Joanne Lockwood: Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood and I am your host for the
Joanne Lockwood: Inclusion Bites podcast. In this series, I will be interviewing a
Joanne Lockwood: number of amazing people and simply having a conversation around the subject of
Joanne Lockwood: inclusion, belonging and generally making the world a better place for
Joanne Lockwood: everyone to thrive in. If you'd like to join me in the future, then please
Joanne Lockwood: do drop me a line to jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk,
Joanne Lockwood: That's S-E-E Change Happen dot Co dot UK.
Joanne Lockwood: You'll be able to catch up with the previous shows on iTunes and Spotify and
Joanne Lockwood: the usual places. So plug in your headphones, grab a
Joanne Lockwood: decaf and let's get going. Today
Joanne Lockwood: is episode 18 with the title an autistic
Joanne Lockwood: parent's perspective of autism. And I have the absolute
Joanne Lockwood: honour and privilege to be joined by Laurie Morgan. I met
Joanne Lockwood: Lori online in a Facebook group for professional speakers, yet another
Joanne Lockwood: networking success for COVID lockdown on online networking.
Joanne Lockwood: Laurie describes themselves as a speaker, trainer and
Joanne Lockwood: author. I asked Laurie to describe their superpower
Joanne Lockwood: and they said they don't need one.
Joanne Lockwood: So hello, Laurie. Welcome to the show.
Laurie Morgan: Hello, Jo. Did I really say I
Laurie Morgan: didn't need a superpower? It's incredible.
Laurie Morgan: I get told reminded of stuff that I've
Laurie Morgan: said and I go like, that sounds really good. Did I actually
Laurie Morgan: say it? It's really good to be here today.
Laurie Morgan: It's fantastic. After all
Laurie Morgan: the problems that we've had, the issues connecting all of that
Laurie Morgan: stopped starting to finally sit down
Laurie Morgan: together with the coffee in one hand, the water in the
Laurie Morgan: other and the microphone right in front of us. How are you
Laurie Morgan: today? I'm good,
Joanne Lockwood: yeah, I'm having a good week. This is even better, as you
Joanne Lockwood: say. Finally, after much toing and froing and online diaries
Joanne Lockwood: and trying to get this coordinated, we finally made it. So I'm really
Joanne Lockwood: pleased that we can sit down and have our coffee together and a
Joanne Lockwood: chat. So why do we need
Joanne Lockwood: to understand an autistic parent's perspective of
Joanne Lockwood: autism? Right? In
Laurie Morgan: April, I had a book published
Laurie Morgan: called travelling by train, the journey of an
Laurie Morgan: autistic mother. And since it's
Laurie Morgan: been published, it's brought to mind something that I was
Laurie Morgan: already very aware of, that there isn't a lot
Laurie Morgan: of dialogue around about autistic
Laurie Morgan: people as parents. I had one or two
Laurie Morgan: people pick up on it, like little conversations that
Laurie Morgan: happen in Facebook threads.
Laurie Morgan: One or two people have been confused and they've made comments
Laurie Morgan: like, is the child autistic or is the mother
Laurie Morgan: autistic? And it's a
Laurie Morgan: both because people
Laurie Morgan: get confused. There's so much about I'm an autism
Laurie Morgan: parent, I'm an autism dad, I'm an autism mum.
Laurie Morgan: And what that means is that
Laurie Morgan: somebody is saying that I'm the parent of
Laurie Morgan: an autistic child. I mean, we might
Laurie Morgan: jokingly call them autism mamas. And it
Laurie Morgan: indicates more of a type of person
Laurie Morgan: who's kind of hanging their identity on that of their
Laurie Morgan: child. And there's a distinct
Laurie Morgan: definition. There's a big difference between being the parent
Laurie Morgan: of an autistic child and being the autistic parent of
Laurie Morgan: the child. And there's another difference being the autistic
Laurie Morgan: parent of an autistic child or children.
Laurie Morgan: So yes, I'm an autistic parent
Laurie Morgan: and grandparent. I have three adult children,
Laurie Morgan: two sons who were both diagnosed and a daughter who is
Laurie Morgan: not. And I
Laurie Morgan: had an awful lot of people approaching me
Laurie Morgan: through various social media channels telling me their
Laurie Morgan: stories and their experiences of being an
Laurie Morgan: autistic person and being a parent. Now we can
Laurie Morgan: have a lot of these chats in safe spaces
Laurie Morgan: talking to each other. This is autistic conversation
Laurie Morgan: happening about our lives, our jobs, our children, our
Laurie Morgan: struggles, our joys, our traumas
Laurie Morgan: and all this kind of thing. But
Laurie Morgan: that's sitting on the couch of friendship in a safe
Laurie Morgan: space with people we trust, with other people that we know
Laurie Morgan: are autistic, we know their parents and we kind of
Laurie Morgan: just get it. We're sitting within our own community.
Laurie Morgan: There does not seem to be an awful lot
Laurie Morgan: of dialogue about the autistic person as a
Laurie Morgan: parent. And it's everybody's right
Laurie Morgan: to be able to have their own children
Laurie Morgan: and to raise their own families, whether they're children by
Laurie Morgan: birth or their children by adoption.
Laurie Morgan: However we acquire our children, it's a basic human
Laurie Morgan: right, it's actually a basic human need.
Laurie Morgan: And the reason why this came about so strongly is that
Laurie Morgan: in the training that I deliver,
Laurie Morgan: I deliver autism training to various
Laurie Morgan: professionals. I've spoken to parent groups, I've spoken
Laurie Morgan: to parents of incoming students at the university I
Laurie Morgan: used to work at. This is all in the realm of
Laurie Morgan: autism world and all in the role of an autistic
Laurie Morgan: person. And I still hear
Laurie Morgan: people saying that their child has been
Laurie Morgan: diagnosed or however long ago they were
Laurie Morgan: diagnosed. And I was told my child would
Laurie Morgan: never. And then we get a big shopping list of things that they're
Laurie Morgan: never going to be able to achieve, they're never going to be able to
Laurie Morgan: work, they're never going to be able to live independently, they're never going
Laurie Morgan: to form successful relationship, they're never going to be able to learn how
Laurie Morgan: to drive. They're never going to be daddy, daddy, daddy, dad.
Laurie Morgan: All of those things that human beings
Laurie Morgan: expect their children to be able to do. Now I
Laurie Morgan: say in my training, that sets the bar of expectation
Laurie Morgan: very low. If we do not expect
Laurie Morgan: our children to achieve this, why should we bother?
Laurie Morgan: So they're already disadvantaged and it's
Laurie Morgan: a mistake that far too many
Laurie Morgan: professional people make. Whatever realm of
Laurie Morgan: professionalism that they're in is to say, no, your
Laurie Morgan: child is not going to achieve anything.
Laurie Morgan: It's signing them off before
Laurie Morgan: their lives even really begun. And it makes me so
Laurie Morgan: angry. And as a parent, yes, we should be
Laurie Morgan: allowed to have children. They have an awful lot, the
Laurie Morgan: whole parenting. It covers
Laurie Morgan: all sorts of other areas as well.
Laurie Morgan: It challenges autism myths.
Laurie Morgan: Apparently we get told it's a myth that we
Laurie Morgan: lack empathy. It's a myth that we're unable to
Laurie Morgan: form relationships. It's a myth that we can meet other
Laurie Morgan: people's needs and all this kind of
Laurie Morgan: thing. If professionals are being taught
Laurie Morgan: negative stuff about autistic people, then
Laurie Morgan: they come into contact with an
Laurie Morgan: autistic parent, with an autistic
Laurie Morgan: children with an autistic child or autistic
Laurie Morgan: children, they're going to say, well, you're not capable of
Laurie Morgan: raising this child. This child is the way they are
Laurie Morgan: because you are somehow deficient as a parent, whether that's a
Laurie Morgan: spoken dialogue or a written dialogue, or whether it's an
Laurie Morgan: underlying negative belief against that
Laurie Morgan: individual person.
