Advocating Neurodiversity During COVID-19, with Jude Morrow | EDB 230
Irish autism self-advocate, author, and speaker Jude Morrow returns to discuss spreading neurodiversity awareness during the pandemic.
(VIDEO – 19 minutes) Jude is the author of the Amazon best-seller “Why Does Daddy Always Look So Sad?”, and is the CEO and Founder of Neurodiversity Training International.
For more about Jude:
https://www.neurodiversity-training.com/
https://www.facebook.com/judemorrowauthor
https://www.instagram.com/judemorrow/
https://twitter.com/judemorrow10
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FULL TRANSCRIPTION
HACKIE REITMAN (HR):
Hi, I’m Dr. Hackie Reitman. Welcome to another episode of Exploring Different Brains. And today, we’re having my friend from Ireland returned to us, the famous Jude Morrow, a dad, a self advocate, autistic, wonderful, and going out and spreading the good word about neurodiversity and tools we can use. Jude, how are you?
JUDE MORROW (JM):
Thanks so much for the kind introduction. I’m not sure about the famous part. But yes, indeed I am Jude Morrow. And I’m doing really well. It’s been. It’s been a bit of a war one year, a lot has went on since the last time we spoke, which I believe was last June. So yeah, a lot of exciting updates and progress. Since then, I have to say,
HR:
Well introduce yourself properly so that those new viewers and listeners can know about you?
JM:
Well, my name is Jude Morrow, and I am an autistic social worker, author, and now just turned entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of Neurodiversity Training International, I decided to write my story called “Why does daddy always look so sad”, because I am an autistic dad to a non autistic son. So I thought that I would change the narrative a little bit and give a perspective on parenting through the autistic lens. And at the time Hackie when we last spoke, I had self published the book, because at that time, whenever I submitted the delivery agents, nobody really wanted it. So I thought, I’m going to go on ahead and publish the book anyway. But after I had released it, and had climbed up the Amazon charts so much that I got a literary agent who’s based in California, Deborah Jacobs, who’s incredible. And the book was taken on by Beyond Words Publishing the publisher of “The Secret”. So between August of last year, and the start of this year, we’d worked on re releasing the book, getting all the promo behind it, getting everything up to scratch, ready to go. And then of course, it was scheduled for release, and the seventh of April 2020, which was paired along with a trip to the Bay Area to do a guest lecturer at Stanford, or to a couple of book signings, couple of meeting, autism and neuro diversity groups. Of course, the world then decided to end due to COVID. So none of that actually happened. But I made good use of the lockdown time by establishing NTI, which is a training platform delivered by an autistic person using research that primarily involves the autistic community. So it’s a real kind of look into what autism is through the eyes of people who live with it everyday, not just the eyes that look at it from the outside.
HR:
Yeah, it’s so– it’s just so much better I feel to have the self advocates point of view than all of the so-called experts talking about it. Of course, both are, are good. But I’d much rather hear it from you now. Tell us about your fatherhood.
JM:
Well, fatherhood wasn’t always easy for me, it’s not I don’t think it’s necessarily easy for every single father that joins the parenting kind of cause for the first time. But whenever I learned that Ethan was coming along, at that time, I didn’t accept the fact that I was autistic myself, I thought it was something for little people. And because I had a job, and a girlfriend, and a car and my own house, that I thought that I had somehow left the autistic side of me behind. Although becoming the father really blessed me with two things. Last year with my son, Ethan, who’s no seven, and it made me realize that I had to accept and love myself for who I am and not suppressed and hated any longer. Because as I grew up, I always knew I was different. I’m autistic. And I was aware of what people write me sad, I was always a kid lay aware of the concerns that my parents had for me, like, What’s life going to be for Jude when he grows up? And will God ever get a job or have a family of his own. And of course, I did do all those things. But whenever Ethan was born, Ethan doesn’t eat the same things all the time. He doesn’t enjoy the same activities all the time. And like the rigid routine, which I have, which I had developed as a coping mechanism, to the point where he asked what well hopefully become the most iconic question in all of literature, which was, why does daddy always look so sad, because even as a three year old boy, he could see that, that kind of challenge or fatherhood, on the challenge of trying to suppress who I really am, was so evident on my face that he could actually say it and I suppose that was the cheesy inspirational speaker moment that I had to make changes and hopefully create a better environment for people coming after me to accept themselves much, much earlier in life.
HR:
The inspiration that one’s child is able to give one is quite amazing. It’s one of a kind, one of a kind.
JM:
Absolutely So, so aware, he knows me. So well we’re like two peas in a pod. And that’s, it’s a nice. It’s a nice little arrangement that we have, because he lets me under his word, because it’s a word that I don’t really know much about. And the ultimate level of like a father son relationship, he has a different way of perceiving and interacting. He lets me on there. So he knows I’m not like him. Every now and again, I let him into my universe as well. And I think he likes him for the most part.
