Gabriella Russo
Appearances
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
Exactly. Exactly.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
Yeah.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
It's because the medical diagnosis model was created by observing white boys. So it's actually people of color as well have lower diagnoses. And there's a whole other complexity about different communities and backgrounds accepting even the thought of going through a diagnosis. But the medical model is based on white boys. So that's a big part of the problem.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
I think the very first thing I would say is that I wouldn't tell anybody whether they should or shouldn't because we spend our lives being told what is appropriate, how we should fit in, what the expectations are and all of those things. And I just feel like actually adding to it a kind of also you must now do this isn't necessarily helpful. Definitely not helpful.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
I would say that if it's something you want to explore, it's really worth being in contact with other people, who have gone through are going through the same. Being prepared for the challenges as well as the joys of it, because it gives you answers, but it can give you things to grieve about that could have been different. I would always say if you can have some sort of therapy, I love therapy.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
I'm not ashamed of it. I love it. It's hard work, but I'm seeing the fruits of that now. And the choice is always yours. You can self-diagnose and... particularly the autistic and the neurodivergent community, that is acceptable. Will it make a difference in your life?
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
For the first few years for me, I was like, it's not going to change much because the support that I could possibly get, I don't need a diagnosis for anyway here in the UK. So do I want to bother with the process? I'm now going through the process to help me to understand things more now that I've reached a point that I want to learn more of the nuances or understand different things.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
And she asked me to come along so I could get to know things and kind of learn things that would be useful for my relationship with my godchild. So I started going and then I started being like, hang on, this is feeling a bit like it's describing me and this sounds familiar. And basically through that community came to a recognition of my own autism. That was about nine years ago now.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
You know, I wasn't going to go through it just to get the label as it were. So the biggest thing I would say is it's your choice. I would gently encourage that it can be freeing and just surviving isn't the way anybody should live. But if that's all you've got in you at the moment, then don't add, I haven't bothered to go for an autistic diagnosis to the list of things you beat yourself up with.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
Oh, yeah, absolutely. One of the things about autism is we struggle with change. So... It's like way to kind of dive straight into something you struggle with. But if you're going into that knowing, then the change can be easier. But I really just think about being kind to ourselves.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
And that's something we're not very good at because we've always spent so much time trying to fit into whatever box is expected of us.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
Yeah, yeah. And, you know, it's not vastly different to anybody who's doing some self-examination, you know, being really honest with themselves, right? So I sit in my therapy sometimes. I'm like, oh my gosh, you know, I don't, this is really difficult. This is a really difficult thing to talk about. My therapist is like, you're like 0.0 whatever 1% of therapy.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
people who actually choose to do the hard work. And not only that, you have turned up week after week for coming up for three years now, whereas other people go, okay, this is too hard now, walk away. So recognize that even choosing to be on the path is huge and actually kind of praise yourself for that a little bit, you know? Yeah. Yeah.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
And other people are doing that for other things other than just autism. So with autism, that is part of the process. It is part of the process for other self-discovery as well, things that anyone wants to work through, any kind of trauma or anything you're struggling with.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
So we're different in terms of the core reason, but we're not so different from anybody else who's trying to better themselves, learn more about themselves, build the life that's best for them to thrive.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
Yeah, absolutely. And see your own value and worth. I think one of the things I first said when I started therapy was I want to actually be able to advocate for myself. And I do now. Not all the time, not perfectly, but way more than I used to. I don't even notice I'm doing it. So that's how much the change is happening. But yeah, it's about being comfortable in your own skin.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
Not to the detriment of people around you, but we all have to kind of shuffle a little bit and accept each other. And we have to accept ourselves.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
Sitting in it, it feels like forever, but I'm vastly different. Vastly, vastly different. It's probably even difficult for me to self-identify some of those changes because the work that I've done means that those kind of changes are just happening naturally. But like I say, I wouldn't openly talk about my autism in the way that I am today on a podcast that's kind of international.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
And so I've stayed in that community since. And that was really where the journey started for me was actually that point. And when I turned around to my friend, I was like, I think this might be me. She was like, no, really? Yeah. I kind of think you might be right. And everyone in the group was like, yeah, you're definitely autistic. Why are you even questioning this?
