[00:00:00] Dan: Hello. And welcome back to We Not Me, the podcast where we explore how humans connect to get stuff done together. I'm Dan Hammond.

[00:00:13] Pia: And I am Pia Lee. 

[00:00:15] Dan: For the last time in the season.

[00:00:17] Pia: Oh my gosh. I am genuinely sad when it comes to this point. It's like a, I can't believe how fast it's gone and B it's like. I miss the opportunity to keep talking to these amazing people, but I think we've already lined up season four. So it's chugging along.

[00:00:35] Dan: I think we said before, I learn so much by doing this podcast. Every one of these lovely people we have on the show have something, they, their own unique perspective. They've all tried to do something with other humans and they've learned along the way. And I think just, rather than reading a textbook on teams or something, these people have got it in their heads and it's just been wonderful to to, to them and to experience that.

[00:01:01] Pia: Amazing authenticity. I think that's what strikes me really amazingly authentic humans who've got deep passion and amazing humility all the way through. Every single person that we spoke to. And I've just find that really inspiring.

[00:01:18] Dan: And we get a lot of feedback that people like to listen to the podcast and it feels like it's a fireside chat or something. Well, I think we've had the pleasure of, you know, some of those other armchairs being occupied by some really wonderful people. And we have a great way to end the season, actually. Our guest this week is Ross Fraser. He's an autism campaigner and advocate a downright wonderful human being we're in for a real treat. 

[00:01:46] Ross. Thank you so much for being with us on the show today. We are. We are delighted to have you here. Thank you.

[00:01:52] Ross: Like you have me. I really appreciate it.

[00:01:54] Dan: It's an absolute pleasure. Ross gives a little potted introduction to yourself just to get us all warmed up.

[00:01:59] Ross: Well, I work as a autistic human rights activist for the autistic and neurodivergent communities, trying to create understanding and acceptance. Just show that autistic and neurodivergent people could have a much bigger place in the world if adjustments were made.

[00:02:17] Dan: Well, That is a very nice introduction. We'll hear a little bit more about what you get up to and your background in a few minutes, but no, that's wonderful. I really hope that we can be a part of that. It's a great mission to be on. So, um, but before we get into that, Ross, I'm gonna torture you with the usual conversation starter card game. And so I'm gonna choose a card at random. Um, oh, here's an interesting one. we haven't had this before. No,

[00:02:39] Pia: they are random. It is true.

[00:02:41] Dan: my favorite smell? is 

[00:02:43] Ross: Strawberries, yeah, I think with an autistic mind, we've got stronger senses and a deeper connection to instincts. So things like century input can actually be. Really beautiful at times. And there are a lot of smells I don't like, I must admit, but the smell is strawberries, especially when, I don't know if you get them as much nowadays. But when I was younger, a green grocers walking past the green grocers shop and just catching the smell of all the different fruits and oh yeah. I used to love that, I must admit.

[00:03:18] Dan: That's lovely. And it touched on, it sounds like you have a heightened senses that you can really enjoy that when you get that

[00:03:23] Ross: Yeah. I mean, probably the best way to describe that. Just to give you some idea is I was talking to somebody, you know that scene in the Greatest Showman where everybody's singing This is Me, and it you've got like the five characters at beginning and then everybody else behind them, myself and my friend did a game. We, I think it was named six things or something, and he finished about four. He could only name four things and it was basically the main characters. Whereas I, I kept on going, I think it was about 26 or 27, the time I stopped. And it's just because I my eye scans across everything, picks everything up. So, I don't think you're actually able to be unaware when you're autistic, because even if you're not consciously aware of it, your instincts are getting it anyway.

[00:04:10] Yeah, I do find that certain pieces of music or certain visuals are just absolutely breathtaking. So there, there is beauty in this world that a lot of people seem to miss. I don't ever miss that. 

[00:04:26] Pia: So tell us a bit about you take us into your world 

[00:04:29] Ross: Um, well, I started, I broke my spine in 2007. I met my wife about four months later. We were both in physio at the time and to be honest, I felt like every time I was getting somewhere in life, I got kicked down in the mountain again, and this was one of the toughest times because I'd lost my job, I became homeless again for the third time. I mean, literally going from getting somewhere in life to right back to square one again, every time it happened, I mean, it happened three times in my life. But this seemed the worst because I was now living with a, an injury that I couldn't cope with. Pain levels, which were causing me to have blackouts all the time. And I met this absolutely wonderful woman in physio. Yeah, I might get quite emotional now, but she changed my world. She changed my life. She's just everything to me. We've been married 12 years now, almost 13 years and we've been together 15 years. We've got an amazing daughter. She's autistic and I always of get stuck on that because how do you describe somebody who gave everything you couldn't access to you? My voice, my will, a chance to help people. Yeah. I can't even remember what the question was. My head.

