14th October 2017
Hello. And thank you for visiting my new website! To explain what it is all about I will have a little mock interview with myself…. here we go.
SO WHAT IS YOUR INTEREST IN AUTISM?
Simply because I am Autistic. I was diagnosed over a year ago at the age of 39 and suddenly my life made sense. All the problems and awkwardness of my life up to that point now fell into place. True I had spent about two years researching, suspecting that I was on the spectrum, but getting that diagnosis was a re-affirming life changer. I went through the same emotional stages as a lot of late diagnosed people. First a sense of euphoria, then a stage of worry, soul searching and finally a peaceful acceptance that I finally had some real understanding about myself.
AFTER SETTLING DOWN EMOTIONALLY, WHAT DID YOU DO NEXT?
Well, one thing became very clear to me is that I wanted to meet other people like me, people on the Autistic Spectrum and Aspies, as my diagnosis would have been Aspergers if the criteria had not changed a few years previous. My first attempt was to join the National Autistic Society and their community online forum. This forum is very good but did not quite tick the box.
IN WHAT WAY DID IT NOT TICK THE BOX?
The forum is excellant but people were mainly posting about about problems they were having most of the time. The community was great for this but I wanted to connect with others in all areas. It did make me realise that I also wanted to meet people in real life as well as online. I started to look into avenues to connect with Autistic adults and found very little resources. I was however very lucky to find a local support group that I started to attend. My advice to anybody who has been recently diagnosed is to seek out others on the spectrum. I quickly learned though that is difficult due to the lack resources for adults.
DID THIS LACK OF SUPPORT WORRY YOU?
Yes. Absolutely and it made me realise that I wanted to give back to the community somehow and address the balance. There is so much for Autistic children and so little for adults. This makes no sense to me as all children will one day be adults. I wanted to help raise awareness of this and also acceptance, to help adults who get a late diagnosis.
SO YOU DECIDED TO SET UP THIS WEBSITE?
Not immediately. To begin with I try to find others that where already raising awareness and “muscle” in on what they were doing. As you can imagine this was difficult, impossible as people were already doing their own thing. I was getting more and more frustrated. I then had an epiphany when I met two Youtube vloggers at the National Autistic Show, Connor and Katy. You can check out what they do at these links https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2_a05o1pW4fr9SzlyMv8OA where you’ll find Katy and https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCR0sGyrQN800DkQbhCbLDA which is Connor’s site. After speaking to them and seeing what they were doing online made me realised that I should not be relying on anyone else but raising awareness on my own.
AND SO THE WEBSITE WAS BORN?
The ideas behind it were. I began to plan how I could do what I wanted to do. I did not fancy a Youtube account as I wanted some anonymity and always enjoyed messing about with websites. Therefore this is the route I went down. I had two ideas for a website, a personal blog, one where I can discuss anything I wanted, Autistic or not and a more serious website to raise awareness and acceptance about the employment problems that people on the spectrum face.
EMPLOYMENT PROBLEMS?
The statistics of people that are on the spectrum and unemployed needs to change. Autistic people have so much to offer and can achieve so much. There just needs to more understanding. Therefore I wanted this to part of my goal of raising awarenss and acceptance. The dilema was which way to go, a personal website or an employment based one? I only wanted to do one but after much thinking I could not see why I could not combine the two and let the visitors get what they want from it.
SO THE WEBSITE WILL BE A BIT OF BOTH. WHAT DO YOU PLAN FOR THE FUTURE?
Absolutely a bit of both! I want it to be a bit of everything, stories, pictures, videos, regular blogging and areas of both important issues around employment and other issues. I decided to call the site “An Autistic’s View” because it is just that. My views. After spending time online there are many different individuals talking about many aspects of Autism and they don’t always agree. Therefore this website is my view and my personal take on how Autism affects me and what I am doing to hopefullyhelp others.
WELL I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE WHAT YOU WILL BE POSTING IN THE FUTURE! THANKS FOR YOUR TIME.
Many thanks, please call back regulary to check for new posts and new things to see!
Great website Rob