Hello, I'm new here..I'm wondering what did people say to you when they first realised you were autistic?

Well, people thought I was a bit weird long before my diagnosis.

They also thought many positive and negative things about me. I know this because I have been told directly, or heard it secondhand.

I've always embraced my weird

The biggest one was a colleague told me I was autistic and that I should get it checked out. I did, and they were right.

When I got my diagnosis, I immediately made it public. I do so at any time I think it useful, which is most of the time, haha.

I'll either say, "did you hear about my diagnosis?' to people who know me, or I'll skim around a bit , to warm them up, then I go all in. haha.

For me it has been positive. Pretty much everyone has been cool about it.

The annoying one is when someone goes, "Me too, well maybe, I might be a little bit. I haven't been diagnosed, but... We're all a little bit autistic, aren't we?"

That's when I just think F-OFF.

So sometimes it's not worth mentioning it, but you only find that out after the fact.

So happy to get your response, thank you. It's really motivating to perceive how upbeat you are about the fact of being autistic and about telling people. I want to be as confident as you sound when it comes to embracing my weird! 

I think I used to embrace my weird as a child but I was totally unaware it was weird at all, until school and work got harder and harder. How did you feel towards the colleague who told you that you were autistic and to get it checked out? What were your initial feelings around it? 

I got told that same thing "everyone's a little autistic", from a director of a college no less! 

I think people around me never got to the conclusion I must be autistic because they already thought I was actually possessed by a real demon or mentally ill and just in denial about my mental illness. Work people just thought I was insubordinate. A problem to get rid of. I only found out about autism when I sought out a psychotherapist because I thought I needed to find out why people thought this stuff about me! I swear..I had actual house mates scared of me because they thought I was possessed, including my own mother. I want to laugh but I guess it's really not funny. 

Maybe that's why I'm so scared of telling people I'm autistic, I'm so used to being misunderstood! You are right, you only find that out after the fact so I guess I should keep telling people anyway and hope for the best! 

It's tricky to explain really.

I was fairly timid when I was young, but I did have explosive episodes. Not many friends etc. I was lonely at times, but I got used to it. I was a bit of a loner anyway.

For whatever reason, I tried to ignore what other people thought of me. Partly because I didn't really care, and partly as a form of armour. My armour being "I don't give a flying f**k". Now most people probably know that's not really true, and I know it's not really true, but it's what has protected me from a lot of stuff.

That attitude/charade has its downside of course, but I'm ok with it.

Part of that attitude is about accepting fate and chaos to a certain extent.

Anyway, I've worked with a lot of people who are bit odd, from people on the spectrum, some with mental health issues and on meds, people who probably should be on meds, to full on PHD scientists and brainiacs So being normal was rarely a requirement for me.

If people didn't like me or understand me, they were free to go elsewhere., IDGAF

Anyway, I had looked into neuro conditions a few times over the years, just out of interest, and had a few aha moments, but I never followed it up.

Then I started to get really moody and burnt out, losing interest in work... everything really.

I started working at a new place, to have a change. After a month I was asked if I'd ever been diagnosed with anything. I hadn't, but I said I wouldn't be surprised. About a year later I decided to move on. The colleague then listed all these things she'd noticed about me and said I was autistic.

I laughed and said yeah probably. It was cool. I wasn't offended. It was the first time I started thinking about it seriously.

I respected her opinion, and she had respect for me. She always said how grumpy and cynical I was, and she loved the not give a f*ck attitude, It was all really cool.

Turns out, she later started her own journey for assessment. Like minds, hey.

The other thing is I've only had a couple of jobs, Most of my adult life I've been self employed and working in creative arts and alternative lifestyles, so being normal isn't really a thing, hahahahah

I've been fairly fortunate in that I've been able to control much of my work life, although I haven't always done a good job of it. I often wouldn't know my own limits, the expectations of my clients, or my own expectations for that matter.

I've said yes to work when I should have said no, lost interest mid-project and had to battle through etc. It caused me a lot of stress, and I couldn't see where it was coming from. I was kind of blinded by freedom and success, but didn't have the self discipline to handle it all.

