After the reset yesterday and catching up on the news side of matters, my next blog entry was always going to be about this – especially as I participated in it.
I want to first re-produce my one and only original posting. It was on the Health and Mental Health section and it was titled “The importance of self acceptance”;
One of the keys to mental health across humanity is accepting yourself as who you are, understanding yourself and emphasising your positives and tempering your negatives. I have found, as an Autistic adult, that being who I am is better for me – especially as I went 31 years not knowing as I hadn’t been diagnosed. In the time since I have adapted, learned, listened and asked questions. It wasn’t always possible but I persisted. I would like to think I am well adjusted as a result and have gained my independence. I already had it in practical terms, but true independence comes with understanding and everything else. It’s why it appalls me when I see an Autistic (child or adult) fight against their harmless Autistic tendencies as though it was a curse or something – mostly in social media themselves or through their parents who invariably are part of the problem in that regard. I have pushed the view elsewhere on this platform that a formal diagnosis should be pursued. That’s the first step. Supports should be there as well and the more formally diagnosed Autistics there are the better as numbers create demand. Not getting a diagnosis is not just a mental health threat for that person, it undermines the process in the eyes of our enemies (like those who demand a cure and disrespect us as fake, and those parents who state that if we aren’t profoundly disabled we aren’t Autistic). The Autistic community is fractured and we should be working together. That is why this NAS is so important and the more people come forward the better so we can set that in motion for the mental health of all of us. Go to the forums if you can. It’s your (dare I use the term) voice. Use it – for all of us.
Timelord Phil (as Timelord) on the National Autism Strategy Social Deck (Health and Mental health Ideas Wall) on September 12, 2023
Hopefully that link is active for some time.
As far as the other messages were concerned, it was a mixture of issues. I did jump on some who supported self diagnosis and one thing I’ll be pushing for is more Medicare access. It will be hard given the tight budget strings due to the debt we ran up as a result of the pandemic – combined with the sheer magnitude of the damage done by the Coalition government to Medicare. It may take a couple of pushes in the time leading up to Federal Budget time in May each year.
The DSP was brought up. I have already started working on that one – mainly due to the fact that it has been behind by 6 percent since the GST was introduced in 2000. The DSP went up by a measly four percent at the time when it should have gone up by ten percent (in hindsight) given that private enterprise ignored the Treasurer and put their prices up by the full GST – and the ACCC did nothing about it either.
There were various notes about the lack of training for the likes of police and general hospital staff. This is correct and it goes wider as well. Teachers for example. There were calls to ban Applied Behavioural Analysis (ABA) outright. My view is that it should be limited to emergency use only to effect short term cessation of life threatening behaviour like serious self injury. Outside of that it should not be used as there are other options.
Of course the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) came in for some stick and rightly so. So did Centrelink for keeping some Autistics on Job Seeker (likely mixed in with the lack of formal diagnosis). Housing was mentioned as was community services. And that’s as much as I can talk about for now.
So many people got their voice heard. Now the trick is to put it all together. This was part of the consultation period which ended at the end of October. A draft strategy will be coming by the end of the year and comments will be called for.
Phil Gluyas: Autism News and Views 