Attack on my inner peace

Mathew, its time to tell people of your experiences of being 'attacked' on your inner peace after series of life events, including last night's event (3/2/17). Friends, families and people who knows me are still learning about my Autism and hearing loss. What ways to communicate with me? How they interact with me especially in social environment?

Many people either have Autism and hearing loss, but rarely have combination of those. Its so extremely challenging, like level 100 on Doom video game where the level is impassable. Life is full of negative in communication and social environment because I am so different to many people around me. I grew up with traumas, embarrassing situations including in public place, bullies, insults, mocking on my disabilities and terrible nightmares. I have been judged, verbally attacked and pressured. While I have been doing so well living independently having an apartment to live in, own and drive a car, a bicycle, traveling experiences, career employment and support from family and friends. The downside of my life is communication and social environments.

Combination of having Autism and hearing loss attacks on my ability to communicate and socialise with people. In reflection, it is a same way how people tend to get confused why my speech isn't clear enough, why I can be passive, why I am being inappropriate and that. These moments are totally unaware that I behave. Its too hard for me to know what exactly I am doing, at the same time everyone in same room as me seems comfortable but after my reflective actions people turn uncomfortable. I tend to get confused, lost and depressed. This is where the attack on my inner peace.

No one have any opportunity not to give up on me when I am under stress and pressure. I tend to flight as they do flight away from me. As a child and teenager I had regular meltdowns, but these days its more of anxiety due to traumas and impacts on my young days where I experienced loss of faith and trust in people. Communication and social skills is so extremely important for me to learn and understand because it helps me to build my self confidence, having healthy chemical balance in my brain and generate healthy genes for future offspring. Three years ago I started to come out into community more than I was previously. I started joined clubs, interest groups, employment and university. It is still challenging today because no one understand who I am. This leaves me behind in terms of social behaviour and communication strategies.

I have 8 years experience of counseling and psychology sessions learning about communication and social skills. Unfortunately the problem still persist because I still couldn't understand why friends and people know me aren't being consistent. This makes me anxious, confused and frustrated. That helps me into misery. Common symptoms of having Autism is anxiety and depression is due to external impacts and influences that violates the internal peace of the person's health. I felt like I have been violated by my friends many times, who didn't stay in touch with me nor be there for me. It is also difficult to make new friends because every time when I go out socialising and interest groups after first meet up they run away and never heard again. They were so nice, friendly, assertive and straightforward. I got so confused why they didn't want to be my new friend since they behaved at that time. It seems they were pretending or being fake towards me since they may not know how to deal a person with Autism and hearing loss.

I am turning 26 years old soon, and that is getting scarier because the more you grow old the more challenging it get. Ironically supposed to be other way around. I want global peace and inclusive society rather than attack people. I don't want to be lonely person. I always wanted a beautiful girlfriend who there for me who understands and love me. I wanted to return to her in same way. This makes me happy and earn lots of Oxycontin.

I learned to be ok with my Autism

Some people think I’m weird. Some people pass judgment on me, and others laugh and talk about me. It used to bother me, but now it doesn’t. When someone assumes things about me it shows me their mind is so closed that they are not willing to learn something new. When people talk about me e it shows me I’m quite interesting to the person because they are taking the time to observe me. My only advice is, before you judge or assume, get to know me enough to ask questions and learn not to give up independently. If a person does take the time to enter my world I will teach them things they never thought of because I have the ability to think outside the box.

There was a time that I wanted to act 'normal'. I had people telling me to watch what I did and said in fear of what others might think or say about me, and I had people who criticized me because of my differences and people who compared me to others and pointed out what they thought I wasn’t doing right. After having people question me about why I can’t do things like a 'normal' person or why I can’t like things like 'normal' people my age, I couldn’t help but think that the term 'normal' meant a non-autistic person or a disability or disorder-free person.

I spent a great deal of my life not knowing how to live. I was confused and didn’t know what to do so I became a follower. I tried to live my life like the majority of society, but I failed miserably because it was hard for me to pretend to be someone I was not. I felt a great deal of sadness, frustration, anger, anxiety, fear and pain. I felt inferior to most people and believed I was a bad person because I was different. 

