001all right all right hello everybody and welcome to the main event the autism acceptance panel 2021 i'm so excited that we're doing this it was so heartbreaking that we didn't have our panel last year it's the thing that i looked forward to all school year um so i'm so glad we could come together virtually and for those of you watching that don't know i'm kathy olson and i am a special education teacher at amherst regional public high school and um what i who i have here are a bunch of fantastic people some people who have already graduated or out there in the world doing amazing things which they'll talk about and some people who are current students at the high school um and they are here to to talk about their experiences and that's what
002is the most important thing right we need to hear from people who are autistic identify as having autism and have them describe what their experiences are and what we all need to know so thank you very much everybody who's here for giving your time and putting yourself out there like this it's incredibly valuable so um what we're gonna do is we will go around to each person on the screen and i want you to just introduce yourself basically your name pronoun what grade you oh i gotta add somebody new to this thing hold on two more people to add maybe next year we can only have the panel discover that earlier it happens it's okay i had a browser issue i had to download my browser so yeah that sucks we're good we're good i
003was just introducing what's happening tonight and how amazing this is that that you all are here and we get to hear from you right what autism is and um what we should know about it okay so we're gonna go around and if it's okay with all of you we'll just go in the order that's on the screen so starting with leilani and then going around and like it'll be you know ethan ellie jesse shane the other jessie and then stanley and um just quickly because we only have an hour total so just a couple of minutes if you could just introduce yourself who are you what grade did you are you in now in high school or what year did you graduate um and then if you want to say a little bit about what
004you're doing now or if there are any achievements that you are proud of right now um and or just a fun fact about yourself and then we'll get into some questions that i've prepared for you all so on that note leilani so hi everyone it's a pleasure to be speaking to you tonight thank you so much for taking a bit of your time for this but uh it's uh wonderful to be talking i apologize if i'm a bit awkward this is so much easier in front of a board live studio audience so i'm leilani i graduated 2015 i mean she her pronouns i am a professional or full-time digital artist which in my particular flavor means people pay me money to draw animals or dragons etc which was uh kathy for instance can tell you
005is that my obsession and then absolutely since i first met her way back when i was 12 or 13 in so i'm really proud to have made what's been sort of a focal point of my interest used into a living for myself that's helped me get married recently helped me now have my own apartment with my husband and gosh that's all wonderful wonderful things to say now it's still sync again we're still not done unpacking so yeah that's about it it is ethan and i can go first if you want um all right maybe i should go first because on the screen oh all right then the technical technical difficulty hello people that i can't see um glad that that is very cool my name is ellie i use they them pronouns and uh i
006graduated from amherst regional high school in 2019. these days i am a barely a community college dropout and mostly uh spend my time doing odd jobs sometimes for other people mostly for my family and um struggling with my own existence it's great [Music] meanwhile uh me uh still in uh middle school um senior uh graduating middle school sorry high school thank you for that uh if you had any doubt we are siblings um wait we're siblings um yeah and pronouns on anything else i should say in my scattered uh speech um oh also uh what i've been doing is um having a thankfully downward trend in the amount of times i get overwhelmed by school work and um have at least moved in the direction towards being able to be a functioning adult well said
007even thank you stanley want to pick it up from there hi i'm stanley i graduated graduated amherst regional in 2018 i'm currently a student at wooster polytechnic my current achieve my current achievement is that i've been on the dean's list for about 2.5 years and my and dark chocolate is hands down my favorite confection it's not it's a great balance of savory sweet bittersweet i love it such a good fun fact thank you stan lee fi are you ready you can unmute and introduce yourself i'm leaving i'm a ninth grade and i'm a songwriter all right nice jesse take it from there my name is jessie i mean as you can see i am in ninth grade and i can't like i find most right uh anyway the current current like personal achievements just we're
008getting it's the the audio is not very clear from me or other people having that issue okay yeah i agree i'm also having an audio bad and audio i'm so sorry to interrupt you jessie um do you you know what do you want to go out and come back in and see if that helps um sure i already got booted out one so um oh it's better now go ahead okay well shane pick us up from there hello uh my name is shane and i um graduated in the class of 2020 and i um and i'm gonna take classes this summer at gcc and some of my interests include playing ultimate frisbee playing with my dog and today i biked 20 miles and so that was a lot of fun and that's it wow okay