I don't really like talking about tattooing. I'm very proud of the work I've done, but talking about puts my mind into a spin. I have a love/hate relationship with it for various reasons, and when I have to think about it or talk about it it opens a dark chasm and I start to become very irritable. I'm not sure why, maybe because for me it's so multilayered, aesthetics, philosophies, psychologies, interactions, motivations etc. It's all too much for me to have to process, so I tend to shut down.

SCI-FI

I think I find sci-fi easier to read because it is engaging for me, depending on the writing style etc. There is something about speculation, invention, world building, that I find interesting. Maybe it's because I feel so detached from the real world sometimes, that the sci-fi worlds actually make more sense to me. Maybe it's because I grow tired of thinking about how long it's going to take us to move on from the way humans exist at the moment. Endless possibilities...

I've never really enjoyed fantasy as much, maybe a hybrid. But I like sciencey stuff.

The problem with reading any fiction though, is I can never really remember what I just read. I only know if I liked it or not.

SCULPTURE

I only really make stuff for myself, for my own interests. But that might be because I'm not a good salesman, and I'm rubbish at networking and finding opportunities. Not that my work isn't for sale..

Making any form of artwork, or being creative in any form, is like a compulsion for me. It has always been there and always will. I like the discovery. It is how I try to communicate with the world, and it's how I try to process and understand my own thoughts and ideas.

That doesn't mean I'm doing stuff all the time. I have long periods when I don't find the need, or I'm just not inspired or motivated.

My work jumps around a bit, maybe that's why don't sell much, not enough 'brand' identity.

I don't sculpt, in the traditional sense (well maybe sometimes), and the work can range from assemblies/constructions, to castings etc. I like to combine materials such as wood, metal, and plaster.

I don't know what my work is about really. Sometimes I want it ot be about nothing, sometimes it's about solitude, or decay. But I'm mainly interested in shapes and structures. My work, I suppose, is abstract, non-representational. I'm trying to make things more minimal, but part of my brain resists.

I generally work at a smallish scale, probably no larger than 40cm. It's easier to handle, quicker to make (sometimes), and there's something more intimate about smaller work.

I rarely plan anything, I can't stick to a plan and I'd be disappointed with the result anyway. Once I have a visual in my mind, I rarely find the need or desire to make it real. It already exists, in my mind.

I prefer to have a rough shape  or structure in mind, possibly with certain materials, then I just start making. I use my intuition, mood, motivation, and let elements used inform what follows. It's always an exploration. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't.

What do you like to sculpt? What themes do you follow and what inspires you in designing your sculpting piece? Do you sell them or do contracts for companies?

I find it interesting how we've both dabbled to try and find which industry suits us. I thought I wanted to study english literature at one point because I find the meaning of words interesting, but realised that's only from a language learning perspective, I hated being in classes with neurotypicals pulling apart a highly metaphorical poem or novel..I wasn't interested in the emotions of the characters in a fictitious novel or the mental headspace of a poet, I just liked that words could take your imagination somewhere, and enabled me to play with it like write poems that rhyme, limericks were my favourite as a child. I used to make up languages and write them down, and I've been studying to be fluent in Spanish on and off for years. Any music in foreign languages interests me, I like to listen to the sounds coming out of peoples mouths. Still..no use being a translator because that involves people again! 

I'd like to see some of your tattoo work! Do you think you will quit entirely one day? I've been on an ear piercing project journey for the past year, still going, I like the fact you can use ears to play with symmetry and negative space with jewellery.

How did SCI-FI navigate around your reading difficulty? 

I find I can read it if it's interesting enough to me, if the author doesn't engage me with their writing style I am easily distracted or just stare into space after a while and stop reading. I'm currently watching a wordless, totally sound scaped documentary of farm animals just going about their lives on a farm in black and white film with some drone footage and night vision too! My dog is enjoying watching it with me too! 

Observing animals and nature scapes is so comforting to me for some reason. 