Laurie Morgan: And there needs to be more dialogue about autistic people as
Laurie Morgan: parents. Because if we see the potential of an autistic
Laurie Morgan: person as a parent, there is no reason why this person
Laurie Morgan: cannot become a parent. If we deny them
Laurie Morgan: that possibility, then that puts
Laurie Morgan: that parent at risk. It puts
Laurie Morgan: them at risk of having their children removed. It puts
Laurie Morgan: them at risk of having unnecessary interference from
Laurie Morgan: authorities, from social services. Daddy, daddy,
Laurie Morgan: daddy, dad. And I have come across that a lot since my book
Laurie Morgan: was published. And there does need to be a wider dialogue
Laurie Morgan: of the autistic person as a parent.
Joanne Lockwood: That's fascinating because I think I've
Joanne Lockwood: been subjected to that
Joanne Lockwood: stereotypical view of an autistic person
Joanne Lockwood: because I work a lot with recruiters recruitment process, and there's
Joanne Lockwood: this push on autism awareness. And
Joanne Lockwood: the common thing that comes out is that autistic people, as
Joanne Lockwood: you say, don't have empathy or they are not able
Joanne Lockwood: to speak in any kind of metaphors
Joanne Lockwood: or vague terms. If you say, how are you feeling? That's not a
Joanne Lockwood: good question. That's why I've been told that's not a good question to ask an
Joanne Lockwood: autistic person, or if you say to somebody, tell me about your
Joanne Lockwood: life, that's, again, a bad question for an autistic person, because it needs to be
Joanne Lockwood: very specific about what I'm trying to do. This is how I've been taught
Joanne Lockwood: to communicate effectively with autistic people. And what you're saying is,
Joanne Lockwood: as I've heard of other people say, is if you meet one autistic person, you've
Joanne Lockwood: met one autistic person. Every autistic person is different. Everyone has a different
Joanne Lockwood: layer of need in the same that I'm an individual, you're an
Joanne Lockwood: individual, the world are individuals. We all have to have this
Joanne Lockwood: person centric view of who we are, don't we? And I found it
Joanne Lockwood: very fascinating that because I'm 56
Joanne Lockwood: years old, only 56. And when I was young, we didn't
Joanne Lockwood: have autistic people. We did, but
Joanne Lockwood: we didn't call them autistic, we didn't have people with Asperger's, we had all these.
Joanne Lockwood: We had difficult children, we had children who were unteachable,
Joanne Lockwood: we had the bottom of the class
Joanne Lockwood: corner where children were effectively written off. And it's only
Joanne Lockwood: really been in the last, what, 1520 years, where we've started to
Joanne Lockwood: understand about different learning styles, different communication styles.
Joanne Lockwood: And some of those children who probably in my day were
Joanne Lockwood: written off, simply had either a learning disability
Joanne Lockwood: or were autistic or had adhd, had attention
Joanne Lockwood: deficits and they received no help, whereas at least children
Joanne Lockwood: today are getting their help. So is it because the older
Joanne Lockwood: generation see autism as a young person
Joanne Lockwood: thing, not an old person thing? Which is why you probably don't get the support
Joanne Lockwood: or understanding that you're looking for.
Laurie Morgan: It's a difficult one, isn't it? Because while progress has been
Laurie Morgan: made, there's still an awful long way
Laurie Morgan: to go. I'm a little bit older than
Laurie Morgan: you, but we were brought up in the same
Laurie Morgan: kind of, like, era. I'm
Laurie Morgan: 59, so I related to
Laurie Morgan: what you said about we didn't have autistic children in the classroom. We did,
Laurie Morgan: but we didn't know they were
Laurie Morgan: autistic. I didn't get diagnosed till I was 44 and
Laurie Morgan: it was massively life changing. I
Laurie Morgan: was doing some background research on behalf
Laurie Morgan: of my youngest son who had to move schools.
Laurie Morgan: I don't want to go off on too much of a tangent with that,
Laurie Morgan: but it was after doing some research that I
Laurie Morgan: recognised on behalf of him that I recognised the traits in
Laurie Morgan: me. So, yeah, it was massively, massively life changing,
Laurie Morgan: but there's still an awful long way to go.
Laurie Morgan: A lot of differences have been noted for a long while because as you
Laurie Morgan: were talking, I remembered different things. And
Laurie Morgan: you've got to remember that this is language that was used in the
Laurie Morgan: 1960s, 1970s, because children, for
Laurie Morgan: instance, with other differences like dyslexia, they
Laurie Morgan: were recognised. They were recognised as
Laurie Morgan: dyslexic. But to use words that were common
Laurie Morgan: at the time, please hear that. I've said that
Laurie Morgan: they were seen as a little bit backward
Laurie Morgan: or a bit slow or somehow
Laurie Morgan: deficient, but thankfully this had been a
Laurie Morgan: hell of a lot of progress on that. So being dyslexic
Laurie Morgan: now does not have the same tag attached to
Laurie Morgan: it as being dyslexic did 50 years ago.
Laurie Morgan: So maybe in another 30 or 40 years time,
Laurie Morgan: and hopefully it isn't going to be that long, that
Laurie Morgan: autism will be see in another
Laurie Morgan: more positive light because you said something that
Laurie Morgan: we hear an awful lot. I can hardly ever talk
Laurie Morgan: about autism to somebody new who does not quote,
Laurie Morgan: if you've met one autistic person, you've met one autistic
Laurie Morgan: person. It's one of the most
Laurie Morgan: common things that gets grown up about.
Laurie Morgan: And we would not say that in
Laurie Morgan: any other context. We would not say, if
Laurie Morgan: you have met one Hindu, you have
Laurie Morgan: met one Hindu. If you have met one black person,
Laurie Morgan: you have met one black person. If you have met one
Laurie Morgan: woman, you have met one woman. If you have met one man, you have met
Laurie Morgan: one man. We just don't hear it in any other
Laurie Morgan: context apart from autism. Why
Laurie Morgan: is it only in the realm of autism that we hear
Laurie Morgan: that? And when on the other hand, the same people will say,
Laurie Morgan: they will follow it up the subtitle to if
Laurie Morgan: you have met one person with autism, you have met one
Laurie Morgan: person with autism. The subtitle then goes
Laurie Morgan: into we're all individual, we're all
Laurie Morgan: different. And that's usually said in that kind of
Laurie Morgan: special voice that we usually reserve to somebody
Laurie Morgan: looking at a basket of kittens.
Laurie Morgan: If you've met person, you
Laurie Morgan: met one autistic person. We're all individual,
Laurie Morgan: we're all unique in our own special way. What
Laurie Morgan: a cute basket of kittens.
Laurie Morgan: And in some context,
Laurie Morgan: and too many contexts that happen, and
Laurie Morgan: when you're on the receiving end of that and it's
Laurie Morgan: a professional, do you know that is like the
Laurie Morgan: garage doors slamming. Oh,
Laurie Morgan: by the way, autistic people don't use metaphor, so just ignore
Laurie Morgan: the fact that I said it's like a garage door slamming
Laurie Morgan: because I clearly don't know what that
Laurie Morgan: metaphor might conjure up with anybody.
Joanne Lockwood: Maybe you're not autistic enough, then. Do you have that problem as well?
Laurie Morgan: No, I might only be a little
Laurie Morgan: bit autistic. No. Hang on a second. Hang on a second. But
Laurie Morgan: aren't we all a little bit autistic? Aren't we
Laurie Morgan: all on the spectrum somewhere? And that
Laurie Morgan: leads into that one, doesn't it? Actually, no.
Laurie Morgan: And this is something that I bring up in my, I do this Mythbuster
Laurie Morgan: quiz, and this mythbuster quiz is compiled
Laurie Morgan: over questions that autistic people want to ask
Laurie Morgan: or points they want to raise. And lack of
Laurie Morgan: empathy is one of them. That's the top. Well, you
Laurie Morgan: can hear they all pop out going. You
Laurie Morgan: can almost see people popping on social
Laurie Morgan: media going like, tell them about the lack of empathy. Tell them
Laurie Morgan: about the lack of empathy. That is our number one. Drives us nuts.
Laurie Morgan: It's absolutely crazy. And the other one is, we've autistic.
