strategy.

There is no right or wrong answer. You can answer all the questions, some of the questions, and the questions start start on page forty two of the simple one. So this you read it and you'd ask some questions. The strategy's main goal is to improve the lives of autistic people. Now, here's the thing: if the government have one goal, main goal, and that's to improve the lives of autistic people, you ask me why they are behind.

Most of the commentary that there is a major increase in autistic diagnosis, they don't think it's right. Right. And in Australia, they think too many autistic people, these are people with medically diagnosed disabilities.

are on the NDIS, which is the National Disability Insurance Scheme, okay, receiving money from the government for things to help them as autistic people. There's too many of them. We need to get some of them off because they're costing us too much money. So we're going to do that. In addition to that, we're coming up with a strategy to help improve the lives of all autistic people. Thank you.

Now the vision is to create a safe and inclusive community. Now how do you feel safe and included if the community as a rule are going, well everyone's autistic these days? Why is it so many people are autistic these days? Like that's fantastic. Okay. The strategy has principles that guide how we will deliver it. We'll create and deliver this strategy by working with autistic people, their family and carers, and people who work with autistic people.

What in the bloody hell does people who work with autistic people have to do? With improving the lives of autistic people and asking autistic people how to do that. Now, clearly we can tell you how people who work with us can get better, but traditionally, people who work with us aren't gonna say the things they think they do crap. See this is a problem. Uh it's like I'm reading it but I I'm like I'm scrolling through so many pages because just What's the point? All right. Here we go.

Our strategy focuses on making life better for autistic people in four main areas. We call them our outcome areas. Outcomes are important results we want to achieve. Yes, that sounds about right. Okay, number one, an inclusive community. We want to change the way the community does things so that autistic people feel included. Okay, great. Now here's the thing. At the moment, we're saying autistic people have crap lives, they're only surviving.

We're gonna try and fix it. But you know what? You guys, autistic people, you go ahead and tell us how to fix it. And if you can't, we'll tell you. Right? Either of those don't work. And here's the thing. If you think we can go from surviving to thriving by us just talking about how to get us to thriving, you've missed the point.

Of how to get from one thing to an outcome. Because in fact, the community not only need to hear how we think that can happen, but they need to actually accept it and embrace it. That's why it's not just surviving, you're thriving. They actually have to go, okay, I get it. You're different. You're not going to be what I think a human should be. You're going to act differently because you're different. And I'm going to appreciate that. I'm going to respect.

I'm gonna I'm gonna be a good human being. I'm not gonna judge you or belittle you or ostracize you or reject you. So that's that's that's the first thing. That's the step no one's talking about. It's all about us. We're stuffed. We we can't we cannot fix this. It doesn't be inclusive doesn't work like that. The fact of the matter is, you can be too autistic at school and get bullied or punished.

You can be too autistic in the workplace and get fired, reprimanded, HR slapped, whatever. You can be too autistic in a relationship and it breaks down. You can be too autistic in really any realm of of life, education, the community, right? Anything, and be rejected, pushed out. So until the idea of being too autistic doesn't exist anymore, there will be no inclusion. Because people are well and truly prepared to accept autistic people until they're too autistic.

That's the key. There is no thriving for autistic people without the wider non autistic community. Number two objective.

Learning and employment. Employment means you have a job, you go to work, you get paid. Yes, okay, that makes sense. We want to support autistic people to learn skills. To find employment. Okay, so we know, and that's why this is written in the in the plan. We know that autistic people are not only Underemployed, they're unemployed. Disproportionately, unacceptably high rates, like eight times higher. It's ridiculous.

Okay. And why is that? Well, there's a few things. Number one, education isn't inclusive or accessible for autistic people. It's very hard. If you have an autistic kid in school, you know. You know how hard it is. Imagine going to higher education. It's a nightmare. And they don't care, higher education don't care about autistic people in a meaningful way.