I realized if I wanted to live a happy and productive life, I had to make changes in my life. Firstly, I had to accept I was different from most people and understand that a lot of people might have a problem with my differences and that is OK. Secondly, I had to learn I had the power to decide who I let in my life. If someone caused me stress, discomfort and wasn’t supportive of me, it was OK to not allow them in my life. Thirdly, I had to learn how to be strong. I had to stand my ground and not give in when people try to change me into who they wanted me to be or who they thought I should be.

I had to learn who I am as a human being and not letting the society or those around me wanted me to be. When I was diagnosed with High Functioning Autism, I learned all I could about it so I could better understand myself. For years I wondered why I never developed emotional feelings with my family and friends. Through research I found out it is one of common traits of Autism. I accepted these things about myself, and now I expect the people who I allow in my life to accept these things about me too.

I don’t always act my age, and at other times I may appear too professional or serious. I have a more masculine appearance, and sometimes people have a problem with this. I’ve had a lot of people who tried to get me to explore my feminine side more. At one point in my life I would allow people to try to change me into the feminine person they wanted me to be. I would feel so much discomfort, but I didn’t know how to tell them how miserable I felt. Now if someone tries to change me into who they want me to be, I wouldn’t do it, and if they insist too much I would just walk away or kick them out of my life. Now I feel if a person can’t accept me as I am or respect my decisions and choices, then that person doesn’t have a place in my life.

I have dreams and goals of being a greatest leader in the world on Sustainable Development and Diversity Inclusion. Some people tell me I can’t succeed at being a leader because I have a disability and I am healing from years of abuse ans traumas. Years ago I would have believed this, but now I don’t.

What a year! Looking ahead to 2017

What a year of 2016 that was! Looking forward to 2017!

The trip to Vietnam in December 2015 got my life started moving ahead for my ambitions, career and passion. I played at Australian Deaf Games for first time in Adelaide representing for Queensland team. I earned three medals playing ten pin bowling and futsal. I wasn't expecting that I was a competitive sports player whilst being academically intelligent and career motivated person. I played ten pin bowling leagues for whole life, but my recent games in Adelaide was first time played for more than a year.

I was into last semester of my Master's degree at University of Queensland, I was completing a thesis paper on 'How does different vegetation, material and building type impacts on the surface temperatures? Case study of University of Queensland's St Lucia campus'. This paper worth a lot of efforts taking lot of empirical data around the campus allocating records for 4 months including the data from the UQ's automatic weather station. This thesis also turned my life around, academically because I achieved very high score for my maximum efforts and detailed information for the analyses on surface temperatures. This helped me to understand gathering data is important to analyse for the future issues, like 'how we reduce mirco-climate impacts on urbanisation?'.

This thesis wasn't all that happened during the final semester of my postgraduate degree. I was accepted to take another international research field trip to Hong Kong, Macau and China. It was held during the Easter long weekend and the mid-semester break. This trip has brought me to another level of analytical and problem solving experiences. This trip is all about community development and planning, public transport, place making designs and cities. It was my first time being in Chinese countries. I was shocked by the scale of development and pollution. I never thought it would be sustainable.

I finally graduated with final GPA of 6.0 in July at St Lucia's UQ Centre. Then I was given a Dean Commendation Award for Academic Excellence. This is first kind of award I achieved at high academic level in my life. I am glad I had plenty of support during my Master's degree.

In May I traveled to Melbourne for first time to attend and present at the ASPECT's Autism in Education conference. I presented about my life experiences with Autism and hearing loss with achievements and directions for positive initiatives that should improve awareness for the unprivileged community members. This conference hasn't gave me any benefits, but the networking has expanded where I have been featured in few independent news and blog websites on my life experiences and successes. I was featured with UQ's media and communications news, ICAN Network and other two Brisbane's based independent blog websites. This step has pushed me further to increase support on disability rights since my challenges and pressure in Australian society which lacks empathy for people with disabilities and mental health.

I joined two disability member based organisations, People With Disabilities Australia and Queensland Disability Network. I am currently active with QDN because of local significance and support. I am heavily engaged in many activities, workshops and campaign taskforces along with other members with disabilities. This network has expanded my knowledge, experience and opportunities for my career ambitions.

I have spent a lot of my spare time finding and applying jobs, which that have been for number of years. I finally scored a job working with Gardening A Difference in November. This small business enterprise is something to start my career on disability awareness especially for people with Autism and mental health illness. I am currently working one day a week with them making projects, build awareness initiatives and cleaning gardens.