Laurie Morgan: We are not people with autism. And
Laurie Morgan: it's crazy. It's absolutely crazy. And we are
Laurie Morgan: so passionate about this stuff, whether
Laurie Morgan: not everybody can hop up and down in a chair and wave their arms
Laurie Morgan: about the way I do, the way that I
Laurie Morgan: am, but this kind of
Laurie Morgan: thing matters. No. When I bring
Laurie Morgan: up the stuff about everybody being a little
Laurie Morgan: bit autistic and everybody being on the spectrum somewhere. The
Laurie Morgan: first time I heard that, I was delivering a
Laurie Morgan: workshop to 95 children's care
Laurie Morgan: workers, and that came up and
Laurie Morgan: I asked the question,
Laurie Morgan: so who thinks everybody's a little bit autistic?
Laurie Morgan: And this is the question I put to 95
Laurie Morgan: children's care workers. Nearly every
Laurie Morgan: hand went up. Probably about 90 hands went
Laurie Morgan: up and that I had that feeling. I
Laurie Morgan: could feel my face went cold.
Laurie Morgan: I could barely breathe for that moment,
Laurie Morgan: I was utterly speechless. The
Laurie Morgan: horror that just filled me was incredible.
Laurie Morgan: I thought, are you really being taught
Laurie Morgan: this? And just
Laurie Morgan: somewhere, somewhere out of
Laurie Morgan: goodness knows where, I heard my voice. I heard
Laurie Morgan: this voice from inside me
Laurie Morgan: saying, keep your hands raised.
Laurie Morgan: So which little bit of autistic
Laurie Morgan: are you? If you can tell me, please keep your
Laurie Morgan: hand raised. Not one hand stayed
Laurie Morgan: raised because it's one of those things that people are
Laurie Morgan: taught and they take on board without actually
Laurie Morgan: questioning it. And there's only
Laurie Morgan: ever been one person who's argued with me
Laurie Morgan: in a training session, and she was a consultant
Laurie Morgan: psychiatrist. Now, that's nothing to do with, if
Laurie Morgan: you've met one consultant psychiatrist, you've met one
Laurie Morgan: consultant psychiatrist. Now, I've met a lot, and
Laurie Morgan: most of them are absolutely brilliant, but this particular individual
Laurie Morgan: wanted to argue with me. So
Laurie Morgan: sometimes we just have to draw a line under it and say,
Laurie Morgan: okay, fine, but until you can tell me which little
Laurie Morgan: bit of autistic you actually are, because you
Laurie Morgan: haven't answered my question, then are
Laurie Morgan: we going to have to leave it there and move on? And then I move
Laurie Morgan: on really quickly. And moving on really quickly was an
Laurie Morgan: art I learned when I was a taxi driver. That's another story.
Laurie Morgan: Seriously. This is one of my funny little anecdotes.
Joanne Lockwood: This is like getting stuck into a Monty python sketch without realising it. This is
Joanne Lockwood: absolutely fantastic. Shall I
Laurie Morgan: tell you how I learned to move on really quickly?
Laurie Morgan: I did spend a period of time, about three or four years,
Laurie Morgan: being a taxi driver. And the reason I got to being a taxi driver
Laurie Morgan: was because out of an unfortunate circumstance,
Laurie Morgan: it was a really horribly, terribly stressful and
Laurie Morgan: tragic point in my life. And I'm actually making it sound like a joke, and
Laurie Morgan: it wasn't. I was subject to child
Laurie Morgan: care proceedings. And my two older children hadn't
Laurie Morgan: lived with me from before his birth. They were his half
Laurie Morgan: siblings. And he had an injury, a
Laurie Morgan: non accidental injury, and I couldn't prove
Laurie Morgan: that I hadn't done it. And he was in
Laurie Morgan: foster care and I used to see him.
Laurie Morgan: Sorry, I've got a dog running around underneath.
Laurie Morgan: He was in foster care and I used to see him on Monday and Tuesday
Laurie Morgan: and Thursday and Friday. So I needed a job that was during
Laurie Morgan: the nighttime or at weekends. And I got a job as a taxi
Laurie Morgan: driver. And I thought, social services are going to think, this is really great, dead
Laurie Morgan: positive, all that kind of thing. But no, they said I was putting myself at
Laurie Morgan: risk. Now, had I have got a job during the day, they would have
Laurie Morgan: said, she's putting career before child. So it's not
Laurie Morgan: like I couldn't win. It was just completely
Laurie Morgan: dreadful. But I got a job as a taxi driver and
Laurie Morgan: seriously, and I talk about it in my book, and
Laurie Morgan: it saved my sanity. I did two
Laurie Morgan: really positive things in that awful time. And one was
Laurie Morgan: get the job as a taxi driver and the other one was to start dancing.
Laurie Morgan: And I used to find out that I
Laurie Morgan: got asked out an awful lot to start
Laurie Morgan: off with. Nearly every shift I did, I was getting asked out
Laurie Morgan: like four or five times a week. I'd get asked out on
Laurie Morgan: dates and I kind of started to get a little bit
Laurie Morgan: annoying. I wasn't interested in relationships at the time. I wanted
Laurie Morgan: to focus on what really mattered. And relationships
Laurie Morgan: weren't one of them. And I figured out
Laurie Morgan: that people ask this question,
Laurie Morgan: people. It was usually blokes.
Laurie Morgan: And the quite common question went along the lines of, doesn't your husband mind
Laurie Morgan: you doing this? Or doesn't your boyfriend mind you doing this? And I
Laurie Morgan: used to say, well, I'm sort of like, haven't got a husband or, no, I'm
Laurie Morgan: not in a relationship. And then I'd get asked out.
Laurie Morgan: And that's when I realised that they weren't really asking whether
Laurie Morgan: my husband minded or my boyfriend minded. They were really
Laurie Morgan: asking, are you single now? I was
Laurie Morgan: answering the question that they asked and not the question
Laurie Morgan: that they meant. And this is a completely
Laurie Morgan: autism thing. You ask me the question, you ask me if I
Laurie Morgan: want a cup of coffee, I'll say yes or no. If you're asking
Laurie Morgan: me if I want a cup of coffee because you think it
Laurie Morgan: means you're inviting me in your house
Laurie Morgan: for a fumble on the sofa to Matt Monroe songs or
Laurie Morgan: thing, then it's not going, you asked me for a coffee. You didn't
Laurie Morgan: say, know, take your clothes off, lord, or
Laurie Morgan: anything like that. And I realised that that was what the question
Laurie Morgan: meant. So I learned to move on really quickly and say,
Laurie Morgan: like, well, actually, I don't have one. And then I
Laurie Morgan: change the subject quick. And the invitations
Laurie Morgan: to quiet nights in just dried up, which is quite a
Laurie Morgan: relief. So that's how I learned to move on
Laurie Morgan: from an awkward question. And it does work well in
Laurie Morgan: a professional setting.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I think you're right. When we're training, when we're standing in front of
Joanne Lockwood: people, it's quite easy to get sucked into a black hole if you're not careful.
Joanne Lockwood: Yes. Someone's going to have a question or they'll have a perspective and you get
Joanne Lockwood: dragged into. As you say, it's very important to be able to have an escape
Joanne Lockwood: route out of a conversation, isn't it?
Laurie Morgan: Yes, it is.
Laurie Morgan: It's being able to look at
Laurie Morgan: that distraction over their shoulder and that
Laurie Morgan: nice shiny ball or that lovely view or something like
Laurie Morgan: that, and then move on to something else. But we need to move on
Laurie Morgan: now. We're really short of time. So x, Y and z, you're welcome
Laurie Morgan: to speak to me afterwards. So you're also
Joanne Lockwood: going to destroy the myth that you're not a mathematical genius, then? Is that another
Joanne Lockwood: myth that you try and bust?
Laurie Morgan: Yes, that's on the quiz sheet as well. We're not
Laurie Morgan: all good at maths. It's actually really common.
Laurie Morgan: Some people are really genius with numbers
Laurie Morgan: and some aren't.
Laurie Morgan: I'm not great. It was one of those pain
Laurie Morgan: areas when I was growing up, because my dad was a genius,
Laurie Morgan: literally, and he was literally
Laurie Morgan: a mathematical genius and I
Laurie Morgan: wasn't. I've got dyscalculia, which is the numerical
Laurie Morgan: equivalent of dyslexia, and I've got
Laurie Morgan: no capacity to retain numbers or information and
Laurie Morgan: stuff like that and working out calculations, and it
Laurie Morgan: does affect a bigger area of your life, apparently, it affects your
Laurie Morgan: ability to organise yourself, et cetera, et cetera as well.
