AUTISTIC NICK IMPLEMENTS SOME NEW CHANGES
This week Sam Armytage from the breakfast tv show sunrise looked down the barrel of the camera lens, produced a carefully but meticulously planted tissue from the sleeve of her blouse and tearfully announced that after 8 years she was leaving sunrise. The tearful denouncement of her leaving felt more like her not giving a single male a red rose on the bachelorette.
I too after some careful consideration have the following announcement to make although mine won’t be broadcast and I won’t be revealing my news through some carefully, staged managed tears.
“The time has come for me to take a step back from posting other content other than my blog posts on my Autistic Nick Facebook page. In the past I had the time to dedicate to searching for Autistic related content but now I sadly don’t have the time.”
This is because I have started a new job as a disability journalist with ABC Perth and that along with writing my weekly blog posts means that I will be just posting blog content and links to my ABC articles via my website www.autisticnick.com as well the Autistic Nick Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/AutisticNickAU/ .
This hasn’t been an easy decision for me to make, but I was struggling to write a blog post from an Autistic viewpoint as well as sourcing other Autistic related content. I was finding it impossible to work on my articles for the ABC, then over the weekend write a blog post and search for other news articles.
That’s not to say that this could change in the future, but for now I need to concentrate and focus on scaling things back and finding the best solution that works for me and my mental health as well as my anxiety which I have documented about on my website.
I also didn’t want to have another Autistic burnout as I was placing too much pressure on myself, which lead me to having the burn out in the first place. I recognised that I needed to take a step back and analyse and assess what I needed to do to make things better for myself and my mental health. It wasn’t an easy decision I can tell you, and it was a tough call, but I couldn’t go on placing all of that stress onto myself when it wasn’t necessary in the first place. https://autisticnick.com/2020/07/20/autistic-nick-has-an-autistic-burnout/ Or risk having an Autistic Shutdown https://autisticnick.com/2021/01/11/how-autistic-nick-dealt-with-a-shut-down/
The main reason that I added a Facebook page for Autistic Nick was that I wanted to help educate people on what life is really like living with Autism. My aim is to increase public awareness of common issues faced by those living on the Autism spectrum. Which I believed has been achieved.
Out of setting this page up I have had a lot of opportunities come my way, including being asked to speak on a podcast about being Autistic and employment https://www.spreaker.com/user/13121044/episode2-nick-autisticnickblog.
I also got the opportunity to write Autistic related articles for the ABC after I had a conversation with a CEO of a disability agency, my first two articles were about employment https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-27/the-challenge-of-employment-for-people-with-autism/11337682 and disability representation in TV and movies https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-21/netflix-atypical-rain-man-fail-to-tell-real-stories-of-autism/11867308 which then led me to being offered and off course I accepted a one year’s contract with ABC Perth to write not only stories about Autism but extending that and telling stories about other disabilities and allowing those people to tell their stories and have their voices heard.
I have to take this opportunity to say a HUGE Thank you to each and every one of you who has supported me, subscribed to my blog, read my articles, commented, liked and shared on social media and just be down-right wonderful and positive towards me and my story.
I spent forty years of my life knowing something was different. I spent many times blaming myself, thinking it was ‘my fault’ or that I was doing something wrong. Getting that diagnosis had changed my life completely. It felt like a fog had finally been lifted. Everything from there on started to ‘make sense’.
I’m now at the age of 45 and I am still finding my feet as a newbie within the Autism community. I’m learning more and more about what it means to be Autistic and I feel extremely blessed that I can now utilise all of the fantastic supports out there for people living on the Spectrum.
I hope by sharing my story that my experiences can help others on the spectrum and can hopefully help to combat the stigma that sadly still sits around being Autistic.
I hope that you the readers can understand and appreciate my position with regards to this. I’ll still monitor the Facebook page as well as the influx of messages that you all send me.
To view all of my now 243 blog posts!!!! You can visit my website www.autisticnick.com
Carry on the Conversation
As always, I can be found on Twitter:@AutisticNickAU
Thank you for reading and I will see you next time for more thoughts from across the spectrum.
Autistic Nick 