009beautiful day for it uh jessie cave hi guys uh this is very strange talking to an audience that i don't know is there so it's all good um so i'm jesse uh there's another jesse on this call um let me think oh gosh i literally forgot everything i was gonna say um so i am actually a senior in college um actually no i should go back um i graduated from amherst high school in 2017. i think that's right i think that's right yeah um and then i um i'm actually a senior in college i'm a psychology major and i'm graduating in may so that's really exciting um we're getting closer and closer so things are a little strange at the moment um i would say my current achievements well i just finished my senior thesis
010and it was actually a project i needed to graduate so i guess i don't really have that much left to do um so there's that and i'm also graduating um magna laude um this with honors which is basically it's just having a really high gpa in college so um those are two things that i'm really excited about i'm also going to grad school and counseling um this fall and i'll be back in massachusetts so that's really exciting i'm currently in arkansas right now and a fun fact i have to agree with stanley um i love dark chocolate it's just the best ever thanks um thank you all right so just all right go for it so i i have made many games that my friends and family play and my career goes to be a
011professional game game designer and the usual fun fact i say like for things that ask me to say fun fact about myself are that i'm autistic but if i wasn't i wouldn't be here and that i'm a game designer which i already said so kathy you're on me by the way thank you jesse um yes so great so i'm gonna ask a few questions and i see this some questions popping up in the chat which is fantastic so if anyone watching has questions comments throw them in there and i'll make sure to leave some time for those toward the end so um i'm going to ask a question and then if people have an answer to it feel like they want to speak on it just kind of raise your hand and um or unmute
012and you'll have the floor okay so the first question is um autism that's what we're here to talk about everyone is very different right there's no one per you know the whole saying about if you've met one person with autism congratulations you've met one person with autism um so as far as your own experience what's been your journey with it in terms of you know maybe thinking back to when you first found out about it to where you are now or um anything like that that you want to mention about your sort of autism journey does anyone have a i mean my journey was kind of wrong and kind of hard i was i had to find my streams and weaknesses which i have some difficulties with muscles and stuff and it was hard yeah
013that's all i got right now thank you levi yeah leilani okay hold on a second we're gonna go to leilani and then we'll go to you jesse also you're it sounds staticky what's going on on your audio it does to me i don't know does it sound like that typically yeah it sounds like just general uh make problems unfortunately i'm aware of them but i don't know how to fix them okay so leilani why don't you talk about your journey well well my journey was really complicated and really simple at the same time and because well i am well first of all uh i had a really difficult time with my parents for reasons i'm not gonna get too far into right now uh they're different tactics on how they accepted my autism my uh
014feelings of incompetence or that i didn't have value in the things i cared about which it's um i'm sorry this is so much easier when you're talking at people you're doing fantastic yeah i will talk to you cathy great my friend um so it's really difficult for me for a long time to accept and find strengthen the things i care about the things that but make me unique like being asexual autistic um loving cartoons loving anything with animal characters in it and i doubted myself for all those reasons like uh autism asexuality are both things you get tell their about you being immature a whole lot in your life uh how you'll get there you'll uh find someone and then you'll have this magical thing called being attracted to people or you'll understand one day
015how adults are supposed to work and think but i found my journey to a career and a husband and my a little apartment here that her to be more about accepting and building on who i already am and what i already love and then i found people who respect that uh who care about that who helped build me up and it's one of the best feelings in the world in my opinion thank you leilani just so meaningful i appreciate yes i've been honored to be a long part of that journey with you thank you and this uh woman is fantastic by the way i need to take them uh jessie cave i feel like thank you lately are you did you wrap that up it seemed like you yeah i'm good i just want to
016say you're fantastic and thank you for helping me for i feel like nearly a decade now don't plan on stopping so stuck with me jesse hey did you want to add something about some of your feedback better by the way much better okay good i moved to a different room i think i'm just in a space that's really loud um so it should be a lot quieter over here um yeah my journey with autism has been kind of interesting so i actually didn't find out that i had autism until i was 17 um and at the time i was actually a senior in high school so that's interesting because typically you know you find out that you have autism when you're really young um and so my parents knew but um i i'm sorry i