Laurie Morgan: It's not just the numbers, it's the other things. But I'm
Laurie Morgan: not great with numbers
Laurie Morgan: and it's not just me, because when I
Laurie Morgan: stand in a training room or in front of an audience, I
Laurie Morgan: know that I'm representing the autistic community
Laurie Morgan: and I say, yes, I'm an
Laurie Morgan: individual, very unique,
Laurie Morgan: but I'm not unique, because if I
Laurie Morgan: say I'm really dreadfully poor at something,
Laurie Morgan: I know I'm not going to be the only one, because I know I belong
Laurie Morgan: to a community where there will be other people who experience
Laurie Morgan: the exact same kind of difficulty as well. So I
Laurie Morgan: feel that I can honour
Laurie Morgan: the autistic community
Laurie Morgan: by speaking, by being a
Laurie Morgan: mouthpiece for us, because
Laurie Morgan: I need to put us across in a positive light.
Laurie Morgan: If I stand in front of an audience and I seem
Laurie Morgan: articulate and I seem capable, that's busting a myth as
Laurie Morgan: soon as I walk in the room, the fact that I open my
Laurie Morgan: mouth and I can string a sentence together when
Laurie Morgan: people have only really come into contact with
Laurie Morgan: autistic people in the context of learning disability,
Laurie Morgan: that's something else that people confuse as well. Autism
Laurie Morgan: is not a learning disability,
Laurie Morgan: and I think a higher proportion of
Laurie Morgan: us don't have learning disabilities than actually do
Laurie Morgan: have. I think the printed statistics,
Laurie Morgan: about 48% of autistic people have a learning
Laurie Morgan: disability. But I actually challenge that
Laurie Morgan: because there are going to be
Laurie Morgan: undiagnosed people out there
Laurie Morgan: who meet the criteria for genius, or average or
Laurie Morgan: above average, who they've never had their autism
Laurie Morgan: diagnosed and they clearly don't fall
Laurie Morgan: into learning disabled, and they won't
Laurie Morgan: appear in statistics any more than they'll appear in
Laurie Morgan: statistics of employment
Laurie Morgan: figures, for instance, or school exclusion
Laurie Morgan: figures, anything like that. If you're not diagnosed, then you're not
Laurie Morgan: going to appear in statistics. It well, then look at
Laurie Morgan: autism.
Joanne Lockwood: People hear these terms, hear the word autism or autistic,
Joanne Lockwood: they hear of Asperger's. Are these
Joanne Lockwood: linked or separate? I mean, there are different conditions or
Joanne Lockwood: different ways people exhibit autism
Joanne Lockwood: to certain degrees or strengths. Is that right? Is Asperger's similar to
Joanne Lockwood: autism?
Laurie Morgan: Actually, I really am so thanks loads.
Laurie Morgan: Very much appreciated. I'm currently
Laurie Morgan: waiting to hear about the tribunal for my
Laurie Morgan: personal independence payment, which I got
Laurie Morgan: turned down for. They decided that I had
Laurie Morgan: to go from DLA to Pip and I hadn't got
Laurie Morgan: assessed. And like most people, you get turned down and they hope you're going to
Laurie Morgan: go away and leave it, but you appeal. I'm going through the
Laurie Morgan: process. And in my PIP
Laurie Morgan: interview, I had this argument with the assessor
Laurie Morgan: because she said, it says, here you have autism and
Laurie Morgan: Asperger's. And I just. No,
Laurie Morgan: it's the same. It's
Laurie Morgan: the same. Asperger's and
Laurie Morgan: autism are used
Laurie Morgan: interchangeably. Asperger's is a
Laurie Morgan: form of autism. It's not used so
Laurie Morgan: much now. I tend to just use autism. And
Laurie Morgan: even on the letter I got from the court, it said,
Laurie Morgan: I got autism and Asperger's.
Laurie Morgan: You don't have both. It's one. It's just one
Laurie Morgan: condition. They tend not to diagnose Asperger's now
Laurie Morgan: because it comes under the umbrella of autism spectrum
Laurie Morgan: disorder or autism spectrum condition, and
Laurie Morgan: there's no difference, because if you look at that, you start looking at
Laurie Morgan: functioning labels all over again. They used to
Laurie Morgan: say Asperger's is a high functioning form of
Laurie Morgan: autism, Asperger's is a
Laurie Morgan: mild form of autism, but they're still saying form
Laurie Morgan: of. It's
Laurie Morgan: still the same thing. And it's
Laurie Morgan: confusing because one of those things that happens is
Laurie Morgan: when we're looking at functioning labels, is that
Laurie Morgan: severe autism,
Laurie Morgan: high functioning, low functioning, severe, mild, all
Laurie Morgan: this thing to meet the diagnostic
Laurie Morgan: criteria, you go through all of the things that
Laurie Morgan: you have difficulties in all the areas that are
Laurie Morgan: problematic. So basically, you have to fit all of
Laurie Morgan: this negative criteria to get your diagnosis.
Laurie Morgan: Now, when you go and look for support, they're not
Laurie Morgan: interested in what you can't do, they're interested in what you can
Laurie Morgan: do. So to fulfil the diagnostic
Laurie Morgan: criteria, it might be, look, I'm absolutely
Laurie Morgan: unsafe to live on my own, for instance, and
Laurie Morgan: then to get support and help, and they'll
Laurie Morgan: say, yes, but you live on your own.
Laurie Morgan: And then they'll see that as it's completely
Laurie Morgan: skewed, it's completely wrong, it's to look for
Laurie Morgan: support. They'll dismiss you as needing support
Laurie Morgan: because of everything that you can do. Now,
Laurie Morgan: let's just say at my end, when you're
Laurie Morgan: autistic and you don't have a learning disability or what people might
Laurie Morgan: call high functioning or whatever, and it's all arguable
Laurie Morgan: and it's terrible and it's offensive to
Laurie Morgan: autistic people. So if you're classed as severely
Laurie Morgan: autistic, then what happens is that they don't
Laurie Morgan: actually look at the things that you're capable of achieving
Laurie Morgan: and they set the bar of achievement incredibly low.
Laurie Morgan: So you're disadvantaged by the functioning labels that we
Laurie Morgan: see, especially when it comes down to
Laurie Morgan: living your life like being a parent, being employed, living
Laurie Morgan: independently or getting support, just being
Laurie Morgan: seen as a regular human being.
Joanne Lockwood: You've been autistic all your life, so you
Joanne Lockwood: can't know what it's like not to be autistic or not to be you. But
Joanne Lockwood: can you imagine some of the additional challenges you've had as
Joanne Lockwood: a parent with children? Obviously, to be
Joanne Lockwood: a parent you have to have children, but to be a parent of both
Joanne Lockwood: autistic children and non autistic children that you've had to
Joanne Lockwood: cope with that maybe other parents don't.
Laurie Morgan: My daughter isn't diagnosed and she doesn't want to go for an
Laurie Morgan: assessment. So in theory, I don't know whether
Laurie Morgan: I've got a child who isn't autistic.
Laurie Morgan: So I've got a bit of a question mark over
Laurie Morgan: that one. I think, generally speaking,
Laurie Morgan: yeah, we kind of think that she is, but
Laurie Morgan: that's fine.
Laurie Morgan: I've never parented any other children apart from mine
Laurie Morgan: either, so it's a kind of tricky one.
Laurie Morgan: I do know that with my eldest
Laurie Morgan: son, I hadn't got very much of an idea,
Laurie Morgan: like, what the hell am I doing here? I've got this small
Laurie Morgan: baby,
Laurie Morgan: okay, what do I do with this? It's like
Laurie Morgan: getting that really useful Christmas present. And you look
Laurie Morgan: at it, you look across at the person who's giving it you and they're just
Laurie Morgan: literally bursting with excitement. They're not literally, let's
Laurie Morgan: say metaphorically bursting with excitement. And they're looking
Laurie Morgan: at you going like, isn't this the best present you ever
Laurie Morgan: had? And you look down at it and go like, what am I
Laurie Morgan: supposed to do with this? And that was what it
Laurie Morgan: was like having a new baby. So
Laurie Morgan: I just kind of grew with him and
Laurie Morgan: I tuned into him. I knew what worked. I
Laurie Morgan: knew this behaviour meant one thing and that
Laurie Morgan: behaviour meant something else. You knew that if he started
Laurie Morgan: to get raggy and irritable, he was probably hungry.