Before the month of Christmas I got a surprise email from the Australian Greens office about my application to attend to the Global Greens Congress to Liverpool UK. They said I am fully funded delegate! This adventure is taking me to the next step of international political experience. This opportunity will expand my networks politically and internationally in areas of disability, youth and sustainable development.

Before the end of the year I finally found a secure and wonderful apartment to live in! And potentially scored a second job, contract with Brisbane City Council. The year of 2017 is starting up hot and awesome.

What's ahead in 2017?

• Raising awareness for the Great Barrier Reef
• Global Greens Congress in Liverpool UK
• World Federation for the Deaf Congress in Hungary; trip to meet deaf communities across Europe
• Two conference presentations on disability awareness and sustainable community development in Australia
• and many more! I couldn't remember nor list all of the things because there are too many things going on for me. Positive vibes.

Happy new year and hope 2017 will bring peace and sustainability with the world.

Autism: Intelligence vs social life

A good day or good week for an Autistic person means feeling normal to be part of the society. Anxiety and depression comes from bad days and bad weeks due to lack of connection, sympathetic communication from other people and strings of bad luck.

Anxiety and depression with Autistic people are not part of mental health disorder, but many cases they can become prevalent if prevention does not occur. In my own experience anxiety and depression comes from social exclusion, 'missing out', chain reaction of rejections and bigotry attitudes from mainstream sources (society influences). Being Autistic does not mean I am unable to do things such as playing sports, look after your grandmother, going to work, study at university and drive a car. Autism have strong intelligence, among those high functioning spectrum.

Social exclusion comes across from stigma and stereotype from the mainstream society where people make a lot of assumptions, negative excuses to social inclusion and pragmatic stereotypes unintentionally. Many Aspie guys are usually seen negatively chaotic, creepy and pervert. I have been told many times when going through high school and college.

A socially smart Autistic person will easily learn by socially responsible, caring, loving, respected and inclusive friends. Intelligence comes from independently, for instance I grew up reading maps, meteorological books, learning geography and sciences and photography. This is because my brain found time to learn and implement these interests and hobbies. It makes me happy, but also makes me happier to share these experiences with other people including friends.

An intelligent aspie like myself is something what the society needs. There are over 1 million intelligent aspie people around the world. They are easily missed out by 'mainstream social inclusion' influences because of different communication and social skills which are adapted in other way which that does not suit these aspie people. This becomes pressuring for these socially missed out aspies; this where anxiety and depression becomes impacts.

How you deal between a socially smart person and an intelligent person? Its so easy to teach social skills to an intelligent person rather than teaching intelligence to a socially smart person!

Strengths & advantages of Autism

Strengths and Advantages of Autistic People in today's society

People see Autistic people are socially awkward and quirky, but never knew anything more about their lives. Most Autistic people like myself have strong technical and analytical skills as being their major strengths. If we are talking about employability, the current recruitment system solely focuses on social and communication skills, although analysing, observations, organisational and other technicality are missed out.

I am very technical and organised person because I tend to focus (over analyse) things to find out their solutions and meanings. When I went through high school I decided what I want to learn. I chosen science, because its my passion and interest to pursue for my career. Autistic people feel more comfortable to do their own hobbies and interests to become a career due to their passion and intelligence of knowledge. Science has helped me to become analytical where I have abilities to research and determine results. Science taught me how to become a person to know what, how, where and why things are made to cause events.

My Autistic characteristics makes me to become obsessed with the subjects I am interested in since the fact I know I am very good at. The obsession can be seen as 'habit', 'addictive' and 'stereotypical' from the neurotypical's (NT) perspective. This becomes a social judgment. Likewise employers don't tend to see that since the 'obsession' is making the workplace uncomfortable. Apparently this area is poorly understood by NTs because its their passion on the subject that makes them comfortable and professional.

Bill Gates, Albert Einstein and Mark Zuckerberg may have Autism because of their passion and obsessions on things of their area of expertise. They became very successful people because of their service to the society. They are very analytical, innovative and inspiring people.

What about me?

I enjoy my time observing and reporting thunderstorms. I grew up watching thunderstorms coming by. I took up photography and filming them. I learned about the dynamics of meteorology over time where I analyse weather forecasts and observations to see if there going to be stormy conditions. I also have strong passion in politics, geography, environmental sustainability and inclusive society. These passions grew when learning science during high school, and during two academic degrees. My passion grew along with development of knowledge it helps me to connect closer with like-minded people about same interests.