017have no idea who to look at i guess i'm just trying to figure it out my parents knew when i was little but um they never really got me tested because they didn't want me to they didn't want it to limit me um they didn't want it to limit my abilities and so uh when i was in elementary school i was in a different state i was in arkansas and i didn't really have a whole lot of the resources there so when i came to massachusetts i quickly got connected and got like social support and everything that i needed and actually that support's continued into college which has been really fantastic because i've been able to learn um a whole bunch of different cool things that maybe i wouldn't have learned um if i had
018been in that place before i went to high school and uh yeah actually what's interesting about my story is that when i was in high school and it was before i came here i want to make it very clear that it was before i came to massachusetts um i was told that i wouldn't graduate high school um and if i didn't graduate high school then i wouldn't graduate college um if i ended up graduating and so it's been interesting because both of those things are about to have happened um like high school happened and all of a sudden now i'm graduating college i'm about to go to grad school and i'm doing the things that people in my life said that i wouldn't do um and so i think it's interesting that leilani mentioned some
019similar stuff too especially with her sexuality like i've found out kind of what it means for me to be attracted to people and like i'm just really unique and i you know i'm gay and that's something that i've really been coming out to terms of the coming to terms with in my life and so it's been really cool to be so unique and to be on the spectrum and be able to be an advocate for people who are like me or people who are different um and being a psychology major like i just learned all of these things on top of that and going into counseling it's it's a crazy world out there and i was actually just talking to somebody the other day and i was realizing how much power there was actually listening
020to people um and how much like they have to say and how much they want to connect with you when you listen to them and so um yeah that's that's basically my story in a lot of crazy long words um and i just want to piggyback what kailani said that kathy's been really a great huge resource for me and she continues to be um and i hope she doesn't plan on stopping because i'm gonna be around so uh yeah well er so much of what i've learned is from directly from you guys so leilani and i were just talking about how the idea to even go on field trips to work in to work on social skills and community skills by going to the movies was leilani's idea you know so like i wouldn't do
021so many of the things that i'm proud of if it weren't for you guys telling me to do them um so thank you does anyone else have any um thing that they want i can move on to another question or if there's something i suppose i could see a thing go for it um yeah i know um i feel like i sometimes i feel like my family is one of the very few that actually um is helpful and supportive of all of us and uh yeah um from that i haven't had any problems with um self-doubt or um such like i was personally but um well i have um i still have had lots of problems um figuring out uh what is an executive functioning and how do i do that which has um ha
022it seems like every year except maybe this year or the previous year um something has gone catastrophically wrong in uh with um school where i've either gotten behind on something or um have bitten off more than i can chew or um whatever and uh picking up the pieces to get some form of grading by the end of the year has been a its own um mess but uh that was slowly i've gotten better though sure yeah yeah thank you i'm not here um ellie do you want it we're always getting better all of us right does anyone uh have anything right oh ellie did you have something you wanted to say i was just saying that if i i'm gonna wait for another question simply because you know that i always have things to say
023and i am used to having a budget for my time so i'm trying to conserve it there yes this like our um our journey in terms of understanding autism and ourselves yes so okay so i mean i don't think i've had any like big negative experiences due to autism i mean some things i don't know if it's because of autism or not and i think autism might have actually helped me with school because i picture like the homework assignments as like in the video game plants versus zombies i picture them being zombies that are coming towards my house the ones that have duped farther away but our big projects are slow but tanky zombies and the ones that are just normal daily assignment are really fast but easy to defeat so i feel like that
024helps me with time management and also makes it like maybe a bit more satisfying and not as not as unenjoyable jesse i love that i love how you're gaming the system yeah yeah you're not making those things i love that i love how you've made it work for you in that way that's your audio was a little shaky so i don't if i was cutting you off there i didn't mean to um thank you i love that does anyone else have anything to add or should i move on to another question i think i would like to say that i didn't really know i was diagnosed until i asked my parents at the age of 13 because up until that point my parents they were actually they were really supportive they were really supportive they