Laurie Morgan: He wouldn't come and say, mummy, I'm hungry. You know, by
Laurie Morgan: his behaviour, he was hungry.
Laurie Morgan: You learn these things over a period of time.
Laurie Morgan: He's kind of like in the way he's under your feet
Laurie Morgan: an awful lot. Just give him something to
Laurie Morgan: do and he's happy. He didn't necessarily
Laurie Morgan: want me to play with him. He just wanted
Laurie Morgan: giving a job to do. So you'd set him up with a task. Get all
Laurie Morgan: the sticky box, stick all the boxes, the glue out, the paint out and
Laurie Morgan: give him some cardboard box modelling to make. He'd be happy,
Laurie Morgan: or you're making bread, just wrap a tea towel round his
Laurie Morgan: tummy, wash his hands, stand him on a chair,
Laurie Morgan: put him at the dining table with a lump of dough, show him how
Laurie Morgan: to do it, leave him with it, happy as you like. And you just got
Laurie Morgan: to know. So that
Laurie Morgan: was my experience of having his child
Laurie Morgan: and we had a few issues when he started
Laurie Morgan: school. He was one of those kids who crawled. He
Laurie Morgan: crawled around on the floor, under the table, he'd roll around
Laurie Morgan: on the cloak room floor, this kind of thing. And he
Laurie Morgan: displayed the sort of behaviour that he displayed at home and I knew
Laurie Morgan: how to deal with it. But I didn't go particularly down well,
Laurie Morgan: particularly at school. I got called into the headmistress's office an awful
Laurie Morgan: lot. And I'd say, well, I've always done an awful lot
Laurie Morgan: with him because when this happens, I do that, it's cause
Laurie Morgan: and effect. He does this, I do that, everybody's happy.
Laurie Morgan: And she said to me, perhaps you've done too much with him, but if I
Laurie Morgan: ignore him, he's just an absolute pest. So
Laurie Morgan: that was how I related to my child. I did not have a good example.
Laurie Morgan: My parents were both dreadful. I was
Laurie Morgan: abused an awful lot, emotionally and
Laurie Morgan: verbally, occasionally
Laurie Morgan: physically. I was hit. My
Laurie Morgan: mom would lose a temper and she'd just launch into me and thump me in
Laurie Morgan: the head and that kind of thing.
Laurie Morgan: So I didn't really have an awful lot to follow. I just learned
Laurie Morgan: from my children
Laurie Morgan: and that was my experience of parenting from
Laurie Morgan: that particular angle. And now I've got different experiences
Laurie Morgan: over the years and I haven't stopped being a parent. My youngest one was nearly
Laurie Morgan: 27 and still learning new things
Laurie Morgan: because his life experience changes. So stuff
Laurie Morgan: crops up when they're adult that isn't going to crop up when
Laurie Morgan: they're five, for instance.
Laurie Morgan: The things that I found difficult were things like
Laurie Morgan: playground conversations with other parents,
Laurie Morgan: going to play groups and stuff like that, or toddler
Laurie Morgan: groups where you're mixing and meeting other parents. And
Laurie Morgan: I didn't know what to do.
Laurie Morgan: I didn't know how to have conversations, didn't know how to
Laurie Morgan: chat. I felt awkward.
Laurie Morgan: Sometimes I couldn't speak, I'd stammer an awful
Laurie Morgan: lot because I couldn't get my words out, which
Laurie Morgan: is sort of thing that generally happens when I'm
Laurie Morgan: feeling incredibly awkward and in a situation that's
Laurie Morgan: difficult for me. And I didn't really ever
Laurie Morgan: make lots of friends
Laurie Morgan: because I didn't really know how to.
Joanne Lockwood: When we were chatting earlier, you were talking about motorways and country
Joanne Lockwood: lanes, which I thought was a beautiful analogy. And as
Joanne Lockwood: you've got older, you've kind of also questioned
Joanne Lockwood: your own sense of self, your identity, your gender,
Joanne Lockwood: et cetera, et cetera. And as you've evolved your own
Joanne Lockwood: sort of identity, you've become
Joanne Lockwood: less able to cope with overload, haven't you? I think that's what you
Joanne Lockwood: were saying. You get too much information sometimes.
Laurie Morgan: I don't know, about being less able. It's more aware that
Laurie Morgan: somebody's not tolerating it. It's not
Laurie Morgan: necessarily coping. I think as
Laurie Morgan: my self awareness has grow, I'm less inclined to
Laurie Morgan: tolerate what I call country lane
Laurie Morgan: talking. And, yes, we were talking earlier
Laurie Morgan: about some of the issues that I have,
Laurie Morgan: and quite often I have difficulty
Laurie Morgan: relating to women because I know it's a
Laurie Morgan: generalisation. It is very much a generalisation.
Laurie Morgan: So if any women are listening and they're being
Laurie Morgan: offended and they're saying, yes, but I'm not like that. Well,
Laurie Morgan: I'm acknowledging that because you've met
Laurie Morgan: woman. One woman, you've met one woman.
Laurie Morgan: You'Ve met one woman. It doesn't mean to say you know them all,
Laurie Morgan: but this is a common experience that I found,
Laurie Morgan: and, yes, I am generally generalising an awful lot,
Laurie Morgan: is that women tend to give you far more information than
Laurie Morgan: you need it. They'll waffle, they'll say
Laurie Morgan: 25 words where one will do, and
Laurie Morgan: it's hard to keep up, it's hard to follow,
Laurie Morgan: it's hard to know, what are you actually
Laurie Morgan: asking? What information are you actually giving
Laurie Morgan: me? And it's sometimes like
Laurie Morgan: people talk a lot and communicate absolutely nothing.
Laurie Morgan: There's one female lecturer, when I was at
Laurie Morgan: diversity, I just couldn't bear going to her lectures.
Laurie Morgan: I took literally what the course leaders said in the
Laurie Morgan: intro before we started uni, and I didn't go to uni till I was
Laurie Morgan: 44, so I was already
Laurie Morgan: theoretically grown up. But I can remember sitting in the
Laurie Morgan: street. I was going to be meeting my
Laurie Morgan: mentor. I remember sitting in a public
Laurie Morgan: street in Sheffield, outside the
Laurie Morgan: library, and it was by the side of one of the
Laurie Morgan: dual carriageways that runs through the middle of Sheffield. And I just sat
Laurie Morgan: there in the side of the street with my back against the library
Laurie Morgan: ball crying. And it's the prospect of going
Laurie Morgan: into this woman's lecture because she just talked talk.
Laurie Morgan: I've got no idea what she's trying to say. And
Laurie Morgan: that's an extreme example of something that I find really
Laurie Morgan: common. And it's what I call country lane
Laurie Morgan: conversation because it goes all over the place
Laurie Morgan: and it takes ages to get to where you're going now.
Laurie Morgan: That's very common in people who aren't autistic.
Laurie Morgan: Autistic people tend to be more motorway thinkers and
Laurie Morgan: motorway talkers. So you don't get the waffle. You
Laurie Morgan: get very direct answers, you get very direct instructions
Laurie Morgan: and it's so easy to follow.
Laurie Morgan: Occasionally you might stop at the services
Laurie Morgan: because you need a bit of a break. But generally
Laurie Morgan: speaking, it's a far more efficient way of communicating
Laurie Morgan: information and it's a
Laurie Morgan: metaphor that autistic people aren't
Laurie Morgan: supposed to know very much about.