[00:05:51] Pia: no, it's, I'm reaching for the tissues. This is gonna be a good one. 

[00:05:54] Dan: You've, reminded us that angels walk among us,

[00:05:56] Pia: that's right. And so pretty awful to, have an accident and break your spine. But I think what I'm most interested. Your diagnosis of autism was quite late in life. What was it like living without the diagnosis? 

[00:06:12] Ross: You spend 90% of the time being confused. You live in a neurotypical world. I mean, for example, I try and be as open and honest as I can. I'd prefer that it, it feels more natural. I have more binary thought process. And when you're like that, I don't think you want to know you're the villain in your own story, especially if you've got no way of being able to kid yourself that's not the case.

[00:06:38] I just felt that I was stupid, that I didn't really understand what was going on half a time. Teachers would give me these rules as um, I'm more open and honest and I was constantly told I was lying. You just, you're not seen for who you are. And I think the worst thing about that is that you, you see other people in the same view as yourself. So if you don't know you're different, you don't understand that they're misreading you and you're believing what they're saying when they're not believing what you are saying, you lose every part of yourself, you lose any confidence you do manage to build. And I ended up hiding away for 29 years cause of it, trying to avoid people in society as much as possible. Cuz it just felt like I was always doing and saying the wrong thing, but nobody would ever explain to me why. That was the worst thing about it. So every misunderstanding I had had would get stuck in my head. Every time I said something somebody would say was rude and offensive and I didn't get the reason behind it, it just tears you up inside. You feel that there's no place in the world for you to be honest. And that this is what brought me to become an autism advocate. 

[00:07:50] This is why I fight every day for the community, because we're a population of about 5 million people. And I would guarantee if you asked 90% of autistic people to communicate, they would say they felt alone most of their life. And that just does not feel right to me. We've got this huge population, but everybody feels isolated because we're not getting the support we need. We're not getting the understanding we need. We're viewed for somebody who thinks in an entirely different way. I mean, I know a neurotypical person has layers to their thoughts and they have these, I don't know, other areas to the way they can think that I just can't access that I don't think, but I couldn't tell you what it is. I can't wrap my head around that because it's just completely foreign to me. you know?

[00:08:41] Dan: And what was the impact, Ross, of getting your diagnosis?

[00:08:45] Ross: We fought for about a year to get a diagnosis. We ended up having to go private in the end. My family very kindly got money together. So we could do that. I was terrified. O, honestly terrified because if that wasn't the answer, I didn't know what was. And I really needed an answer. I needed to know what had been going on in my life.

[00:09:05] So getting the diagnosis was the key to be able to unlock my head, to be able to actually find out what had happened and why. And I spent the next nine months essentially just going through every memory I could access, trying to figure out what had happened in situation, what caused the misunderstanding, what was said, what was done, analyzing every memory I could get, basically. And it gave me such a deeper understanding of who I was, that when I went online and they started explaining these things, I suddenly found myself in a position I never expected because a couple of months in, and I'm getting messages from all over the world, I'm having people contact me saying that my writing's helping them understand themselves or the child, that I'm giving people pride in who they are and hope. And for the life I've had being able to do something like this is just amazing honestly.

[00:10:11] If my life and all the pain that I've been through, physical and mental, means that other people don't need to experience that, that things are gonna change, then that's a life will lived for me. I can quite happily live with that. What I couldn't have lived with was the life I had before. That was becoming very difficult to keep going with.

[00:10:34] Pia: I mean, incredible isolation, Ross. That's what I, I get from, from what you're telling there that, and complete misunderstanding. 

[00:10:42] Ross: to be honest with you, I've lived more time in a box than Buzz Lightyear has. So, you know, you can take that from what you want, you know?

[00:10:50] Pia: quoted the series that is.

[00:10:51] Dan: I think so. I think so. And your, um, well, just, just little segue, but it sounds like your diagnosis is taking you to infinity beyond um, in, in a very good way. 

[00:11:01] Ross: I like how, 

[00:11:02] Dan: from inside the box, but the um, you know, we're all about how humans connect and I mean that 

[00:11:07] Ross: can I say something controversial? I'm not sure humans do really anymore. I mean, I could be wrong in this, but there seems to be more and more superficial conversations as time goes on. People are putting up more walls and it makes it harder to even know who somebody is, nevermind actually get to connect to them. We seem to be separating as a humanity where we're apparently connecting more online. And I do find that really difficult to wrap my head around. 