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
I wouldn't have kind of put myself in a position of saying I can actually deliver training on this stuff you know whereas that's what I do now I talk about it with people and I'm confident that I have the professional knowledge and the you know the lived experience knowledge combined that I've got something to offer I didn't used to think I did in that way I was always kind of
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
The safety of being in a job was this is what you need to do. The difficulty was some of those things really difficult to fulfill because of my autism and my ADHD. Whereas now I'm like, no, I kind of know my stuff. I know what I'm doing. I have plenty to learn. It can't be with arrogance, but I'm good in my skin a lot more than I was, way more than I was.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
I walk away from rubbish far quicker than I used to as well. Way quicker. Because it used to be, oh, it must be something I'm doing wrong. Perhaps if I change this about me, I have a really, really deep sort of sense of empathy and I really feel other people's feelings. And because of that, I would be more concerned about them than me and did myself damage.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
Or I can understand why they've treated me that way because I know what their trauma is making them do. Those kinds of things. Whereas now I can hold that but still go, but I still deserve respect and that's my boundary. So yeah, that's very different. Very different.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
Seems to be, you know, I do seem to sort of have positive effect in the places that I go into. That's a very British response, isn't it? Very self-deprecating. Yeah, I am making a difference.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
I'm, you know, I'm training people, speaking to people, you know, seeing those light bulb moments, you know, the work I do with professionals that, oh my gosh, I understand how to work with a neurodivergent family much better now.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
With businesses, there's things, you know, there are very simple changes that can be made that makes things so much easier to accommodate somebody that isn't a big deal, but makes all the difference. So yeah,
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
Yeah. Oh, absolutely. The percentages are, I can't remember, I did this research the other day for another piece I was doing, but it's something like 30% of autistic people are in some form of employment. And even the employment that we're in, it's not necessarily full time. It can be part time, zero hours, contracts, all of those different things.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
So if you are creating an environment where somebody can flourish and thrive, our loyalty is huge.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
I'm on LinkedIn. I have a website. I'm on Facebook. So my website is GabriellaRusso.co.uk. That's G-A-B-R-I-E-L-L-A-R-U-S-S-O. It's the Italian version, not the French version. And looking that up everywhere else. I'm on Instagram, LinkedIn, all those various things. And then message me, have a chat. There's lots and lots of different ways I can...
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
work with people or just connect people, just have a conversation would be great as well.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
It's been fantastic talking to you, Tony. I really, really appreciate it as well. It's a great opportunity. Lovely to meet someone who's advocating for the autistic community.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
It's been a long journey for me, actually. So I've got to be honest that initially when I started to recognize it, it really freaked me out. I was just learning about it myself. I've got a good history and some really traumatic things in my history. I was in an abusive marriage in a high control church, things like that.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
And I think when I first started to recognize it, the things that were going through my head were those people, my abusive husband, those people were talking about, oh, there you go. We always thought she was a bit crazy. we were actually right in how we treated her. So it played into that for me. It took me quite a long time to really kind of go through that process of accepting it.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
I was also struggling at work. And as I started to work through it, I tried to be honest in my place of work. And basically what happened there was I ended up being bullied out by my manager. They sort of, she came in with with a bit of an agenda to get rid of me anyway.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
She was a new manager and started treating me really badly, doing all the things you don't do for someone who's autistic in the workplace, like micromanaging, setting up with difficult tasks, doing the sorts of things that really sort of set a lot of panic in for me. And I started having panic attacks that I now recognise were kind of panic attack stroke meltdown type situations.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
And I ended up having to walk away from that job. And so I was then recovering from that And so I am now in the process of getting diagnosed, which takes a long time here in the UK unless you've got the funds to pay for something private. I have a therapist who recognises all of that. I have doing those kinds of things. So whilst I'm not officially medically diagnosed, I'm definitely autistic.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
