I remain cynical about online anything - are you sure this is what it looks like?

 Yet again this year I've been reminded just how shallow and bizarre this medium is.  An apparently confused man (by which I mean he appeared to not understand some of our dialogue and was genuinely confused by some of what I said.  Which he either ignored or just interpreted any way he wanted) called Dave Francis turned up, trolling and trawling for screen grabs in order to make me look....whatever he felt like.  Lying as they do, reinterpreting my materials online in order to make me out to be...well, what he wanted.

I had to make a very long, experimental documentary commentary just to explain my experience of him.  (See my YouTube for the epic film with his name on it.  A close encounter with Dave Francis of Being Frank Autism Channel.  You will understand why he's ADW whilst saying he's not got a clue what that means.  Which is not possible as I have enough screen shots to link him to Jill Escher, Thomas A McKean and the whole infrastructure they have built in America).  

For this I am grateful for the experience.  The whole dialogue we had hinged around asking him some simple questions around some statements he was making.  Which seemed to be the whole point of all his films on YouTube and engagements on social media.

DO YOU HAVE ANY PROOF THAT SELF ADVOCATES, WHO GET A LOT OF MAINSTREAM MEDIA ATTENTION, DO ANY HARM TO THE FAMILIES OF THE SEVERELY DISABLED, AND THEY THEMSELVES?

DO YOU HAVE ANY EVIDENCE THAT FUNDING IS BEING TAKEN AWAY FROM THE SEVERELY DISABLED WHO ARE AUTISTIC, BECAUSE OF SELF ADVOCATES LIKE MYSELF (and himself, I kept trying to explain to him.  Because if you claim to have a wife of 20 years and 3 disabled children that you manage to look after and make films and use social media AND describe yourself as autistic...well...you are basically the very Neurodiversity Movement you seem to reject.  Default you see?  Also he provided zero proof they existed whilst in his character and posting, typifying the opposite.  The classic mature man who has grown up living with his parents type.  Check his films).

If you look at my YouTube film to the end you will see that I received z e r o answer.  Because he was lying his head off to himself.  He's part of a whole cult of such people.  

This my friends is the point of my post here.  My buddies in the great advocacy field tell me to ignore anyone with these unprovable ideas.  I told such people that they could go to the Police or Local Government if they felt that autistic advocates were taking away services and financing to their loved ones and even themselves.  It's easy.  But do they?  Erm....well...Ever heard of that?

In the film I omitted references to the bizarre mother of two disabled children, Jill Escher.  The American who co started the infamous NCSA.  The National Council for Severe Autism.  She who promoted to the point of interviewing the arch troll Tom Clements.  Who I see as being 'behind' the Autistic Dark Web trollers in 2019, on Twitter.  One reason for this is that stories of her paying people to attack others online emerged.  I have a screen grab one one Thomas A McKean point blank admitting he was paid an awful lot of money by NCSA (Escher) apparently to do nothing but the activity I have explained.

All of which, as far as I can see, amounted to zero again.  Achieved nothing.  

Which brings me to the idea that a smaller number of people than they realise, seem to spend their time in the world of autism in a bubble like world of their own, wasting their time whilst thinking it means something.  Which I see as very much a trait of social media and the internet in general.

Here in the real world, the UK weather has now gotten rather cold.  Will it warm up?  Ah, we shall see.  Meterology is not an exacting science.  Climate changes.  No I will not talk about planetary environmental damage.  That seemed to me to be something painfully obvious - and that was in 1979 as a school boy.  Now I still think we do not know the half of what goes on in terms of pollution, all over the world.  

The above is REAL.  It's something rooted in empirical actuality.  It's not made up in peoples minds and then actualised/realised in some corporeal form on file servers.  Even then, can you touch and taste it?  No.

Here in my home the weather manifests in terms of cold and damp.  You can do something about both those things easily.  You can go walking, swimming or use my local gym, and do something about your own body and mind.  I often find myself working and down my olympic sized sports centre pool, reflecting on how this is all you need for a fix on reality.  

Why do people need to overcomplicate life?  To feel substantial.  My wife was saying that this morning.  That most people are simple in themselves.  That they complicate their identities and their minds in order to induce an experience of meaning something in life.  Stories of people doing self harm to themselves due to what is (very loose use of the term) existential crisis are commonplace.  

It seems to me that having decided to do more reading of paper and less of social media right now, I am heading back to reality.  I am rebooting Stealth Aspies, and it's script reading time.  Suddenly I am critiquing and deciphering work in order to find out if it does the job.  Do these scripts mirror the autistic experience?  Are they uplifting and positive?  Do they achieve anything for audiences of autistic people?  Are the goals of my Buddhist faith achieved?  Is there self love here, or is self loathing that one is not neurotypical (perfect according to the likes of Francis) equally if not more pertinent to portray?

Are we all aspiring neurotypicals?  Do we all really just want to be able to achieve things and function.  If you do not have a relationship, a family or a job it's understandable that you may want those things and go blame being neurodivergent for not having them.  I CANNOT RELATE.  I CANNOT MEET PEOPLE I CAN RELATE TO.  I CANNOT DO THOSE THINGS...  Well yes I have been there myself.  But now that is not the case.  Because I found ways to achieve them.  

I mean, lets face it, if you did not have your autistic/Neurodivergent nature, you'd be able to do things you think you cannot due because you are disabled/disordered.  Right?  It's that simple for everyone?  Well no actually it is not.  In fact these things can come and go.  You can have the family and the job and lose the lot in one car crash.  You can wake up one day and find it all gone.  A note on the kitchen table.  The family cleared off.  One woman I knew came home to find herself locked out of the house and her husband refusing to have anything to do with her again.  He never did either.  

The garden we have is full of leaves that need scraping up again.  I may go out there later on and do that.  I have things to do.  Presents to wrap.  People to talk to.  Meantime the internet goes on and on, as if it's changing anything when a reality wall often presents it's leaking out into reality to make any real difference.

You see, the severely disabled are never fully supported.  I have seen this year after year.  Families ALWAYS think they never get enough support and understanding.  So any kind of initiative to change that is welcomed by many.  Just one problem.  WHAT EXACTLY IS IT THAT THEY REALLY NEED TO MAKE EVERYTHING BETTER?  Ultimately in the world of autism you get the usual - to remove autism and leave the subject not autistic.  MOTHER!  FATHER!  I AM FREE OF AUTISM!  IT WAS HELL IN THERE....The very words of an advocate from 2011.  Funny at the time.  But with a very serious point.  He himself had a very disabled son in his early 20's.  He had the authority that many parents involved in such a scene seem to treasure above all else.  

What you just read was words.  Perspectives.  Engineered ways of seeing life.  I believe there are no 'cures'.  There will be no 'recovering' people who 'autism' as they characterise it.  Just the writing, the agitating and the complaining.  Just the reacting.  I do of course wish I was wrong about this and all could be different in the future.  But get real.  Care about people.  Grow up and accept that all over the world there are families who need substantially more support than they may ever receive.  This is how desperate they can become.  They can end up like this bizarre figure on social media.