HR:
Tell us about your relationship with your parents, when you were growing up.
JM:
My parents are the gold standard and what every parent should adopt. Whenever they have a little plastic or any neurodiverse child in their household. They never let me use being or plastic as an excuse. They never used to mollycoddled me or they never used it to ship overly shelter me from independence, because I’m the youngest is only me and my sister. And they always have this wonderful idea that whenever both of their children grow up that they would have their newfound freedom and independence. And they taught me independent loving skills. They taught me to stand on my own two feet, but most importantly be proud of who I am. No, we do have a special guest who has joined us. This is Ethan who has come in for a nosey. This is the famous child that asked “why does daddy always look so sad” . Here he is Halloween fun.
HR:
He’s been so good to see it. I’m Hackie
JM:
Give Hackie a wave.
HR:
Ethan, I heard a lot of great things about you, Ethan.
Yeah, he has heard a lot of great things about you. Whenever I talk to different people talk to different groups do interviews like this. Ethan always wants to know. Yes. So this is Dr. Hackie Reitman, and he is a big, big fan of yours.
HR:
Absolutely. You’ve a lot of fans out there in the world.
JM:
Ethan does have a lot of fans. Whenever Ethan and I go to groups. That’s Ethan, who they want to make. Even whenever people want to interview me. It’s Ethan, who they want to talk to. Nobody really cares about me. I only wrote the book on setup NTI. But the main reason the main catalyst behind it all everybody wants to know who it is. And it’s this wonderful little boy here. See?
HR:
What’s better than that? There’s nothing better than that.
JM:
Exactly.
HR:
Good to see Ethan.
JM:
He’s waving Bye, bye.
HR:
What’s better than a hug from a child?
JM:
Yeah, he always used to say, and that was not orchestrated. He wanted he wanted. He wanted my phone to watch some YouTube videos. But back to the question, but my own parents, my parents didn’t allow my differences, to unpack their parenting, already unpacked my personal growth. And I think that was a real, real important thing. I think. My parents always knew that it would be easy to shelter me from the outside world and from other people and to protect me as much as they could not so natural, natural, instinctive parents, but they knew that deep down, I was an unrepentant, fiery child that wanted to make his mark in the world, from a young age. So they nurtured that that’s the most important thing. They’re the most nurturing loving people in the world might be more effective.
HR:
Tell us from your perspective, the effect you feel that Coronavirus Times has had on the autistic community?
JM:
Oh, I mean, for the autistic community, particularly for those of us who are very well accustomed to retain a cuddly fee change more than the general population, it’s really really been a horrible thing, not just for, you know, the, you know, the viral contagion that’s out there. But for all the consequences that go along with it, the likes of laughter and loss of jobs. I mean, the percentage of employed people in the autistic community, those of us who are unpaid employment is only 16%. And with COVID-19, it’d be very interesting to see what the figures are like no, because certainly with mass unemployment are starting to kick in, that’s only going to get lower. So other than that, the only real method of communication is via zoom via things like this because a lot of you know, support groups and adult groups for parents, kids, teens, adults, even just get togethers of autistic adults. I’ve done that from time to time. And I have to say I do myself, where a lot of us are longing for the world that came before this one. But there’s been some positive impacts as well where, for me, I always wanted to set up my own platform, my own business. To do speaking and training and meeting autistic people full time, so I thought I made the time to do that. And for any any of our special interests or talents or goals that we had locked in certainly gave us the time to chase those things. And a lot of cases, make them a reality. So, with me, I wouldn’t call myself a social butterfly as such, and maybe a lot of us aren’t really social butterflies. But a lot of us really have been social distancing our entire lives. So maybe for some of us, that’s maybe a bit more welcome. But I suppose it does, but about role whenever routine, and life itself has been completely flipped on its head. But what a resilient punch we’ll get there.
HR:
Well said, I think that’s a natural segue for you to tell us more, since we’re talking about employment and activities and everything else is to tell us about neuro diversity training International.