You know, I'm in those communities. I'm surrounded. I've got a coach. I'm with all of those people and we're working it through and I'm waiting for the official diagnosis to happen.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
I think it's a really interesting situation with your late diagnosis. When I say diagnosed, I count self-diagnosis because it is quite a difficult thing to get your full diagnosis medically. The later you're diagnosed in lots of respects, the more unpicking of what's happened in your life up till then kind of needs to take place if that's what you want to do. Right.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
So I've been doing that and it's helped me to recognize why I felt certain ways in different situations, why I struggled with my friendships at school, why I often just felt like I was somehow different. I was too much. I went very deep, very quickly with friendships. They meant a lot more. I got more hurt more easily. And I struggled with those different things.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
It's not to say I didn't have friends, but, you know, things weren't always easy. I was bullied throughout my primary school education, which is four to 11. Secondary school wasn't quite so bad. I did struggle at university. I mean, I got through all of those things. Like my education was fine in one sense, but I definitely struggled at university.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
And so what it's done is as I've looked back, rather than kind of saying I was rubbish at that, I wasn't organized enough. I was the person who struggled with friendships. That makes me less than. I've kind of gone, okay, that's why. And I'm different, not broken. So it's gradually unpicking those messages to myself and kind of what the world makes you feel about yourself.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
Yeah, absolutely. And it's two things. It's not just changing things. So it's actually going through self-acceptance. So I'm not changing who I am. I'm building my life in a way that works for me, which we're not always afforded the opportunity to do that. The world is set up in a way that it's difficult to do that. Work can be a difficult place to do that.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
And so I am gradually, messily learning and changing how I live my life. what is acceptable to me as well as the things I need to be aware of in terms of how I impact other people as well.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
Yeah.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
Oh, 100%. Absolutely, definitely. And part of the therapeutic journey has been trying to find who I really am rather than who I've built myself to be to fit in. But yeah, completely, I can see that. I mean, I used to, even when I was a teenager and even a little bit younger than that, I used to be aware that I would be different depending on the people I was around. I didn't understand why.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
It was more like, I'm afraid to kind of state my preferences in case they get rejected. And now I can see that that's masking. Whereas before it was like, I'm just not confident enough. I need some help with my confidence.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
Yeah, I mean, I'm getting there. Some things I'm still working through. But no, absolutely. I think I like myself a lot more. I'm able to recognize that people's opinions of me are their opinions of me rather than the truth of me. I...
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
was very much people pleasing, trying to keep the peace, trying to fit in, which set me up for some difficult friendships and probably set me up for some of the more traumatic things I've gone through, not in a victim blaming way, but you have to recognize your own stuff as well. And now I'm a little bit kind of less accepting of people wanting me to be what fits them.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
Without it being like, I just know who I am and everyone can get lost because I'm wonderful. I'm not saying that, but there's kind of an equality to it that there didn't used to be.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
I certainly think that the workplace is an incredibly difficult place to be. I'm self-employed now, so that's it. It wasn't a decision that was initially made just because I struggled with my job. At that point, I was still like, these things are happening. I was treated really badly. The organization I was working with, a lot of other people were
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
treated badly there as well you discover that when you leave but in the process of coming out of that job I was headhunted essentially to deliver training and now I'm a full-time consultant trainer it kind of happened organically in a way as I've done that I've begun to recognize that I operate much better in those spaces rather than the confines of nine to five you've got to be in the office you've got to
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
I mean, I've never really had jobs that are absolutely like nine to five in the office. I've done youth work and some of those kinds of jobs. I worked in anti-human trafficking for a while. So I was delivering training, working with victims. So quite a varied kind of job, which I'm now discovering my ADHD as well. And that kind of plays into that a little bit too.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
But regardless, I still find that self-employment, whilst it has its real difficulties, allows me to work with my energy better. So I'm not going into another cycle of autistic burnout, which I now realize that's what that has been over my life. I can work in the areas that light me up and make the best of my gifts and talents.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