025pretty much whenever like i kind of questioned or doubted myself they must just said everyone thinks differently so i'm so so i am really confined my so i'm really put myself in in a label or in a box it was mostly just everyone has their own way of doing things everyone has their own way of thinking about things and from that i think and from that i kind of uh kind of flourished my my love for myself and or just my and inclusion of others so perfect love that again been honored and blessed to be alongside of so many of these journeys definitely stanley ah wonderful just kind of seems like maybe i should move on unless somebody had something they were just burning to say on this okay um is there anything specific that
026i mean jesse kind of touched on this already that you feel um sort of proud of that you feel like autism has kind of led you to or um something that you're really interested in that you think having autism was a real asset in in that or kind of led you in that direction um well is it okay if i speak first okay um i just didn't know there are other people that were speaking i actually it's interesting i was just talking to somebody about this but i feel like being on the spectrum has um oh my gosh i lost it i was gonna say what was it oh yeah i'm sorry i have stage fright that's why i keep losing what i was going to say he's part of an audience i can't even
027see um thank you for the question that's helpful uh so basically yeah so i feel like being on the spectrum has allowed me to maybe see things that maybe i didn't see before and kind of and by that i mean you know really having a value of listening to people and really just kind of going back and looking at that conversation again because i used to be so type a um i still am kind of type a if you don't know what that is it's just like very go-go-go all the time and i'm always thinking about things and here's where i remember what i was going to say but anyway i'm always thinking about things my brain's always processing and so i think that that's something that's really valuable is that um those those thoughts
028those things i'm always trying to figure out why how when where like what's important you know it's like once i know why then i'm like i want to know how and i want to know how i can fix this and i want to know like what can i do and like maybe it's that excitement and maybe that's something that i get really excited about in general but um it's interesting that my brain is always on all the time and i feel like if i wasn't on the spectrum i don't know if i'd have that same kind of child-like curiosity you know of like always wanting to know just why it's everything or how and i think that's really served me well as a researcher my senior project i had to research a lot of things
029i'm still working on that research and so yeah it's been like you know i find an answer on my research and i'm like but no like that's not the answer i want like i want mores uh more answers more answers and so uh it's it's cool because i'm having to learn that i can't always find the answer um even though i really want to know why and how things work and so i guess it's a long way of saying that um if i wasn't on the spectrum i don't think i'd have that same level of curiosity i love that i think that's really insightful thank you i'm going to take that away i think you muted but you maybe had something free to go first if you want uh ethan dandarrelly you might have something
030too can we oh i'm sorry i'm not gonna say much of anything i was just gonna say that um jessie i have that same experience of having to like you know wanting to know more i wanted to know wise and like it's like wanting more information me three wanting all the information like reading actually when you were saying that that that felt like it struck a chord thank you ellen um i have something on the um sort of what autism has led you to engage in or i mean i would definitely say something for sure i mean that was someone i didn't know until i went on the middle school and was some reason i went to me joining this club and now i just know how to send songs and lights on just really
031cool that's kind of a big defining part of my life and then also we want to become a fish fisheries biologist definitely too right thank you shane yeah having the having a autism diagnosis has uh led me to find a whole community of just me of amazing people with that also have autism that i've been able to connect with and just um a lot of resources and people i have people like like kathy who are have helped me so much to um succeed through life and just uh yeah autism is just yeah something i can connect with other people about and talk about expert you know shared experiences fantastic i love this community everything um anyone else have anything on that thank you shane all right uh hey uh if everyone's else good i just
032want to uh touch on a little bit that well at my interests and everything uh i found my husband because because of writing stories about the franchises i've adored most of my life i've got my career that way i we also found a drive to help people i think ink because of it because i can emphasize with the social issues these being a kid and actually when i tried to get into college it's a pretty good story for this i wrote my essay on how when i was going through high school i think the only autistic adult i had ever heard of was temple granted a couple other celebrities right i could not name a single autistic person i knew in the workforce who wasn't you know wanted a thousand celebrity and i thought that