These areas helped me to become expert in understanding and interpreting systems, especially in geography I was able to read maps whilst traveling and understanding their systems. I may get in panic mode if I get lost, but thanks to my strong ability to find myself where I am. Without a map I able to interpret the sky (where the sun sets, rises etc) to know where the North and West is, follow trails that leads to something, and follow road signs such as a city that I am heading for (e.g. going to Nashville, I will follow the sign says to Memphis because I know I get to Nashville on this same road because it the next city after Memphis).

In politics and society inclusion I analyse and observed people's behaviour like racism, bigotry, discrimination and related attacks I see myself how it will solve crisis on sensitive things like human rights and climate change. But me having Autism means I dislike violence, attacks and crimes (breaking the law; even minor issues!) I become very attentive to situations in political arena to understand the person's opinion/voice on certain issue compared to other person's different opinion. My strength is to analyse why there is two sides to the story/issue, I always come to meet in the middle. This is why I stopped attending rallies and small action events because my observations analysed that democracy is not improving by systematic violence and sending language to the society on the certain controversial issues.

I strongest passion in my career is environmental sustainability. I am in love of creating projects and innovation to improve our community health and wellbeing for the future. I enjoy my time listening, reading and watching new ideas about positive things for our future such as renewable energy, community projects, sustainable homes, public transport solutions and forest spaces. This passion will never fade away for the rest of my life because I am not giving up on my future facing uncertain situations like climate change impacts and environmental disasters.

What people see me?

While I enjoy my time spending with like-minded people with similar passions, I don't see myself making them uncomfortable in social situations. It not a downside of having Asperger's (aka. high functioning Autism) because the way NT sees us obsessive, one sided and creepy where it makes them uncomfortable. On a typical Autistic mind is about showing enthusiasm and compassion to the person knowing them are passionate and intelligent about the topic. It usually make a conversation leading another way. Unfortunately from my experience the person I talk to with my passion doesn't respond to me much as I do. It made me curious of why, missing out on the body language cues it doesn't tell me why this person is not confident to talk about the certain topic of in similar passion.

Many times when I have a conversation with someone who talks about something else other than my passion it also becomes one sided too! This person will talks the most of the time. It brain freezing me because of no knowledge on the subject. However there are times the conversations I had with people can become two sided where the person is very socially confident and non judgmental. I am not saying everyone who is one sided with me is judgmental, but the values you are being confused with my behaviour.

Many psychologists, counselors and researchers I have spoken about the futures of Autistic people in the society they said they should be employable by their chosen field and knowledge. The society needs more work on innovation and creating opportunities for positive change. Lots of people on the spectrum can be really good at social and communication skills too, like myself. But we still get discriminated and judged everyday by NTs who sees our behaviour is different among their peers. This becomes a roadblock for Autistic people to become fully engaged and successful people in the society.

What examples of roadblocks in my experiences because of people not understanding my Autistic behaviour in the way of my analytical and intelligent skills?

• Employability focuses on social and communication skills rather than technical, knowledge and experience.
• Public person; board member, candidate - internal choice of the person who wants to be a spokesperson, candidate or a board member usually focuses on same abilities such as social and communication skills a same approach to becoming employed.
• When comes to dating, some conversations can be one sided because the person's confidence is highly dependent.

What skills and knowledge from Autistic person is highly advantegous to the society?

• Problem solving ability - able to analyse solutions and alternatives
• Analytical skills - able to interpret, observe and maintain data, conditions and technicalities
• Does not enjoy violence and crimes - finds peace, respect and courtesy when people follow the rules and laws that will have no impact on person's lives. E.g. driving over the speed limit because speeding kills and its rude.
• Communication skills - of course we are great at communication skills because we learn strategies over time. It may us appear not good at them at the start, but if you train them, they become experts!
• Social skills - they are also easy to change over time like communication skills. If you give them a chance to socialise, you will able to help them to observe situations. Over time they become social experts!

What my psychologist told me

Psychologists always enjoyed my analytical and intelligent conversations about my social perspectives of my life experiences. Today my psychologist told me I was right by many things of how I observe and analyse social situations, my friends' lives and the way of current global communication. I learned that calling someone being a racist, a bigot and that is offensive in a same way of how people behave in such these manners. When I analysed these situations, and that is not improving the social relationships and communication barriers between different kinds of people.

