Thoughts on the Fixers video

Hello, Kobi

I spent a large part of last week thinking about the tone of the video and have a few thoughts.  I thought I'd share some notes with you, to see if you broadly agree on the approach I've been thinking of.  Some of these thoughts are my own, but I really like the suggestions you made last Monday.

I was also thinking of the type of endorsement that would really be cool.  I have absolutely no idea how practical this is, but I suddenly thought of Pamela Stephenson.  She definitely bridges the gap between media celebrity and mental health professional.  I know that autism is a neuro-developmental issue, rather than a mental health one, but it can have mental health consequences, so I believe she would be a great person to provide an endorsement.

Anyway, these are my thoughts -

Scenario - Could be anywhere.  In my home, or in a studio, or anywhere.  Talking to camera.  Cut between close-ups of my face and some further back angles.  Not rapid cuts, though - those can be distracting.  Just something to make it all a bit less static.  Perhaps intercut with bits of cartoon animation or stop-motion animation (Kobi's suggestion) to create a visual display of some events.  Makes everything less solemn and more cheerful.  I really don't want to dwell too much on the darker aspects.

Interview type setting?  Someone asks questions, so I'm talking to a person rather than a camera.  Feels more natural.

Describe how I first suspected I had autism.  How I read about it and felt a real sense of vindication, when I realised that a lot of the things that had defined me and created challenges for me had been related to the condition.  Describe the very inaccurate statements that gave me doubts -

"Autistic people have no sense of empathy."

"Autistic people have no sense of humour."

Describe first doctor's attitude, when I approached him for a diagnosis.  His own preconceptions were completely inaccurate and as a result of his misunderstanding of the condition, he simply belittled and dismissed me.

Describe car accident.  Leading to consequences that were initially very negative.

Loss of job and career

Loss of flat

Loss of property

Describe how I dealt with a massive increase in spare time.  Too many hours with nothing to do, leads to discovery of Photoshop and digital editing.

Describe the impact of my loss of professional career.  Transitory sense of worthlessness.  How that led to me turning back to something I had done when I was younger - I returned to life modelling for something to do while I figured out my next step.  Got my own business as a result.

Describe how PTSD made me approach a therapist (Paula Bell) who recommended I be referred to a specialist (Doctor Wheeldon of Ballenden House) who gave me my diagnosis.

Overview - 2009 started out as an absolute bitch of a year, but ended on a high note, with a fresh perspective, a new creative outlet and a new direction to move in.

Talk about Number 6.  Their role in my understanding of autism.  Leading to my looking for support in developing my business, but encountered dead ends.  Talk about how most autistic people are unemployed.  Talk about how the condition is misunderstood.  Talk about how autistic people should be heard.  How they could have valuable contributions to society, if they had support.

I'm very aware that they could do with being tidied up a bit, but this is just a rough, early draft.  And I'm also aware that it might be a lot of information to impart in the very short time we have for the video.  I hope it helps, though.

See you tomorrow.

Graham

Reward of all my efforts, my own limited company

It's amazing to me that I got into this business.  The hen night life modelling.  On Monday, Kobi told me that he particularly liked the way I'd rebuilt my own life after the car accident.  Everything had come crashing down and I'd fixed it myself.  He also appreciated the fact that I'm volunteering at Crew 2000.  I've been helping to promote a cause that I believed in.

It's tempting to think that way.  To flatter myself and run with the self-promotion.  But there was a lot more to it than that.  If I hadn't moved back in with my parents and had them take care of the immediate problems - food, shelter and basic survival - I would have kept sinking.  If I hadn't had help from the Cyrenians, I wouldn't have found my flat.  If I hadn't had help from Number 6, I wouldn't have had something to occupy my time and would have still been pretty ignorant about the realities of autism, or would have been stumbling around from one misleading website to another.

And if my mum hadn't loaned me the subscription fee to the RAM website, I wouldn't have started working as a life model.  Which means I wouldn't have proven myself to be capable of sourcing venues, running classes, ordering sketchpads, recruiting staff and a couple of other little details.  So I wouldn't have been offered the business.

I could go either way on that one.  I had definitely demonstrated capabilities, but there wasn't exactly any competition this far north.  I was the only person around.

I've never understood quite where the fine line is between being arrogant and smug about my achievements if I give myself too much credit, or demonstrating a low self-image if I don't give myself enough.  Personally, I think my self-image is pretty good, but I do still like to acknowledge other things that have contributed towards my successes.  This is particularly apt, considering the Scottish school system back in the '70s and '80s were full of teachers who were only too keen to "take you down a peg or two" if they thought you were being too complacent.  And they had a pretty relaxed definition of terms like "complacency" or "arrogance" or any term at all that implied that we students were even remotely pleased with our achievements.  So, some of us learned to demonstrate humility, before we had it thrust upon us.

Anyway, it definitely helps to emphasise that I was in the right place at the right time, so sometimes there's just no substitute for sheer, dumb luck.  Especially since - much more literally - earlier that same year I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.  And that car crash, as usual, was the catalyst that led to this position.

So, I found myself in a tough situation, I went back to basics, found an interesting variation on an old theme, ran with that for a while, was offered a good break, grabbed it and started to move on.  A lot of that definitely is down to my own efforts and innovations.  But those efforts would have been useless if I hadn't ever been given the opportunity to use them.

First meeting with Kobi

I've finally got a meeting arranged with Kobi.  I'm going to see him at BeanScene coffee shop on Monday afternoon.  This could be good.  Seems there might be more resources available than I first anticipated, depending on the target audience.  Very professional glossy booklets - things like that.  Posters in bus shelters.  I'm not sure either of those will be offered to me, but I'll definitely accept anything that sounds realistic.  This could be amazing.

He's talking about maybe suggesting I can give talks to medical professionals.  I'm not entirely sure about that, because I don't know what I can tell them that they don't already know.  But it's a possibility.

More than anything, I want to be promoted somehow.  The autism primarily, since that's got the message and the authenticity.  But that can segue into high autistic unemployment rates and my own business venture - making me a potential success story.  So, with luck, promoting the business could easily be a secondary element to the promotion.