033was really sad and then i met someone through my interests who was an autistic college professor and we got to talk about it and that in my senior year and that was such a good experience for me because we need to show these kids and teenagers that they've got a path just like anyone else it else to a life to one they want and they'll enjoy and will make them happy yes thank you yes yes yes yes should i move on to another question yeah okay thanks guys helping you out here right i was gonna say here um something um i suppose um for um me um well it's um it's both um helped and um hindered me is through every uh school project and um interest i've had where i am either um laser
034focused on something to the point where i can work on it for hours until i have no energy left and i'm completely burnt out or i can be just so resistant that as much as i try to force myself to do something i just can't so um yeah it's sort of i so um do any of y'all have advice that you might give to somebody who was recently diagnosed and i know that might depend on their age comments i have some advice go for it i was gonna say just find just claim some wealthiest and try and figure out what they are and then work on them and get them bad them and then you will be able to find how awesome that affects you because it's different very bad i love that don't just
035go with the list and and but really figure out how it it affects you and what your own style are yeah jesse yes i agree with that and this is basically answering one of the other prompts but go for it i think it is connected here it is not a disability like if something has both um both benefits and negative things then it's not a disability like you could say some aspects of it are like disability fragments or something but there's also beneficial parts of it and like don't get into thinking about like that you have a disability or like even if you do have something that's a disability like it's not it doesn't mean that you can still have strengths totally i love what you said disability fragments and i think what you might
036be getting at and i'm going to get you jesse but something like it depends on the environment it depends on the demands it's only necessarily a disability if what you're being asked to do if it conflicts right but it's just a difference yeah jesse oh i'm sorry can i uh expand on mother jessie's uh point for just a minute jesse i've lost who jessie and the other jessie are you yeah i realized i was a mistake about halfway through saying it but i had to keep going with my hair anyway i just want to expound on that that's something that's been a conversation in the aims room for years since i was a student and not something i've talked about with kathy and ellie not with but in the same general time zone as stanley
037was around two and jesse cave as well so that's something i think we should keep pushing towards is the idea things like over stimulation that's a disability that makes it hard to function but autism can be one of the most useful things you can find to focus on something in your work or because that hyper focus awful if it's on anything you that's a distraction from work but when it's on what you need to be doing it is fantastic yeah look out and i would uh i would tell someone to like i don't know you guys have all said great things um but that it doesn't define you um because i i grew up thinking that there was something wrong with me um because i was so different and so out there and i had
038teachers who just kind of just gave me grades to get me through but they never really stopped to understand um and so yeah i would say that it doesn't define you and also that like you are smart and you have the ability to be smart and like now like i'm being told that like people are like oh my gosh like you're you're brilliant you're so smart um you know you've just had some things in your life that haven't been you know the best and you're learning from those things even continuing now like i'm about to graduate but yet i'm still continuing to learn and i've realized that i've gotten to a point where i don't like being perfect i don't like being good because it means that i can't keep growing it means that i'm
039just kind of stuck there and so um yeah i keep telling my professors like when they're like hey this thesis is great i'm like come on give me something just tell me tell me that i'm wrong please so i can just grow because i feel like i don't want to be stagnant i want to keep growing and and maybe that's part of the autism thing too but yeah because of the way that i was brought up with teaching and education when i was so young i i just thought that there was always something i knew i was different but i thought that there was something that was so bad and now like i see it as something that's so good and even like going into counseling like what a perspective am i going to have