Yea I totally understand what you are saying about the way you came across moody and outspoken. You know what, I also fell into a job as a Makeup Artist and I had to work in a shop with customers and people, mainly because I was desperate for income and I knew I could paint and draw. The way I fell into it was I was having to hand out flyers on the street dressed as a barbie on skates and some guy took pity and said he could get me a job in Harrods. So he talked to the Makeup Counter and said I was a Makeup Artist but I wasn't, I just said I would play along to get the job and I did, and hit the ground running. I remember working with every walk of life in Harrods, due to it being considered the most luxury department store in the world, so all the rich ones and the tourists form all over the world visited..I remember dreading any day that a celebrity was advertising themselves visiting the store because it would ruin my day by bringing even more people in to the store. All the cultural holidays were celebrated there and made me hate cultural holidays even more, Christmas, Chinese New Year, Eid, Valentines, Halloween, New Year. It was all the same to me. Doing makeup on myself in the morning was the biggest bain of my life, I learnt to resign myself to being a puppet or an avatar, with no identity, I was assigned on each morning, told what I had to look like. Told to wear something different every day, something glamourous. So much effort for absolutely no reward. 

I was nothing like any of the other girls or gay men who I worked with, I never met a straight man working for the company. I just seemed to be on the outside, and soon I perfected the skill but I never connected with customers or colleagues. I found it such a strange experience that I did my final university year in Photography all around the lengths people go to to look different with makeup...I also was drawn to Body Modification Artists and focussed in on that too for my final year. My curiosity was what do they get out of it? Where is the Art, in the physical body or the meaning of the act of the modification, why is it prevalent in all cultures in some way...what drives people to express themselves this way. maybe part of me wondered if by studying it, I would discover something about my difference in the world too. 

I found that the Fashion Industry was easier to be accepted by due to how it does being outside of the commonality of neurotypical thinking, but it was full of exploitation and not enough money or NO money for the work, with just a promise of exposure in a publication. I left. not worth it, and I was absolutely entirely drained and exhausted at the end of the day, often it would take me days to recover so I would only work 3 days a week and just survive, poverty stricken, recovering from burn out. 

I thought about tattooing because of my drawing skill, but realised the people thing was still an issue. so I moved on to special effects makeup, but realised I didn't like the texture of clay or chemicals on my skin, the smells of the chemical gasses etc plus I like drawing and painting realistic things or following the true contours of a face/body for example not making up unrealistic stuff. Most of the SFX work commissioned is for wholly unrealistic wounds and monsters, I've always hated horror themes. I asked the teacher why wounds can be exaggerated or unrealistic, and he said that viewers don't normally know about or care about reality so the directors prefer you to just make it look good for the camera, whatever that means, which caused me frustration because I had nothing to go by. 

So people told me wig making was a good income, I could be a perfectionist and focus on making it as realistic as physically possible..then I found out good income is only the case when you've been doing it 15 years and you know the right people for big jobs for tv for example otherwise..it's no better pay than the average wage, so you have to do set work (on film sets) which means you need to study hairdressing, which again means you work with people, chit chatting, as if learning a new motor skill isn't hard enough for my Dyspraxia. 

My thoughts go back to painting and drawing, but I knew someone who could draw too and worked for an illustration company, she was given so many projects and so many deadlines she burnt out and became a spiritual hippie life coach, and didn't pick up a pen for years, and when she did it was only for herself, the odd scribble. The other person I knew was my dads ex who could draw realistically and was commissioned for drawing the Bristol Suspension Bridge, she was so desperate for regular work but she just had to wait for each commission, not knowing how long before her next pay cheque (her son was autistic too) My dad is also an artist, studied sculpting but never got work doing it, got bullied for doing his own thing all the time, so ended up taking work in juvenile detention centres. 

I feel like anytime you give the world your creative skills they exploit you for them and burn you out. Makes you feel like giving your gift is too much effort to a world that doesn't appreciate it in the right way. People only seem to care about how cheap they can get you to do it for, or how fast. No respect for the work and effort. 

People say you have to find what drives you, I am still looking! Maybe I will find it in my new identity as an Autistic person..but part of me feels that's far too cliche. 