And I'm actually bringing more of the best of me to something rather than being pigeonholed and kind of just not fitting in, in terms of the work.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
Yeah. So I started off because my whole background is in sort of safeguarding and working with special educational needs children, done a whole bunch of that stuff, working with children and young people, working with children and young people going through abuse, going through various traumas. And then I moved into anti-human trafficking. So I was dealing with that side of things as well.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
And then working more directly in schools, running anti-abuse programs was the job that I was in when I left that job. I pulled all that together and started delivering safeguarding training consultancy. And as I've learned more about my neurodiversity, I've expanded that to neurodiversity training.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
What I'm now working on is the kind of the crossover between safeguarding and neurodiversity, because what I've seen happen so much in my own career and, you know, working with children, young people and so on,
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
is when we get safeguarding training, say if you're a teacher, somebody who works with children and young people or vulnerable adults or all those things, you get your safeguarding training. And these are the extra vulnerabilities that special educational needs children have, right? So you're more aware of those things.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
And then they turn 18 and it seems like people assume that they've grown out of it.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
And we carry, we have to, well, I own, I'm not saying anyone else has to, but it's helpful to own that alongside our neurodiversity, there are gifts, there are talents, there are things that make me who I am, that make me brilliant at the work that I do, but I do have vulnerabilities that might be different to a neurotypical person. And those things aren't always recognized.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
But when you look at stats and things like that, the percentage of autistic women who experience sexual abuse is way higher than neurotypical. There's kind of falling into abusive relationships because you're trying to people please, you're masking, you're all of those things. And so there is a huge intersection.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
And so what it's now doing for me is bringing those two things together is helping me to kind of maybe work in a slightly different way, a slightly different space to people who work in sort of the neurodivergent space or people who work in safeguarding. And it ties in with mental health. And it's like, you need to have all three together. So I'm now working in that space.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
I think there are a lot of assumptions made about neurodiversity. There's an awful lot now of, oh my gosh, everyone's got autism or everyone's got ADHD nowadays. It's a trend. And it's like, no, just the same as any other research. We've learned more. You know, we discover, and I'm not comparing neurodiversity to illnesses, but we know a lot more about illnesses.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
You know, people used to die of illnesses and we didn't know what they were at all. And now there's cures. Now there's all sorts of things. Now, I'm definitely not saying there's cures for autism. I'm not talking about that at all. What I'm saying is there is scientific and psychological growth that means we're recognizing things more. That plays alongside the fact that the world is changing.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
Oh, I really appreciate the opportunity. Thank you so much.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
faster moving higher expectation you know it's very different and so it's bringing out some of the complexities that people experience as a neurodivergent person because of the way the world is going you line up bringing some of those things out more along with more understanding and you get an increasing diagnosis so people miss that they think it's a trend in the uk last week we had a politician talking about the economic advantage of being autistic which as you can imagine
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
went down like a lead balloon and there is this kind of kind of sense oh you just want those labels so that you can get extra things and it's like there is no economic advantage there's one heck of a lot of economic disadvantages and even with like self-diagnosis when people People have done that.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
They've generally researched, gone through things, gradually worked things out, gradually figured out if someone's safe to kind of explore that. I mean, even two years ago, I wouldn't have come on a podcast to talk about my autistic experience because I was still working it out. I would talk about it in my training that wasn't recorded. But it's a really long journey for some of us.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
So my godchild is autistic. When she was, when they, I'm sorry, they've just identified as non-binary and I'm still learning the language. When they were much, much smaller, their mum belonged to an autistic support group for families of autistic children.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Gabriella Russo: Embracing Self-Discovery and Advocacy in Autism – Overcoming Challenges and Building a Supportive Community
Some people can just be out there with it straight away. And for some of us, it's a really hard process of self-acceptance as well. And people don't recognize that. So I think that's a really tough one.