Laurie Morgan: We're going to keep coming back to this because it's just poking
Laurie Morgan: a bit. It's just poking a bit of fun at stuff, but
Laurie Morgan: in a light hearted way. I hope anybody listening is actually getting a bit
Laurie Morgan: of a message there. Yeah, that
Joanne Lockwood: autistic people. You've met one autistic person, you've met one autistic
Joanne Lockwood: person. I learned that's a really crass thing to say. Yeah, but
Laurie Morgan: you're saying it more than I am. I know it's a
Joanne Lockwood: crass thing to say. Couldn't we, to put all. I know, Christmas
Laurie Morgan: cracker instead of a joke, is it sort of a Christmas cracker
Laurie Morgan: autism myth and one of them could
Laurie Morgan: it? Yeah. I think many of the autistic
Joanne Lockwood: people who train on autism use that phrase a lot and I think
Joanne Lockwood: training it is. Yeah. I
Joanne Lockwood: can't speak for every autistic trainer or every trainer who teaches autism,
Joanne Lockwood: but I often hear that from people and I hear that about people with
Joanne Lockwood: disabilities and other characteristics. So I think
Joanne Lockwood: it's a Muggle's way of describing people who are
Joanne Lockwood: a Muggle was assumed that they're normal and everybody else isn't.
Joanne Lockwood: When you talk about people with different gender identities, different abilities,
Joanne Lockwood: disabilities, we like to box people in, don't we? We like to
Joanne Lockwood: create this sort of, like, stereotypical view of somebody so
Joanne Lockwood: that we can put them in a box. We can say, well, autistic people are
Joanne Lockwood: like this, trans people like this, disabled people like this, people who are
Joanne Lockwood: deaf are like this, and we like to have these little boxes. It makes it
Joanne Lockwood: much easier to deal with people, doesn't it? And I think what we're
Joanne Lockwood: doing with autism is doing that. We're creating these boxes so we can put people
Joanne Lockwood: in, so we can label people and say, right, that's an autistic person.
Joanne Lockwood: We're going to treat them like a mathematician. They're not going to have any
Joanne Lockwood: empathy, they're not going to want to communicate. If you ask them a question, it's
Joanne Lockwood: going to be very direct and they're going to give you direct answers back and
Joanne Lockwood: avoid eye contact. And that's kind of the rules. It's a
Joanne Lockwood: bit like having a gremlin, isn't it? You can't feed it after ten,
Joanne Lockwood: you can't get it wet, and you can't give it bright light wherever the other
Joanne Lockwood: things is. So we learn about people in these big
Joanne Lockwood: stereotypes. And I think what we're discovering here is that
Joanne Lockwood: we can't be stereotyping people with autism
Joanne Lockwood: because autistic people, because there is no
Joanne Lockwood: typical person in the same way there's no typical other person.
Laurie Morgan: Well, I think if you go back through
Laurie Morgan: the history of the study of autism, and I don't know whether you've
Laurie Morgan: come across the book called neurotribes by Steve
Laurie Morgan: Silberman, it's quite
Laurie Morgan: heartbreaking reading the earlier chapters,
Laurie Morgan: and lights
Laurie Morgan: don't start to come on till quite a way into
Laurie Morgan: the book, so it's really heartbreaking.
Laurie Morgan: But looking back at the original people who were studying
Laurie Morgan: autism, they weren't even trained
Laurie Morgan: psychologists. It's absolutely. They
Laurie Morgan: set themselves up as. And they studied stuff
Laurie Morgan: and they brought papers out that an
Laurie Morgan: awful lot of understanding was
Laurie Morgan: subsequently developed on. And they only looked at boys,
Laurie Morgan: they only studied boys. So for a very long
Laurie Morgan: while, and it's still the case today, it's much harder
Laurie Morgan: to diagnose girls or women because so much of
Laurie Morgan: the information that's out there is based around the study of
Laurie Morgan: males, or typically presenting
Laurie Morgan: males, and
Laurie Morgan: it's very difficult. And the thing is that if you look at
Laurie Morgan: it from an autistic perspective,
Laurie Morgan: if the children in the study are not showing any
Laurie Morgan: empathy from an autistic
Laurie Morgan: perspective, it might be because they don't understand what
Laurie Morgan: they're supposed to be doing in that particular task.
Laurie Morgan: They're too frightened to show any emotion
Laurie Morgan: whatsoever. Because one of the myths is that we don't
Laurie Morgan: show emotions. If you're frightened,
Laurie Morgan: it's difficult to show any emotion. If you're frightened, it's
Laurie Morgan: difficult to take on board any information. And
Laurie Morgan: children were being studied in laboratories under
Laurie Morgan: artificial circumstances. Now, if you're the type of
Laurie Morgan: person who finds those sort of conditions
Laurie Morgan: incredibly difficult to operate under or
Laurie Morgan: think inside, then you are going to present in a way
Laurie Morgan: that isn't normal for you.
Laurie Morgan: So an awful lot of these diagnostic criteria
Laurie Morgan: were set up based on artificial
Laurie Morgan: situations. Now, if children were studied at
Laurie Morgan: home and studied in the natural environment, if they were
Laurie Morgan: watched while they were in the playground or at the park, or
Laurie Morgan: in the classroom, or in the home, or in the
Laurie Morgan: supermarket or walking to the
Laurie Morgan: supermarket, you'd see a completely different picture.
Laurie Morgan: You'd see a completely different picture if you saw the way the
Laurie Morgan: child interacted with their family pets, with their
Laurie Morgan: siblings, with their parents, in an environment that's
Laurie Morgan: actually the one they're used to living in.
Laurie Morgan: And this is where a lot of this absolute rubbish
Laurie Morgan: starts from, and
Laurie Morgan: the things that we impose on people as well.
Joanne Lockwood: So what can we do in the workplace
Joanne Lockwood: or even in society to change the
Joanne Lockwood: cultural perception of autistic
Joanne Lockwood: people? What can we learn? What can I learn from
Joanne Lockwood: today? We can be more motorway,
Laurie Morgan: what job do you want doing? This person can
Laurie Morgan: do this job, so let them do the job. That is
Laurie Morgan: just cutting out a hell of a load of rubbish.
Laurie Morgan: You're not employing somebody to
Laurie Morgan: make friends, you're not employing somebody
Laurie Morgan: who looks like they might be a laugh on a night out,
Laurie Morgan: you're not employing somebody who's great to have a water
Laurie Morgan: cooler conversation with. You are employing
Laurie Morgan: person a to do job a. Person B to do
Laurie Morgan: job b. Why do social skills
Laurie Morgan: matter very much in
Laurie Morgan: any job where it might not necessarily be relevant?
Laurie Morgan: In fact, how relevant is it in an awful lot of jobs? If
Laurie Morgan: you're saying
Laurie Morgan: a social worker visiting a family, you've got questions to
Laurie Morgan: ask. Ask the questions.
Laurie Morgan: Ask the question that you want the answer to, not the
Laurie Morgan: question, and the person gives you the wrong answer because they
Laurie Morgan: didn't guess the right answer.
Laurie Morgan: We can all learn to be a bit more direct. Some of that is
Laurie Morgan: actually part of british culture, and I've
Laurie Morgan: learned that by mixing and meeting with people
Laurie Morgan: from other cultures. Some cultures are very much more
Laurie Morgan: direct. No, if they think you're fat, they're going to say, man, you
Laurie Morgan: look fat. And that's the
Laurie Morgan: way that culture operates. And that is quite a
Laurie Morgan: culture that you can relate to from an autistic perspective,
Laurie Morgan: because you think that person needs to shed
Laurie Morgan: some pounds. But it's not necessarily the comment
Laurie Morgan: that british people would make,
Laurie Morgan: but it's perfectly acceptable. Let's be direct
Laurie Morgan: with people. Let's say
Laurie Morgan: it's the whole
Laurie Morgan: that social interaction thing is a nightmare, because some things
Laurie Morgan: we don't say some things we do say, like, I was just saying what I
Laurie Morgan: was thinking. Well, sometimes it's not relevant. It
Laurie Morgan: doesn't matter. All you need to know, person a needs to
Laurie Morgan: do job a. Nothing else particularly matters. It doesn't matter
Laurie Morgan: how old they are, it doesn't matter what colour they are, doesn't matter what size
Laurie Morgan: they are, it doesn't matter whether they prefer
Laurie Morgan: if they're boys who like to sleep with boys or
Laurie Morgan: girls who like to sleep with girls or they like to sleep
Laurie Morgan: with both or. It doesn't matter. Doesn't matter how
Laurie Morgan: many children they've got, doesn't matter whether they're married or not. No. You
Laurie Morgan: need person a to do Job a. There is too much
Laurie Morgan: in the workplace is where you're taking on a person
Laurie Morgan: who fits in with company culture, and a lot of that's based
Laurie Morgan: on ageing, appearance.