Yea I totally understand what you are saying about the way you came across moody and outspoken. You know what, I also fell into a job as a Makeup Artist and I had to work in a shop with customers and people, mainly because I was desperate for income and I knew I could paint and draw. The way I fell into it was I was having to hand out flyers on the street dressed as a barbie on skates and some guy took pity and said he could get me a job in Harrods. So he talked to the Makeup Counter and said I was a Makeup Artist but I wasn't, I just said I would play along to get the job and I did, and hit the ground running. I remember working with every walk of life in Harrods, due to it being considered the most luxury department store in the world, so all the rich ones and the tourists form all over the world visited..I remember dreading any day that a celebrity was advertising themselves visiting the store because it would ruin my day by bringing even more people in to the store. All the cultural holidays were celebrated there and made me hate cultural holidays even more, Christmas, Chinese New Year, Eid, Valentines, Halloween, New Year. It was all the same to me. Doing makeup on myself in the morning was the biggest bain of my life, I learnt to resign myself to being a puppet or an avatar, with no identity, I was assigned on each morning, told what I had to look like. Told to wear something different every day, something glamourous. So much effort for absolutely no reward. 

I was nothing like any of the other girls or gay men who I worked with, I never met a straight man working for the company. I just seemed to be on the outside, and soon I perfected the skill but I never connected with customers or colleagues. I found it such a strange experience that I did my final university year in Photography all around the lengths people go to to look different with makeup...I also was drawn to Body Modification Artists and focussed in on that too for my final year. My curiosity was what do they get out of it? Where is the Art, in the physical body or the meaning of the act of the modification, why is it prevalent in all cultures in some way...what drives people to express themselves this way. maybe part of me wondered if by studying it, I would discover something about my difference in the world too. 

I found that the Fashion Industry was easier to be accepted by due to how it does being outside of the commonality of neurotypical thinking, but it was full of exploitation and not enough money or NO money for the work, with just a promise of exposure in a publication. I left. not worth it, and I was absolutely entirely drained and exhausted at the end of the day, often it would take me days to recover so I would only work 3 days a week and just survive, poverty stricken, recovering from burn out. 

I thought about tattooing because of my drawing skill, but realised the people thing was still an issue. so I moved on to special effects makeup, but realised I didn't like the texture of clay or chemicals on my skin, the smells of the chemical gasses etc plus I like drawing and painting realistic things or following the true contours of a face/body for example not making up unrealistic stuff. Most of the SFX work commissioned is for wholly unrealistic wounds and monsters, I've always hated horror themes. I asked the teacher why wounds can be exaggerated or unrealistic, and he said that viewers don't normally know about or care about reality so the directors prefer you to just make it look good for the camera, whatever that means, which caused me frustration because I had nothing to go by. 

So people told me wig making was a good income, I could be a perfectionist and focus on making it as realistic as physically possible..then I found out good income is only the case when you've been doing it 15 years and you know the right people for big jobs for tv for example otherwise..it's no better pay than the average wage, so you have to do set work (on film sets) which means you need to study hairdressing, which again means you work with people, chit chatting, as if learning a new motor skill isn't hard enough for my Dyspraxia. 

My thoughts go back to painting and drawing, but I knew someone who could draw too and worked for an illustration company, she was given so many projects and so many deadlines she burnt out and became a spiritual hippie life coach, and didn't pick up a pen for years, and when she did it was only for herself, the odd scribble. The other person I knew was my dads ex who could draw realistically and was commissioned for drawing the Bristol Suspension Bridge, she was so desperate for regular work but she just had to wait for each commission, not knowing how long before her next pay cheque (her son was autistic too) My dad is also an artist, studied sculpting but never got work doing it, got bullied for doing his own thing all the time, so ended up taking work in juvenile detention centres. 

I feel like anytime you give the world your creative skills they exploit you for them and burn you out. Makes you feel like giving your gift is too much effort to a world that doesn't appreciate it in the right way. People only seem to care about how cheap they can get you to do it for, or how fast. No respect for the work and effort. 

People say you have to find what drives you, I am still looking! Maybe I will find it in my new identity as an Autistic person..but part of me feels that's far too cliche.