Translator: Leonardo Silva Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
I'd like you all to take a second,
and I'd like you to imagine someone on the autism spectrum.
Be as specific about them as you can.
How old are they?
What do they look like?
What's their gender?
How do they stand
and walk
and behave?
Are they happy?
Now, when I ask you to imagine someone on the autism spectrum,
you probably didn't imagine someone who looks like me.
There are more than 700,000 people diagnosed on the autism spectrum
in the UK alone.
That means that, statistically,
25 of you here today have been diagnosed with autism.
You're the lucky ones.
You haven't slipped through the cracks.
It's March 2018
in my home city of Melbourne, Australia.
I'm 21 years old.
I'm an actor,
nearly graduated from university,
my professional stage debut already under my belt
and a bright future ahead of me,
and I've just been diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome,
part of the autism spectrum.
After multiple appointments filled with confusing questions,
lots of boxes to tick
and tests which I thought I aced -
and failed miserably -
I hold in my hands a stack of paper
confirming my shyly new diagnosis
and my clinically defective brain.
So much of my life makes sense to me now:
my strange intensity in social situations,
my weird obsessions that never go away,
my failed attempts at friendships,
my tendency to cry and panic and hit myself,
and stay non-functional for hours afterwards.
All these things for which I'd always thought I was a failure,
they were just traits of autism
that had gone unacknowledged all these years.
The autism spectrum seems so vast
and so scary
and so very lonely,
and in my work as an actor,
everyone that surrounds me seems vibrant and open
and clever and correct,
all these things that I feel autism is not.
I take the shameful papers and I fold them,
and I place them in the back of a drawer,
and I promise myself that I will never,
ever,
talk about my autism to anyone.
It's an easy choice to make.
There are so many pervasive and harmful stereotypes about the autism spectrum
that many people who don't fit those stereotypes just slip through the cracks,
never getting the support and understanding
that they need and deserve.
We aren't Rain Man.
We aren't Sheldon Cooper.
We aren't doomed to a life in care, unable to function.
And when we aren't these stereotypes,
nobody sees us.
Nobody saw me for 21 years.
Everyone on the autism spectrum experiences autism differently.
You might say I have mild autism,
but that's only because you experience me mildly.
I don't experience my autism mildly.
Most people think of the autism spectrum as a long line,
with 'not very autistic' down one end
and 'overwhelmingly autistic' on the other,
but that couldn't be more wrong.
In reality, the autism spectrum looks far more like the colour wheel.
Each colour represents a different trait or experience
that is related to autism.
Red could be social communication.
Blue could be emotional awareness.
Pink could be auditory processing.
Every autistic person, no matter how they appear,
has their own unique plot of points across the wheel.
We might share similar traits and experiences,
but we're not the same,
and I am so tired
of people thinking that all autistic humans are the same.
The more that autistic people are pushed into boxes that don't fit us,
the more we will struggle.
You see,
most autistic people don't actually suffer from our autism.
We suffer from the way the world sees and treats our autism.
To the world,
my brain is broken,
and when the world treats someone like they're broken,
that person will slowly come to accept that brokenness as fact.
Over half of the autism spectrum
will experience self-injury at some point in their lives.
People with intellectual disabilities,
including autism,
are seven times more likely to be sexually assaulted
than those without disabilities.
Young autistic people
are 28 times more likely to attempt or commit suicide.
And these numbers, they also apply to people when they're undiagnosed.
Because I've been autistic my entire life,
not just since my diagnosis.
I've been different to everyone else my entire life,
and everyone around me could see that difference just as easily as I could,
even if none of us had a word for it.
People don't really like difference.
It's so hard to be different.
Now,
when you think of autism,
I don't want you to instantly think
of all the negative stereotypes that surround my brain.
Yes, autism does come with its own set of challenges,
but it also comes with so many individual and unique strengths.
My autism, it makes me insanely passionate about the things that I care about,
and my autism makes me brave enough to talk about them.
We need to make a future where people who are different
are treated with the respect and understanding that they deserve.
Our diversity, that's our strength,
and with a world full of different kinds of brains all working together,
we can achieve goals, as a race, that we never thought were possible,
and we can make a future that is so beautiful, together.
I don't want you to see me as a broken brain anymore.
I'm not broken.
I am just autistic.
I'm just me.
It's a few weeks after my initial diagnosis,
and I'm sitting in the waiting room at the autism clinic,
ready to talk about how to move forward.
I don't want to move forward.
I want to be normal.
There is a little girl sitting on the carpet in front of me,
sorting the blocks on the floor into neat piles.
I recognize something inside of her that's inside of me as well.
I am suddenly overwhelmed at the idea of her future,
this tiny child that I don't even know
having to go out and face a world that treats her like she's a failure,
for her beautiful brain.
The girl looks up at me,
and she gives me a funny little half-smile,
awkward and shy and cheeky all at once,
and she sees me,
and I see her.
What is she going to do
if nobody stands up for her?
I didn't choose this,
but it is my responsibility to pave the roads that she will walk on.
The roads will be bumpy at first,
but when she's older, she can help smooth them,
until one day, there will be children born
who will never know that the road was bumpy in the first place.
Her name is called,
and the girl is gone,
and in that moment, I have made a decision:
I am taking the papers out of the back of my drawer
and I'm folding them and putting them in my back pocket,
and I'm carrying them with me
because they're a part of me.
And I can't separate my Asperger's from myself,
and I don't think I want to.
Not anymore.
And I'm standing here today,
and I'm paving the road,
and my arms are open for all of you to join me.
Thank you.
(Applause)