Laurie Morgan: We were all in a young, dynamic team.
Laurie Morgan: You need a young tip. Focus on
Joanne Lockwood: the task in hand and less about the social interactions. It's kind of the
Joanne Lockwood: autistic view of efficiency, if you
Joanne Lockwood: like. Yeah. What job do you want doing? Show me.
Joanne Lockwood: Sometimes when I'm concentrating, that's exactly what I need. I need
Joanne Lockwood: just head down, let me get on with it. Tell me what you need. Let
Joanne Lockwood: me do it. And as you say, I think there's a lot of country link
Joanne Lockwood: conversations where you end up over talking about something, where you end up explaining it
Joanne Lockwood: too much detail. And sometimes it's nice to say, okay, tell me what.
Joanne Lockwood: Where are we going with this? Where we going? Tell me what you're after. Let's
Joanne Lockwood: get on with it. So I completely relate to that. Cash
Joanne Lockwood: into the chase, I think we call it the chase. We can
Joanne Lockwood: flower things up, can't we often think how
Joanne Lockwood: much money we could. Save if we weren't having meetings?
Laurie Morgan: About having meetings, if we
Laurie Morgan: knew. Have you found strengths? Were, have you found
Joanne Lockwood: lockdown? We got a person who's absolutely brilliant at this.
Laurie Morgan: Let them get on with it.
Laurie Morgan: Management. Yeah. So have you found lockdown,
Joanne Lockwood: then? So presumably, like the rest of the
Joanne Lockwood: country, you're often now working from home
Joanne Lockwood: and spending more time at home. Is that more of a challenge for you, or
Joanne Lockwood: do you find that more relaxing because you're
Joanne Lockwood: not dealing with people's country lanes at the
Joanne Lockwood: moment? Country lanes and motorways that.
Laurie Morgan: I've been forced to be more isolated, in a
Laurie Morgan: way. I've had a lot of
Laurie Morgan: personal circumstances going on. How have I found lockdown? You've
Laurie Morgan: got highs, there are highs, there are lows.
Laurie Morgan: I got a one. She's
Laurie Morgan: 16 month old granddaughter
Laurie Morgan: missed her first birthday, missed the opportunity of seeing
Laurie Morgan: her in real life because of lockdown. My youngest
Laurie Morgan: son's partner had a baby during lockdown, and that was a high
Laurie Morgan: point. I've had
Laurie Morgan: a few inquiries about paid work, which
Laurie Morgan: freelance work, which is positive, but I've had
Laurie Morgan: all this stuff that had to be postponed or put on hold,
Laurie Morgan: which has been difficult.
Laurie Morgan: I got to a point of
Laurie Morgan: month six weeks ago where I was realising that I was
Laurie Morgan: getting a lot of anxiety, et cetera, et cetera,
Laurie Morgan: and I decided that I needed to do something about it. So I started
Laurie Morgan: garden projects. Now, I'm not one for gardening, I'm
Laurie Morgan: not one for housework. I just often find it difficult to
Laurie Morgan: know where to start. So with the garden, I started digging.
Laurie Morgan: I started chopping back a lot of stuff that had overgrown
Laurie Morgan: and started digging. And when I started digging, I
Laurie Morgan: saw the next job coming along. Although if I clear this enough, with
Laurie Morgan: my birthday approaching, which is the beginning of July,
Laurie Morgan: I can make this area big enough to pitch a tent in so
Laurie Morgan: that my two older grandchildren can come over on my
Laurie Morgan: birthday and we can camp in the garden and have a barbecue and all this
Laurie Morgan: sort of thing. And the idea started to grow. And this is how
Laurie Morgan: ideas things develop with me. And sometimes it
Laurie Morgan: is the runaway train and I end up taking on more than I
Laurie Morgan: can deal with. I was borrowing next
Laurie Morgan: door's garden waste bin because theirs is paved
Laurie Morgan: over just to put garden rubbish in. And I went around one day to see
Laurie Morgan: if I could borrow it and they got this treasure chest, cardboard box, treasure chest
Laurie Morgan: in the garden on the front step with a postit note
Laurie Morgan: said, okay, can I have that yet? So of course I got hold of
Laurie Morgan: that. I'm going to fill it with stuff like chocolate
Laurie Morgan: money and various bits of shiny, sparkly,
Laurie Morgan: piratey looking stuff and bury it in the garden. So that means
Laurie Morgan: I had to dig a big hole to bury it in the garden, which is
Laurie Morgan: fine because I don't have any lawn at the moment. I can dig up
Laurie Morgan: as much as I like. I can dig a World War I trench if
Laurie Morgan: I want to. It's absolutely fine. So I had this crazy
Laurie Morgan: idea of burying this treasure chest and of course, bury the treasure chest.
Laurie Morgan: I had to make a sort of, like, clues so the children
Laurie Morgan: could run around the house from one clue to the next till they got
Laurie Morgan: to x marks a spot. Now I got a literal
Laurie Morgan: x marks a spot because my little
Laurie Morgan: grandson, who's six, he likes looking at
Laurie Morgan: maps and he was looking at a map one time and
Laurie Morgan: he was looking for something that he called x marks the spot.
Laurie Morgan: Well, let's have a real life x marks the spot. So I crossed two
Laurie Morgan: twigs over, covered it with a map, laid these clues out. I uncovered
Laurie Morgan: the map, found x marks a spot, and I stood there looking at it for
Laurie Morgan: a moment and Olivia said to Mickey, I think we're supposed to
Laurie Morgan: dig. So we got soil flying everywhere. It
Laurie Morgan: was just an absolute total mess. By the end of the weekend, I think I
Laurie Morgan: could have grown potatoes on my dining room floor, there was that
Laurie Morgan: much soil everywhere. But they had a great time and
Laurie Morgan: they have lots of fun when they come over. And I think
Laurie Morgan: that's because I get down on their level
Laurie Morgan: and I see life through their eyes and I think
Laurie Morgan: they're going to love this.
Laurie Morgan: Is that showing empathy, looking at it
Laurie Morgan: through their eyes, thinking, they're going to love this, they're going to love
Laurie Morgan: the treasure chest, they're going to love the camping in the garden, and
Laurie Morgan: it's about designing things around what they are going
Laurie Morgan: to absolutely love. And they enjoy coming over so
Laurie Morgan: much. So that was a lockdown
Laurie Morgan: project and it takes ages. It took hours to dig
Laurie Morgan: that hole and 30 seconds to dig the treasure chest up. But it
Laurie Morgan: didn't matter. It's helping to keep me mentally well and
Laurie Morgan: healthy and that matters. The
Laurie Morgan: children are having fun while I'm looking after my mental health.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I agree completely. Well, you've written your
Joanne Lockwood: book. Just remind the listeners about your book again. So this
Joanne Lockwood: book you've written, what is it about? It's called travelling by train,
Laurie Morgan: the journey of an autistic mother.
Laurie Morgan: It's by me, Lauren Morgan, and that's spelled
Laurie Morgan: L-A-U-R-I-E-M-O-R-G-E-N.
Laurie Morgan: It's published by Panama Press, it's available
Laurie Morgan: on Amazon and other outlets through
Laurie Morgan: Blackwells, through Warstones, directly through
Laurie Morgan: me. I'm guessing that you may well put my contact
Laurie Morgan: details somewhere on your. I will do, yeah. So this book will be
Joanne Lockwood: useful for parents who in the cells are autistic or people who
Joanne Lockwood: want to find out more about autism
Joanne Lockwood: or is it a life biography? Right. It's
Laurie Morgan: a fabulous question and well worth asking.