[00:11:38] I mean, I I was hearing something the other day that somebody had an epileptic fit and it was about a dozen people walked past them before somebody went to check on them. That's not a world that I ever thought we had, and that's not a world that feels very connected when it comes to people, which is a shame because we do have an opportunity now with the internet to bring people together in a way that's never been done before in humanity. And I really hope that it's done. I really hope that people do start connecting more because there was a quotes online that said that everybody in this world's a bit broken, so be kind to everyone. And you know, maybe people reading that or are reading that, be kind to everyone bit. I'm reading that we well make the world right if everybody's a bit broken by it, you know? I don't think we did. I think that the number one value of this world should never be money, should never be property, things, land, it should be people, full stop. And when it comes to me and the way my mind works and the way my mind's defined, that's never, ever gonna change.

[00:12:50] Dan: And that makes it even more challenging to think of the the being the box that loneliness that you said that you and the rest of the community experience. I mean, that, I think we would agree by the way that, that we are in danger of becoming disconnected. That's the situation we're in, and we hope we're on a, on a mission here to try to bring people back together. But your community starts a long way behind if you in a way in sense of just feeling, feeling so alone. I think that's first barrier just to even feel involved, I guess, just to feel a sense of belonging in the, with the wider society.

[00:13:22] Ross: Yeah, I think that the big problem when it comes to that is simply you don't see yourselves. I mean, there's not autistic presenters on TV. There's not autistic therapists on daytime TV. The shows that have autistic characters, usually aren't stated. And even when they are they're either are played by an autistic person, but written by a non-autistic person, or there's just been very little actual involvement from the community at all.

[00:13:53] When it comes to music, I mean, I've been on a mission to try and create music for the autistic community because stated it doesn't exist. There, there isn't any commercial songs stated to be about an autistic experience. So how do you feel that you're part of the world when you just never see anyone like you? And I think that's where media's made a huge mistake because autistic people neurodivergent people need access, otherwise children are always gonna grow up thinking they don't belong. And I'm really fighting the tears on that one because my daughter is included in that, you know, and there's, we're a population of roughly about 5 million people, I would say. That's probably growing day by day. And if things don't change, then how do you expect how we react to the environment, how we see the world, how interactions are for us to change, and how do we expect lives to get better? 

[00:14:59] Pia: And Ross, you talked about a neurotypical and then neurodivergent. Help me understand and help our listeners understand the differences in the brain and the mental processing. You talked about accessing all your memories and when you were saying that I was thinking, my god, I feel so amnesic I can't remember anything. So I wouldn't be able to do that very well, but what, what actually goes on, take us into your, the being of your own brain.

[00:15:27] Dan: Into your mind palace. 

[00:15:29] Pia: Yeah. 

[00:15:29] Ross: I, I think, I mean, I, I theorize that the main differences between a neurodivergent and a neurotypical mind is that a neurodivergent mind has instincutla, our instincts are confined to the right hemisphere. And so we've got an instinctual brain and a conscious brain. At least that's the way I believe based on the way mine works. And it means that when I'm settled, I have access to instinctual memories. My first memory, I remember having this conversation with Mum. Was, I remember this huge mural Lee painted on the wall of Winnie the Poo, Mum. It was brilliant. She said that was your wallpaper and we got rid of that when you were six months old. So I actually, and I do remember, and I said to Mum, which way did you have me in the cotton? And she said, you know, feet facing the wall. And then said, then Winnie the Poo was over here on the wall and they had a night cap and it's like, yeah. I was like, okay. Yeah, well, I remember that. So.

[00:16:26] Dan: Pretty good.

[00:16:27] Ross: I, I can access a huge amount of information. I mean, once I understand something, it gets stored in instinctual memory banks, it gets labeled and put away. And when I need it, I can access these things. But if my mind's defensive or protective, I can't, I can only access my conscious memory, which is pretty poor, to be honest with you.

[00:16:53] I kind of going from having incredible memory at times to having very much none, depending on where my head's at. And that's very rarely on me to control. I have to control environment, have to try and avoid. Getting some sensory overwhelm. I have to try and avoid negativity, anything that crashes my mind really, just to be able to access this access, my ability to communicate and talk openly.

[00:17:20] If I can control my environment, if I have that choice and it's not controlling me, I absolutely love being autistic. I wouldn't change it for the world. I'm very creative. I can problem solve a lot better than most people, because I think I just do it in a different way. I look at what the problem is, and instead of going back to the beginning and working towards that, I look at what avenues would take me to the solution. And then at the end of the day, there's only going to ever be a finite amount of solutions or, or chances you have to solve something. So I look at what possibilities they are, and then I look at the probability of how easy it will be to achieve that. So I always kind. Have solutions to problems before I have an actual solution, because that's just how I problem solve. You know what I mean? And I think the best thing about that is that you will always find a solution. Sometimes they're not brilliant. You may not have a lot of choices, but you're always gonna find some way of moving forward. And that's possibly why I've managed to do what I have in, in less than two years is, I don't stand in front of a brick wall very long. I'll find a way to move out my way or move around it. And I will we'll keep going.

