What Does The NDIS Mean For Aspies?

Within Australia I hear bout the NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) roll out and I wonder what it means for me? What I continually see is a system which has broken down but I think to myself about the word, Insurance. As you may or may not be aware of is the fact that adults on the Autism Spectrum according to what Dr Tony Attwood represent the highest figures in wanting support from the NDIS. What concerns me is again the usage of such terms as high and low functioning Autism. For a high functioning adult like myself there is very little if any support within the NDIS. What is not made apparent or taken into consideration is that many adults are still living at home with their parents or with family members. Other adults are living in sub standard accommodation and very little is available to meet the needs of the individual adult concerned. What I find frustrating is that although I am eligible for support that such support seems bound up in red tape and out of reach due to a high demand or bureaucratic means of support allocation. These factors alone are just beyond the point of frustration!

It seems to me that the NDIS has to focus on and empower the individual on the spectrum. Governments need to get serious about employing adults and need to allow businesses to expand in order to take on more staff but more importantly adjustments need to occur within business and employment to stamp out bullying, discrimination, workplace toxicity, office politics and other factors. Often either side of politics is too quick to criticize someone with a disability as being lazy or not wanting to work. I was made aware recently of a State Labor Member of Parliament in Queensland criticizing a workplace program by saying according to the person that a person would be better off signing up for the dole than submitting employment applications. On the other side of the fence, often conservative governments especially the one in New Zealand have suggested from I have also heard from people I know there that if you cannot work then you lose your benefit. Quite simply what is being ignored is the necessary reform that needs to happen in workplaces themselves. In my time of advocating for adults I have heard of the horror stories of them being bullied at work. One lady I was aware of indicated to me that she was so distressed that she could see no point in living and questioned why work colleagues seemed so mean and spiteful to her just because she had a different operating system to them. I would like to inform anyone that is experiencing or has experienced bullying that research is being conducted at the University of Queensland. For more information about this research please contact Mylyn Dat Mylan's research can be found by visiting this Information Source

NDIS Needs to Focus on Improving Quality of Life

For anyone confronting a challenge or challenges there needs to be the necessary support and education to adjust and change attitudes. In my own situation I find there are many obstacles which prevent me from functioning and co-existing fully. As I am soon turn 45 years of age I am finding it increasingly difficult to find a partner on the opposite sex without complicated especially and to eventually live independently. Furthermore if I am to write more books and other information sources, the monetary system seems both overwhelming and crippling. At the moment I am trying my best to manage my financial affairs as best I can. However if I self publish books and try to distribute them I feel overwhelmed by Australia's taxation system. Too much stress occurs in trying meet the requirements of keeping a financial tab on purchases and sales. I am looking more so at money being made from sources to go to an organisation to assist adults on the Autism Spectrum find employment and obtain more opportunity. As yet I am not able to find anything and I doubt my book which a good friend has helped me edit who is a Justice will ever really make much money. How can a book about traveling on the Autism Spectrum be popular when so many adults on the spectrum are not able to enter employment or have low or under participation in a workplace? Again it is just more conundrums. In my spare time I do a lot of Autism Advocacy work and often lay awake at night just wondering how I have to comply with all the legal requirements of handling a book or future books I intend to distribute and not getting into difficulty with the Australian Taxation Department for not knowing the proper procedure of meeting taxation and other financial matters. Again I am stressing and indicating a system which is just not designed for my way of thinking. I feel at times that I need a manager or a life coach just to deal with the often technical and overwhelming aspects of my life. Can an NDIS help me with this? Do I have to worry about how the person will treat me and whether or not they do their job properly and thoroughly? How am I able to pay them and what support can they offer? I seem to be judged as having it too good in life when in all honesty behind the scenes I confront a daily struggle just to survive and stay afloat. I work around the clock with raising awareness of the Autism Spectrum but when making money comes into the equation, my energies are being diverted in order to satisfy the monetary system. This is not what I want. My life is not all about making money, even if I worked hard to make enough money how independent can I be anyway? I would more so want to see money go into a means of employing adults on the Autism Spectrum and improving services not only for me but for them. I also at times feel like I need respite just to switch off from having to advocate all the time. Other adults are not doing it which means I have to do most if not all of it myself. Everywhere I go and be Autism is with me. It never leaves me and I see and confront people who have just no understanding of where I am coming from. I get questions of where are you in relation to Autism? I think hello do you ever read or know about the work I do? Do you ever look at my website which I designed myself some years back and I guess I will soon have to update?

I am fortunate to have supporters but I still come up against brick walls. I just do my best to breathe and try and get through. I feel frustrated in a monetary job where the main focus is on satisfying and meeting the requirements of making money more so than investing in my own abilities and attributes. Just because I am not so called expert in mainstream standards by no way means that I am inferior or subordinate. I see so many young people, especially students who seem to struggle with academic work or need motivation but just do not get it! I am wrongly misconceived as some kind of predator or perhaps a pedophile when I feel angered by people in responsible positions having abused and taken away trust. I am not interested in hurting or interfering inappropriately with young people, I just want to help them to succeed and become better and more thinking people! Yet I am not able to do this. I see teachers some of whom are disconnected from young people and an education system just failing to deliver the necessary energies to allow for young people to thrive and improve their minds. It just isn't good enough and yet I am cast aside and written off! I am overlooked and feel largely unwanted when I have so much more to give and offer! The way I was treated in the past I wish to not see happen to future generations of younger people. I want to see young people grow, flourish and succeed. I feel as though I am in the wrong country. I feel as though I am unwanted and because I do not have the same social skills as others in a socially abled world I am seen as inferior and a sub species. This angers me because having Autism is not a curse. In fact having Autism should be an empowerment. I have written two books now in under a week and still I am both undervalued and underappreciated in this country! I so long for times to change! I want to do more but can't! The system frustrates me. It is not working properly and things need to be changed. I also have to put up and content with morons who just make life difficult in all directions! Why are these people in high paid positions within Australian society?! The list goes on.

I really have no choice but to vent my anger at a flawed and broken system that is just not out to deliver. Across the board I feel that many young people are misunderstood and I find more minds are open in some younger people. This is their world too. So many young people sadly misconstrue who I am and what I am about. These factors alone are what force me to continue to write. I need to change the world as best I can and empower those of us who are not a sub species. We just think and function differently. Getting through life is a challenge but all I can do is keep breathing and trying my best to succeed. Thank you for reading.