JM:
Whenever I started to accept myself as being autistic, I wanted to learn more about the autistic community itself and what’s out there in terms of awareness and training, and so on. And the start of this journey started by an autism awareness, coffee morning, and hotel near to me. So I thought one day that I would go, and I’ll tell you what I learned at this Autism Awareness coffee morning, I learned that the coffee was cold, I learned that the carrot cake was quite dry. I learned that not many people there were actually autistic. I learned that the organizers, Father sadly passed away a few weeks before. So the bottom line is I didn’t really learn a lot about autism and autistic people itself, it was just the this label that was stuck on this coffee morning. So I burst into tears, and I enrolled in an ad credit autism awareness training session. And all I heard from what were the negative stereotypes that have plagued us for decades, like we can’t make eye contact, we don’t make friends easily. We have obsessive and repetitive behaviors, and it’s called ASD, autistic spectrum disorder. And less than two that training, I didn’t stay to the end. And it was probably the first time I cried with like my son being born graduating, or someone close to me having died. That that’s what the world thinks of us as a community. That’s what people think I am, is that I have a disorder. And it led me to ask disordered compared to who? And the answer to that is the majority who have two really horrible priors one being they can decide what’s correct and incorrect and can decide what’s right and wrong.
So I got deeply involved in neuro diversity circles, talking to other self advocates like me, to learn what the real issues we face actually are not what other people believe that we face the problems that we face our exclusion, isolation, and falling victim to really horrible stereotypes, and that being propagated and under the umbrella of autism awareness. And I took it upon myself to decide that the days of autism awareness training are over for the reason being that it only makes people aware of negative things and what autism is. And this day and age, I would be very, very surprised, where have you been? So I decided that that a lot of the materials and training sources, it doesn’t apply to me. And it doesn’t apply to a lot of people like me. So I decided to set up my own platform, my own training company have accredited using research that involved the autistic community, to better inform the practice of teachers and parents. And my parents were instrumental to the formation of the training because it’s the training that they wish that they had to have whenever I was young to be really properly equipped that being autistic is just a difference. It’s not a deficit. With the right attitude and the right tools. I even consulted my old teachers, than none of them would have had autism training back in the middle of the 1990s whenever I was at school, and it shocked me to hear that a lot of them don’t really have at night. So I want every teacher, parent and workplace to have a sound understanding of what neurodiversity is to learn about the issues we actually face, not what others think we face on to offer that platform for autistic voices to say there is a better way and that way is through inclusion.
HR:
Tell us more about your book for those in our audience who would like to — learn more about your book.
JM:
Well, “Why does that always look so sad?” is my story of growing up as an autistic child in a mainstream school. Growing up going to university, becoming a father and then accepting myself for who I am because Say that I originally wrote that book to help autistic people all around the world. Really what that book was for was for my son, Ethan to help them to see that my educational and life journey as not like has and will be like as man was totally, totally different, just to give him a sense of where his dad came from, and kind of what everything that I had to overcome to get to where I am now. And I suppose a lot of autistic people can view their life as one hurdle after another but but you know, by by the end of it, I view my life as one victory after another and autistic people, when they accept themselves, good things happen. Whenever they meet like minded people, good things happen. And suppressing, hiding, denying masking. While they’re all stealth. Sadly, it doesn’t really work in the long run, and it gets really, really exhausting. But it’s available on all major online retailers. And it’s published by beyond words like the publisher of the sacred, I absolutely love say, and I couldn’t believe it whenever the back to pick up. And, yeah, give it a read. And there has to be a little apology disclaimer along with that, and not the language that the books written on wouldn’t really be seen as neuro diversity friendly language. However, it is a testament to that’s the language that I was kind of brought up with, and I’ve become accustomed to over time. So I mean, if I were writing the book, again, there’s a lot of language choices that I wouldn’t use. But at the same time, it serves to show kind of how far I’ve come myself where I didn’t believe myself to have a disorder or a condition at the time, even whenever I was writing the book. So I’ve been the sentiment of the story remains the same for what it’s worth.
HR:
How else can our audience learn more about you and your work?
JM:
I have two websites at this moment in time I have my judemorrow.com website, and the NTI website is www.neurodiversity-training.com reach out to me at neurotraininternational@gmail.com I, well, well known to replatform replying to absolutely everything that people send me so if anybody has any messages, questions, inquiries, feedback, anything, please, please get in touch with me and I always do get back. So yeah, those are the main ways and I’m on social medias and LinkedIn, those Jude Morrow and Neurodiversity Training International as well. So I’m very easily find I’ve made myself easily phone for the first time in a long time, so people can reach out to me, I don’t hide in corners anymore. I’m, I’m quite approachable. So please feel free to reach out to me and let’s talk.
HR:
What is the one thing that you wish that everyone knew about neurodiversity?
JM:
Neurodiversity is a strictly social model. And the real key principles of the social model is understanding and acceptance. neuro diversity should be the gold standard to which all autism Education and Professional Education is based on for parents, for professionals, everyone, it gives everyone the opportunity to be heroes for autistic people. And I urge everyone to take that chance.
HR:
Jude Morrow. It’s been a pleasure to have you here. We hope you’ll come back soon. Thank you very much.
JM:
And thank you so much for having me. Thank you.