[00:18:34] Dan: I mean, these sound like really good, handy attributes for someone as a colleague or a team member or a member

[00:18:40] Ross: Well, I can give you an example of a time that I used it. I was working as a chef and the plunger for the sink had disappeared. We didn't know what it was. We had a queue literally out the door. No clean dishes and we needed to get these dishes cleaned to so we could get customers in and out. So I said to L within about two minutes of them telling me the problem to go and get an industrial toilet roll tube, to go and get some cling film, a rubber band and some balloons. And what I did is wrap the tube in cling film, I got the balloon, I blew put it, attached it to the top with the rubber bands, then put it over the, the sinkhole and let go of the balloon. All the air force down, unblocked the sink and within five minutes we were washing dishes again. And everybody's standing me there looking like, you know, I've just turned water into wine. You know what I mean? I mean, that to me was a very logical process. I knew what needed done. I knew that there was only possibly maybe five solutions and I had to find something that worked. But this is just the way my main process of information is when I'm settled, it can go through huge amounts of information in a very short amount of time, but you're using all your energy. You're using all your mental processing power. So it's quite exhausting at the same time. At the end, you just feel like you run a marathon while you know, doing um, series of math calculations, do you know what I mean?

[00:20:04] Dan: Yes. Yeah. And what do you need from others, Ross, when you are working with them?

[00:20:09] Ross: The thing I love about the autistic community is that we have special interests. We have areas that our minds connect to, and they'll be different from person to person. Mine seems to just be factual information. I, I like finding out about factual information or history about real people, real situations.

[00:20:32] One of the ones I really enjoyed a film recently called Best of Enemies. And it was about a Klu Klux Klan Klansman and a black civil rights activist. True story, and just wonderful, that shows you how people from completely different walks of life can actually connect, can actually come together. That differences essentially sew the, the world's garden. Differences don't need to be seen as a negative thing. I kinda love that we have a world where viewpoints are like passports. It doesn't matter that someone's comes from someone somewhere else. They're all valid. Somebody's viewpoints should be valid just because they have it, 

[00:21:17] Pia: And when you are working in a team, Ross, what are the ways that you bridge that gap between your own neurodivergence and other pupil's neurotypical behavior?

[00:21:32] Ross: Yeah, my best advice would simply be when it comes to an autistic person with a much more binary thought process, just don't add layers to who we are. Just take us as very straightforward, direct, and we can be very direct, trust me on that one. Blunt would occasionally be used. But yeah, we're just, I think the problem often comes when you get the complexities of a neurotypical mind put onto a viewpoint of a who an autistic person is. And the really sad thing is most of the time, if you just take us on face value, you are seeing who we are, and I think that's important. 

[00:22:10] The other thing as well is that it can require small adjustments. Myself, I like isolation. I like quiet when I'm writing. I need to be able to be in my head as much as possible. When you've got century input that can knock you out very easily. And like I said, with myself, you've noticed with the pink and can knock me quite easily as well. I think having just an ability to be able to make these adjustments without being looked at as strange or weird, or odd because we need something different. 

[00:22:44] I mean, my teammate, Jenny Curtis in America, when she's on a video, she'll have like, um, eye mask on and she'll have headphones on. She'll essentially be isolated from the world. It'll be her and the camera. She doesn't faulter. She is always on point. In fact her, she probably would've been a better person to interview because she can stay on point longer than I can most of the time.

[00:23:07] But yeah, we need these little adjustments. They're not being picky. They're not being, too precise. Somebody said to me, oh, you've been too precise, you just kinda let it go? But I have a precise mind. I need precision. I need information and environments that are given to me in a certain way. Otherwise I don't cope, because you're essentially saying the way my mind processes, the way I regulate doesn't work because it's not the same as someone else.

[00:23:41] We need to understand that people are different and actually start pulling back a little bit and rules and maybe put more guidelines in place. And saying, I mean, if I, if I had a workforce, the first thing I would do would base it on productivity. If somebody can do, you know, a 40 hour work or whatever in this or that kind of workload in the space of 20 hours, dude, you earned your time off. Go and chill, spend time with the family. I wouldn't push people to breaking point. The world seems to do that a lot. I mean, especially in high pressure jobs as well. I understand the point of some, not many, but I do understand the point of some, like doctors, nurses, things like that. I don't understand putting somebody in an environment where they're going to be pushed a breaking point, and if they're neurodivergent or if they're autistic and they're undiagnosed, chances are there are gonna be ones that pay for that.