Laurie Morgan: It's not a book. It's not a book about friends, it's
Laurie Morgan: not a book about autism, it's not a book about
Laurie Morgan: parenting. It is a
Laurie Morgan: personal story
Laurie Morgan: that's written from an autistic perspective.
Laurie Morgan: Through most of the book, it covers a twelve year
Laurie Morgan: period. Some of the time in
Laurie Morgan: it I go into more detail than others,
Laurie Morgan: so it slows down in pace, it picks up in pace
Laurie Morgan: and it raises questions that need to be raised.
Laurie Morgan: Did find myself in circumstances that I
Laurie Morgan: didn't understand and I was responding to
Laurie Morgan: the situation in ways that weren't
Laurie Morgan: expected, and that went against me
Laurie Morgan: and I responded in ways that weren't expected because there's a
Laurie Morgan: prescription, especially when you're coming into contact with
Laurie Morgan: authorities like the social services, and they're
Laurie Morgan: expecting an invisible tick box
Laurie Morgan: to be ticked, and if you're not ticking the tick
Laurie Morgan: box, it's wrong. And I wasn't
Laurie Morgan: responding in ways that they would have expected. So that went
Laurie Morgan: against me. Now, the reason I didn't respond in ways they would have
Laurie Morgan: expected is because I took a lot of what they said quite
Laurie Morgan: literally. They didn't understand
Laurie Morgan: why an intelligent, articulate person
Laurie Morgan: didn't understand what was happening. And that's because a lot of
Laurie Morgan: it hadn't been specifically and explicitly
Laurie Morgan: laid out to me. I'll give you an example that happens
Laurie Morgan: early on in the book I was told that my son had
Laurie Morgan: sustained a non accidental injury. And the first thought
Laurie Morgan: that went through my head was if he was in hospital at the time,
Laurie Morgan: oh, he hasn't had an accident, so he must be ill. He'll get better.
Laurie Morgan: I can take him home. I had no idea
Laurie Morgan: that non accidental meant deliberate,
Laurie Morgan: and it took me a long while to realise
Laurie Morgan: that. And one of the reasons of that was because I
Laurie Morgan: was autistic and another one was because I'd never been in a
Laurie Morgan: situation like that before. Now, it would
Laurie Morgan: also be a confusing thing to say to somebody
Laurie Morgan: if English isn't their first language or
Laurie Morgan: if somebody might have a mild learning disability.
Laurie Morgan: And that's where certain types
Laurie Morgan: of people, certain cultures, are actually
Laurie Morgan: disadvantaged. And this is why this book raises
Laurie Morgan: important questions. We should not make the
Laurie Morgan: assumption that because somebody appears to be
Laurie Morgan: intelligent, they appear to be articulate, or because they're
Laurie Morgan: doing parenting in a way that
Laurie Morgan: seems unusual, that there's
Laurie Morgan: somehow something wrong with that. And this goes right back to
Laurie Morgan: the beginning of our conversation that we were talking about this
Laurie Morgan: when we were talking about
Laurie Morgan: parenting and stuff like that, is that not everybody
Laurie Morgan: takes the same approach. You do get cultural
Laurie Morgan: differences in parenting, and because it's different doesn't
Laurie Morgan: mean that it's harmful, it doesn't mean that it's abusive.
Laurie Morgan: And this is what came out in contact that I
Laurie Morgan: had after my
Laurie Morgan: book was published, from people
Laurie Morgan: saying that they've had these difficulties. They've had those
Laurie Morgan: difficulties simply because they're doing perfectly
Laurie Morgan: brilliant job in a way
Laurie Morgan: that's slightly different, that falls outside, that tick box
Laurie Morgan: type of approach. I completely get what you're saying
Joanne Lockwood: there. When someone says non accidental, what they really mean is a
Joanne Lockwood: deliberate injury. Why don't they say deliberate?
Joanne Lockwood: But I guess the UK culture, the english culture, or the
Joanne Lockwood: NHS culture at the moment is trying to be accusatory. So if someone
Joanne Lockwood: says someone's deliberately harmed this child, that sounds much more
Joanne Lockwood: accusatory than a non accidental injury. So I can see why the
Joanne Lockwood: language. I
Laurie Morgan: said to, I can remember saying at one part, well, why didn't you just say
Laurie Morgan: it was a deliberate. Why did you say it was a non accidental
Laurie Morgan: injury? Because to me, a non accident
Laurie Morgan: was like a non event. I've said this to other people
Laurie Morgan: before, lots of times. I say it in my book, I've said it in other
Laurie Morgan: podcasts. It was like a non accident was the same
Laurie Morgan: to me, in my head as a non event. He was ill, he'd get better,
Laurie Morgan: he'd go home. I was not expecting all the
Laurie Morgan: rest of it. One, because it had never happened to me before. It had
Laurie Morgan: never happened to anybody. I knew it was completely
Laurie Morgan: outside of anything I'd experienced. I couldn't
Laurie Morgan: understand why anybody would even think that I'd want to hurt
Laurie Morgan: my baby. This was my third child. I had
Laurie Morgan: a ten year old, I had a five year old, and I had
Laurie Morgan: a very small baby. Why would anybody
Laurie Morgan: even think that? I've said this frequently. I
Laurie Morgan: don't know. Why would you even think I'd want to do that?
Joanne Lockwood: No, I completely get that. And I think one thing we can all take away
Joanne Lockwood: from this is thinking about the language we use. Are
Joanne Lockwood: we making language more confusing by trying to package it up?
Joanne Lockwood: It is country lane driving, as you're saying, putting too much
Joanne Lockwood: depth into it, rather than just saying it like it is. I completely understand that.
Joanne Lockwood: Sometimes when we're trying to get a message across, we need to be maybe clearer,
Joanne Lockwood: and that is more inclusive for all people, not just people with autism or
Joanne Lockwood: autistic people. It's also people who maybe, just maybe
Joanne Lockwood: from different cultures, they want to be told straight rather than have it flowered
Joanne Lockwood: up and lots of metaphors and descriptions there,
Joanne Lockwood: but I completely get that. Well, thank you for your time today. It's been
Joanne Lockwood: really interesting, and I know I've been laughing and chuckling a lot in the background
Joanne Lockwood: here, as you've been talking. It's been some serious points as well. I've learned a
Joanne Lockwood: lot, and certainly the way I've been talking
Joanne Lockwood: about autistic people, I'm going to change the stereotypes and
Joanne Lockwood: make sure I do some more research now, and it's been really fascinating to listen
Joanne Lockwood: to you about your life and your experiences as
Joanne Lockwood: an autistic parent. So I'm sure our listeners
Joanne Lockwood: will have much to ponder and take inspiration from as well. So
Joanne Lockwood: presumably our listeners can get in touch with you on LinkedIn or through
Joanne Lockwood: your website, which I think is Lauriemorgan Co. UK. That's
Joanne Lockwood: Lauriemorgen
Joanne Lockwood: Co. UK and find you on LinkedIn as well as Lauriemorgan.
Laurie Morgan: As soon as you spell my surname right, you're in know because
Laurie Morgan: it's quite unusual. Google will want
Laurie Morgan: to suggest alternative spellings, but
Laurie Morgan: ignore them, stick with it and. Go for the right spelling and
Joanne Lockwood: they'll find you. Yeah, there's one of you. You know how to spell your Laurie
Laurie Morgan: Morgan, you've met one?
Joanne Lockwood: We sure have. Well, a huge thank you to the listeners who've
Joanne Lockwood: tuned in and listening to this right now. Please do
Joanne Lockwood: subscribe to keep updated on future episodes of the Inclusion
Joanne Lockwood: Bites podcast. That's B-I-T-E-S. Tell your friends,
Joanne Lockwood: tell your colleagues. I have a number of exciting guests lined up that I'm
Joanne Lockwood: sure you'll be inspired by over the next few weeks and months.
Joanne Lockwood: Remember, if you'd like to be a guest on the show, please let me know.
Joanne Lockwood: I'd also welcome any feedback suggestions for future shows how
Joanne Lockwood: we can improve. To
Joanne Lockwood: jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk.
Joanne Lockwood: my name is Joanne Lockwood and it's been an absolute pleasure to be
Joanne Lockwood: your host for this podcast today. Catch you next
Joanne Lockwood: time. Bye.