Saving Walden

In a few day’s time, I would be travelling to Australia and embarrass myself to attend a mental health conference. Not only will I be attending, I am actually going to embarrass myself make a presentation. My first ever public presentation! I can’t believe this is really happening. This could be the longest 30 minutes of my life and I’ve been thinking if I should pull myself out from the event and save myself from public humiliation while there’s still time! But first of all, allow me to explain how this actually happen. Your comments are greatly appreciated at the end.

For the past few months, I have submitted abstracts to a few mental health related conferences that will be taking place in Australia. There were two reasons that prompted this idea. First, although I’ve only worked in the field of mental health related research for less than a year, it was long enough to spark me to challenge and rethink the way we deal with mental health issues in the community, specifically, the way in which diverse needs are addressed (or not addressed) and how the medical model of mental health increases the stigma of autism. Second, I’m on the point of giving up and this could be the breakthrough I need to keep my dream alive. I don’t know exactly how giving a public presentation is going to help, all I know is I need a breakthrough, move out of my comfort zone, do something audacious, even silly. I need help, save myself, save Walden. As the saying goes, desperate circumstances call for desperate measures.

The topic of my abstract and presentation is reducing the stigma associated with autism, in particular, I wish to highlight the role of mental health professionals and researchers in reducing the stigma surrounding autism. My concerns stem from my interactions with colleagues at work, the projects I’m working on (eg. this 1 and this 2) and the academic papers I’ve read on autism and sue-side-the-li-ty (you guess what I mean, I’m purposely spelling it this way to increase the challenges of the machine learning process should anyone be thinking of using AI to detect relevant words). The incident involving the university’s misleading article was another precursor. Studies have found a higher rate of sue-side amongst the autistic populations. Researchers claimed to be ‘concerned’ and they are asking why. This is something statistics are not going to explain, so they did what quantitative researchers do and speculate, but why aren’t they asking the autistic people themselves, why don’t they listen to us and see what we write? So much for being ‘concerned’. This triggered my social justice instincts, we really need to raise the awareness of diversity.

The first abstract I sent out was to a sue-side peevention conference. My original idea was to do a qualitative research but I would need ethics approval for that before I could engage with human participants, which is not possible given that I’m using my personal time to do this as I don’t have the support of my employer. After that, I revised my abstract to put more focus on my lived experience, but I’d still need to engage with the academic literature, and it is here that I worry I won’t be able to prepare and cover all the materials. I have yet to think about the points I’d like to cover and I’ve got only just a week left. In the meantime, I have other deadlines to meet for my work. This is what I lament about when I write that I don’t have other capacity left to work on my personal stuff after work. Is it my excuse for being lazy? I don’t know. I do know however the struggle with fatigue is real, as well as the struggle with executive functioning.

So what do you think? Should I drop out of the program now? The only thing with that is I’ll be back to square one. Yes, I fear I would embarrass myself. I worry I won’t deliver a good presentation. I’m getting butterflies in my stomach as I’m writing this. But let me tell you what I fear even more right now. I fear that things have remained unchanged for so long, it will always remain unchanged. I fear putting life on hold. I fear a life with no purpose. I dread the feeling of waking up each morning, just to go to work and survive. If I’m dying, I want to face my execution now, not later. I feel unsettled by the unexpected but right now, I fear the expected more than anything else. I suppose from the way I just described, dropping out is not an option, in which case, is it too much to ask for your blessing? I’m aware I don’t deserve one for my laziness but in my defence, I’m doing all of this on my own, without a support. I often wish to have a mentor who can offer me advice and guide me through, but since I don’t have one, I’m finding my own way, doing it my way. I don’t know how this is going to help, since the conference is organized by a university, maybe I can get some feedback from interested parties on whether or not I have a promising research proposal, or maybe after all I’ve done, I’ll still be back to square one, but I guess in life, we don’t always do things knowing how it would turn out. Should I mention and publicise my blog (assuming anonymity is not a concern)? I’ll be interested to hear your suggestions, or if there’s anything you would like to share about your experiences as an autistic dealing with stigma and the mental health profession (including crisis services), you’re welcome to leave a note.

(On a separate note, here’s a little more about the first abstract I sent to another conference, which is not the one I’m attending next week. It was not accepted for oral presentation but was accepted for a 3-minute thesis presentation contest. I am dropping this out, partly because this might exceed my budget as I’m paying for everything out of my own pocket. It is also probably a good idea to drop out of this because I just got an email yesterday, notifying that the original keynote speaker they have invited for this conference is now unable to attend and they have now invited someone else…who erm…is my employer! Actually, this might be a great opportunity to have a face-to-face dialogue with my employer on an important issue but I don’t think I’m up for this challenge yet, it could become a scandal.)

Do I know what I’m doing? Hell no. I don’t have any answers. Wish me luck.

We don’t know, The Strumbellas

Well I know it gets harder every single day
And I know my darkness might never go away

It’s hard when you’re living and you don’t feel much
And you’re down and you’re hoping that things are gonna change

Oh we don’t know the roads that we’re heading down
We don’t know if we’re lost, that we’ll find a way
We don’t know if we leave, will we make it home
We don’t know, there’s hope, then we’ll be okay

And some say it gets brighter
We just have to wait
Mother mother, I can feel your heart break
Burning through me every single day

It’s hard when you’re living and you don’t feel much
And you’re down and you’re hurting ’cause you don’t feel loved
It’s hard when you’re living and you don’t feel much
And you’re down and you’re hoping that things are gonna change

Oh we don’t know the roads that we’re heading down
We don’t know if we’re lost, that we’ll find a way
We don’t know if we leave, will we make it home
We don’t know, there’s hope, then we’ll be okay

Oh there’s something in my mind that’s killing me
There’s something that this life’s not giving me
Would you say

Oh we don’t know the roads that we’re heading down
We don’t know if we’re lost, that we’ll find a way
We don’t know if we leave, will we make it home
We don’t know, there’s hope, then we’ll be okay

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Featured image of a lizard (not sure of what kind) taken at the Jenolan Caves in Australia, NSW. I choose this image to symbolise facing my fear because I fear lizards.