As being an Aspie at age of 25. I am seeing trends and scenarios of people at my age cohort are experiencing downtimes are social disruptions. A typical Aspie would have obsessions during conversations that can be daunting and boring a person out which that would appear socially disruptive from a non-autistic person. Thus a person with Autism may not see that, but he/she is behaving in an intellectual manner by showing strong analytical and organisational skills. This is what my psychologist told me today!

Good news everybody! I am smart, passionate (& compassionate), intelligent and caring person. That is a relief to know that. I be thankful for who I am who and that I have been taught by my great family and friends over the years who helped me to overcome my challenges and learning new things. This made me to become a better person for myself. You can prove that I have attended universities, completing two academic degrees with one a Masters thesis earned a perfect grade. I was analytical person, and now I am more than that. This achievement earns my confidence to establish my efforts to find potential friends and a partner of my life to share experiences in a socially intelligent and talented society.

Whilst I learned not to take sides of people's debates and making negative remarks of their behaviour I made a better person of myself to prove these opposed points to be coincided to make a statement that would solve opportunities. Unfortunately, the society have not seen me yet. I am still looking for friends who would enjoy my company of our passions and intelligence to make our environment a safer, healthier and inclusive lifestyle. Also, of course I have a desire to find a potential partner to share for rest of my life because of my goals and compassionate is to achieve successes due to my positive, caring and talented attitudes. Just like how I completed my Masters degree composed a thesis GPA of 7.

Being an Aspie is NOT a negative nor a loser way of life. It just being different. Communication must be in strategic and intelligent approach. It helps me to become inclusive with the rest of the world.

Now this piece is beautiful!

I wish I have friends

I am not saying I don't have friends. I have learned over the years there are different kinds of friendships. People intentionally say they are your friends who doesn't talk or get along with you, and others who contact you to get together. My life of making and maintaining friends is really difficult because being on the Autism spectrum, with hearing loss the conversations and body language is difficult to read and listen.

Not many people on ASD have friends like who are without it. Why? It about perspectives here. Many times I said that I missed out learning communication and social skills when I was young, it supposed to help me to understand the social environment and ability to communicate at the same level. I disregarded my challenges, because I am just being different. It is a common sense saying that everyone is being different in general society but people have lack of empathy towards people who are really different. The ways how to speak and behave is how people react so easily. They tend to get uncomfortable really quickly because of making assumptions as they think the behaviour is about to harm them.

Unfortunately I experienced this for whole life. I struggled to make and keep friends because I understand the people who I met have no ability to understand me. It is the times I mostly ask my friends to hang out, but not usually in balanced way. I find this is one way friendship because I was expecting someone to say hello and ask me to hang out or chat with me. I waited, and waited. Then eventually lead to one way friendship because I realised they are too busy with something else. I may be appear off standish in conversations and that, but I find it offensive when people say that I do, or react to a scenario where people tend to suddenly leave the situation. It took me down hard because the reflection of my behaviour is critising the way who I am.

Despite hearing loss challenges in the conversations I tend to miss out a lot of verbal stances, but being on the Autism spectrum I am missing out the nonverbal signals. It conflicting each others. It makes me confusing my friends and the people who I meet because my language is different. I learned the way how I live very differently than everyone expects we supposed to be a same. Like same school curriculum.

If I should be free to learn how to communicate and read social situations like non Autistic people who are able to though they should be available and accepting to let me to learn. Unfortunately sticking to counselors and psychologists it does not improve my situation. I have been doing this for 7 years, soon to be 8 years. Consequently why this so? They are not the people where I am being at the social environment to analyse my situation, unlike where my friends and the people I met are in present. Learning the theory does not make life easier on the practical side. Friends, and people who are willingly to get along with me should and suppose to understand me. I must learn the skills from friends. Not the professionals.

After I spoken to several people who have ASD, they agreed with me that making friends is so difficult. Our needs, emotionally should make an ability to find friends and have potential relationship. Unfortunately Autistics struggle to have this opportunity in reflection to the current society there are lack of empathy towards Autistic people who wanted to have friends, and relationships. We won't have an opportunity to thrive and enjoy life like non ASD people we must be reconsidered to be accepted as being different. I wish I have friends, and a relationship.