[00:24:39] We could have a lot better world, but it needs to go understanding that people aren't machines. We can't keep getting pushed to breaking point without losing a lot of what makes humanity human.

[00:24:52] Dan: And I'm just reflecting on the conversation, Ross, and it's been a, a real eyeopener for me. And I, I think just talking to you, I hope will help our listener to sort of, for a start, really think about the community that you serve and, and the people, you know, your daughter and so on, help them to feel accepted. But also, it just occurs to me that by thinking in this way, I think it can help us to take those same learnings to everyone. Everyone has some sort of needs, they can contribute special things, and starting to see everyone as an individual and give them that. I think we can take the lessons that you are teaching and apply that in all of our human interactions. And I think that's a huge gift. 

[00:25:34] Ross: I think it just takes understanding that we could do tiny things that would. Huge difference in people's lives. And I'll leave you with this. If you don't mind that during COVID, there was lots of companies suddenly went to, half staff, quarter staff. Some companies went out of business because they didn't have the staff to keep it going. But why wasn't the floodgates opened for disabled people? Why weren't online jobs, training access, given that would allow people that maybe hadn't worked in 20 years, a chance to provide for the family? You know, little adjustments can be made and they can make the world a much better place. And it just takes thinking what someone else needs, I guess. 

[00:26:21] Pia: I think that's a very good point to leave We Not Me today. So thanks Ross. Thank you so much for sharing and you, you know, we're just amazing authenticity and we just really appreciate it. 

[00:26:37] Thank you so much.

[00:26:38] Ross: Thank you 

[00:26:39] Dan: Thank you, Ross. 

[00:26:43] What Ross said there about, you know, his contentious comment, he thought about humans actually not connecting well, you know, I think that's something that we've been acutely aware of in the, in the last, last years. That we're just in a way getting worse potentially at connecting as humans. And to do that at the heart of that, we've got to treat each other with respect and as individuals. And I think Ross really shed some light on that for all of us.

[00:27:12] Pia: And it was really great that he challenged that and he named it. He said that he said uh, beautifully that Part of being autistic is being blunt. So it was great. Just came straight to the point and told us. And I think it was a really interesting insight. And it struck me that once awareness builds, we can see that neurodivergence is probably more prevalent than we've ever seen, but it gets, it caused me to sort of think. Who is neurotypical fully like neurotypical, you know? or do we, is there just a lot of gray in between where, you know, we might all feel different for different reasons? And as you said before, we need compassion and care and curiosity about that, not judgment, and to embrace it. 

[00:28:01] Dan: And I think, yes, indeed. I think we talked about this a, on a show before, but um, it can be immensely sort of overwhelming if you think, oh, I've now got to understand autistic people, people with Aspergers, people with who are bipolar what, you know, all of these things, actually it's not about that. It is about being curious, isn't it? And compassionate. If you can do that, then you can deal with any human and you can really help them. But also you can receive the, the, the unique gifts. You know, you can, because clearly Ross has special things to offer in any relationship. And um, and if you have those qualities, rather than trying to be an expert in all these different conditions, et cetera, that to, to actually have that core of compassion and curiosity, you can go anywhere with that.

[00:28:46] Pia: And that's a key element of connection. And he put it very succinctly at the end. He said, you know, that this is what makes humanity human. and we're all hugely different. Sometimes flawed, you know, but that Of course not. And I think that's such a, such a great thing because I think that the more that we lean into that, in that slightly messy imperfection, then we actually see the beauty of humanity. So, I think he left us with such a strong tone. And we'll carry that in these sad weeks when we are not

[00:29:21] Dan: in between. Yes,

[00:29:23] Pia: be back.

[00:29:24] Dan: It's a wonderful high, but that is indeed it for this episode, and for this season. We'll be back in September, but in the meantime, you can find show notes and resources at spotify.net. Just click on the We Not Me podcast link. If you've enjoyed the show, please do share the love and recommend it to your friends. They've got plenty of time to catch up on all the episodes before the next season begins. Um, also please do give us a rating on your favorite podcast platform. You can also contribute to the show by leaving us a voice note with a question or a comment or a suggestion for a topic to cover in the next season. Just find the link in the show notes. We Not Me is produced by Mark Steadman of Origin. Thank you so much for listening. It's goodbye from me.

[00:30:07] Pia: And it's goodbye from me.