They've got it all wrong. So you're not getting the skills you need, you're not learning the w the way you need to learn. You're being taught the way your s the the the school says you must learn. aka you're not learning. You don't have the skills. You may even be illiterate. Right? So that's not good. You're not going to get a job. God forbid you got a job. How how are you keeping that job?

You how you because there is no support for autistic people in the workplace. If you think about supports required, main supports required for autistic people in the workplace are adjustments to other people, not things. Orion's being inappropriate to me makes me feel uncomfortable. I will report him. Or oh that's how Orion communicates. That's Orion doesn't understand the tone. Or telling the truth is bad.

Did you know that? Yeah, telling the truth is bad. I didn't know that. That made no sense to me. So these are major issues. They want to support autistic people, learn skills and find employment. And they think that somehow a magic bullet bag and is fixed by the strategy. These are all adjustments to people. What's the next one?

Number three, good supports for autistic people. And they get they'll do this by the way by cutting the majority of us off from the NDIS because it costs too much money. It doesn't make any sense. Right. And by the way, oh no, but we'll have another system for you. Well, hang on. Autism is a medically diagnosed disability. The National Disability Insurance Scheme is there to support people with medically recognized disabilities. You can't pick and choose.

Either it's a disability or it isn't. And it is. It's a medic so this is a thing. It's and you know what, this comes and you may be you may have this mindset. One of the major issues for me personally is if I said what's a disabled person, most people will say in general terms. someone who has an intellectual disability or someone who isn't able-bodied. In other words, someone who

Whose body doesn't work in one form or another. So their body doesn't work in one form or another, or they're intellectually disabled. That's what a disability is. Now of course, for autistic people in general terms. Intellectual disability is not part of autism. It can be a co-occurring condition, but it isn't diagnostically part of autism. Number two, it shouldn't, as a rule, and it doesn't diagnostically affect our physical body. Now we can have all these co occurring conditions.

But we don't we don't actually tick the boxes of what th the mainstream community now I know they won't say this, I I know they'll lie, but I know that's what they're thinking. That's what a disabled person is. And we don't tick those boxes. And and that is one of the key issues for autistic people. No one would would think a second, uh would second guess for a second.

about putting in a ramp or not putting in a ramp for a child at school that uses a wheelchair. I wouldn't think about it for a second. Cut to me every single day talking to the school about how they can provide mind ramps, accessibility ramps for my autistic child. I've got to fight every day for that. Now, there's a kid that uses a wheelchair. There's no fighting. But the ramps are there. It's not even a question. This is why.

It is such a bad life outcome for autistic people in 2024 and not just Australia, guys. The UN have made it very clear. They want autistic people to get the support they need, the services that can support them. And they want to be able to find them easily.

So they're easy to use and find. And we'll do this by cutting you off, the NDIS, and saying you guys just costing us too much money. That's what's this is the this is the issue. This is a co this is a co-occurring commentary. It's bloody stupid. Bloody stupid. They want to support people to easily get an autism diagnosis. Right? So a diagnosis as in via a diagnosis. Now the issue here is

There's long waiting times, there's high costs. And what's a doctor? Who who who's able to diagnose it, right? Is do you mean a psychiatrist? Do you mean a pediatrician? Do you mean a GP? Who what do you mean? Because that's the problem. If I said to you as an adult, who do you go to to get an autumn diagnosis, would you even know the answer? Or as a kid. So do you go to a pediatrician as a kid?

And do you go to a GP as an adult? Or do you go to a psychiatrist as an adult? Or who do you go? Or can you just get one from a psychologist? Well, a psychologist isn't a doctor.

These are all really hard to grasp scenarios. Now the fourth and final outcome is for health and mental health. So the Department of Health and Aged Care. They're writing a plan to improve the health and mental health of autistic people. Here's the issue. The outcome number four isn't actually part of the strategic plan. They've said it themselves. Another department, the Department of Health and Aged Care, are writing their own plan.

To achieve outcome number four. We're breaking up the outcomes and outsourcing them to another department. Why? Well, they're the Department of Health. But there's also the emp there's also the Department of Employment, Industries, right? Department of Education. That doesn't make any s well then it's either together or it's not. So it just just shows how bloody stupid it is. The plan will be separate. Okay, thank you. I mean

You know, they can this is the thing. You can have these overly priced, you know, stupidly graphically designed. documents from the government with your fancy words and all this kind of stuff. But the c the point is what happened? And when will nothing will change. We want the community to accept autistic people in the same way as everyone else. That's not You really think that's gonna happen? You think the strategy's gonna make that happen?

That's not my experience guys. I I've I have a ten-year-old autistic son. That's not his experience at school, guys. People do not accept autistic people like they accept everyone else. In fact, I don't believe as a premise that any humankind accept anything that they feel is different. Or different enough to them. In other words, I don't believe humans accept difference.

So, the idea that a strategy can somehow make the community suddenly accept all autistic people in the same way they would accept everyone else or themselves. It's a fantasy. It's an absolute fantasy.

They're trying to focus on so many things in this plan. It's how about discrimination? They want people to experience less discrimination. This includes how services treat you. Yet the same government is saying too many autistic people on the NDIS. Let's get them off. It's costing us a fortune. What a contradictory piece of crap that is. This is the issue. And you can say I'm get I get too haffy puffy. Well but you're I'm living it.

Me and my son. So I'm allowed to. I don't believe in any of this. I have zero confidence in any of this. And no one wants to hear that. No one wants to hear that. That that's not that's not helpful, Orion. Perfectionism, it's the e it's the what is it, the enemy of good. That's that's a c that's a utterly ridiculous statement, by the way. That doesn't make any sense.

So perfectionism is one thing. Better is different. You're getting my better, right? And saying, I don't like M saying I should go from good to better. So I'll label it perfectionism. That's not perfectionism, that's better. Autistic people often experience more discrimination than other people.

I mean this is part of the the thing. All right. I I think I I think I'm gonna pull the pin. It's just not worth it. Um yeah, let's just stop. The bottom line is if you want to check it out, you should go and check it out. Okay. Um I've just been reading off a PDF, which I literally just downloaded. Okay. It's really basic and easy to find. It's just the Australian government's national autism strategy. Okay. You go to that website, there's the draft.

And there it is. And you can check it out. You can read through it, which is which is what I I've been doing. I I'm done doing it though. Just goes bad real quick. Um anyway, I I guess all I can really say is You know what a time what a time to be alive in April twenty twenty four. People are saying, supposedly trying to raise awareness, brand awareness, right? While saying that we're barely surviving, while saying that we're gonna make your life better with a strategy.

While saying that really, the way we'll do that is by Achieving unachievable goals, unobtainable goals. And that's the best we can do. And if you wanna if you wanna, as an autistic person, you know, critique it, you're just being a perfectionist. And you wonder why that's in there, discrimination and all that kind of stuff. My friends, I hate April.

I hate everything it stands for. It makes me icky and itchy and it manifests in stress. I got big red marks on my face. You if you're watching yes, you probably see it. Big red marks the other side of my fa my nose. I get stressed out, man. Just And this whole strategy thing really agitates me. It's like, like you think you can fix this. Give us a spell.

You can't say about all these things and then by the same token have the same politicians saying, Oh, autistic people, way more than used to be. We can't they can't get services of disability services'cause it costs too much money and there's too many of them. Cause it's a disability, mate. Either you're gonna help us or you're not. And then you can't do the strategy on the same, on the same breath. You you like it's just it's so unacceptable. It makes me sick. End autism with O'Rion Kelly.

Episodes at O'Rion. Take a breather, because I need one. I hope you enjoyed listening to one of the longest rants in the history of autistic podcasts. Uh and I'm uh I I'm I'm both sorry and happy if you're offended. I appreciate you being here, my friend. Thank you so much for your support. It means a lot. Until my next podcast or or video, whatever you want to check out of mine next. Thank you for being here. We'll talk soon. My friend Autism with Orion Kelly. To join the conversation.

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