040for these people and for the people that i help and like that was another thing people are like oh people on the spectrum don't have any empathy why are you going into counseling and it's like i don't know i think i have empathy um and kathy's shaking her head but you know i think there is a perspective that that i can bring and i think that there's something that i really can share with my clients and so i'm really ready for that and i'm ready for that field um but yeah definitely in terms of what i would say that you're not broken you know you're not disabled um in any way shape or form but you have a different ability and that's something that's really cool perfect now now we're speaking all right well we
041better be um as far as what i what i would say to somebody who's newly diagnosed i mean people who know me know i can be a bit cynical but it doesn't uh don't um dismiss that as me just being a downer about everything um i would say to like accept firstly that this doesn't change anything about you it's just putting a name to the face secondly that yeah autism absolutely is going to limit some of the things you can do with your life and it's not about your life is over and you're never going to be able to live it doing anything you love and you'll never be good enough it's about um figuring out where you can manage and then managing as best you can and going where you can basically reframing so
042that instead of thinking yours of yourself because you've probably been a lot of people have been raised like thinking that they have to achieve what their peers have been achieving and how they've been doing it and that's more likely than not just not the reality you probably won't be able to succeed that way so start looking at it differently try to reframe it that's the way forward if i might respond to that briefly as well that is uh definitely true but we are in the system that's trying to funnel people into uh one way of thinking one way of looking at the world with neurotypical whole thought processes and trying to make everyone behave neurotypically instead of treating everyone as having this frankly amazingly diverse and fantastic a set of unique and wonderful tools or
043tools too that one person might have an easier time with equations they might be able to do incredible things with nuclear technology or what have you that no one else can someone else can be very artistically minded and think in pictures that's what i do etc every person can find a place and can find a use for their specific skills and talents that's if they look hard enough and have a support system geared to helping them find that and may i respond to this too and then i feel like how they talk because i know she hasn't i wasn't i wasn't entirely finished oh sorry and speak yes i'm sorry i wanted to uh continue what i was saying um very briefly um that it's important done with acknowledging that you're not going to be
044able to go forward probably the way that a neurotypical person can but that no the words the words are escaping uh yeah my brain my brain is doing that thing where it rebels against me even you speak um all right well it seems like something you've been saying things pretty similar to what i've wanted to say so um what i was going to say which may also have uh is that um as much uh like um autism or any of your other or anything else in your life might make you more uh well suited to something or have a harder time with other things that doesn't necessarily stop you from going after something that you um struggle with in fact you should probably work to at least get a little better in whatever skills you
045uh lack but it's going to be harder than um someone else and you will you will need to put in more work and effort than your um typical uh person uh would so um keep that in mind and if you are still motivated then definitely uh do whatever i found my thought it was that um regardless of your uh sorry um when you're going to experience um regardless of whether or not autism has its advantages there's always disadvantages to being neurotypical uh to being very diverse in a neurotypical environment and it's going to you're going to experience it as a disability in some way shape or form throughout your life disabilities are exhausting people don't necessarily talk about it but disabilities take a lot out of you so give yourself if you can self-care you
046know look after yourself and accept that you're going to get tired before a neurotypical person is going to get tired dealing with all this stuff and whether or not they believe that you're entitled to arrest and recuperate from that i oh sorry that i wanted to to add to this whole thing because all of you people just said really great things but christy can i just before you say your last thing i just want to make we do have we only have about 10 minutes left so i want to make sure that we've gotten some interesting questions in the chat so i just want to make sure we do have some time for that so go ahead i promise i can't even breathe um it was just something that was that was interesting as i
047was thinking about like i'm in this place now where all of my friends are getting into grad school and they're getting into some pretty huge places like we've got people who are going to harvard we've got people who are going to do we've got people who are going i think somebody just got into west virginia and vanderbilt and all of these things and it's like my little college that i got into i'm really excited about right but like nobody really knows it unless you're from that area in massachusetts and so it's like you know it's hard for me because all of these neurotypical people are getting into these big-name schools and i'm just like i applied for johns hopkins i got an interview with johns hopkins i probably could have gotten in but i i
048didn't keep going because i thought that you know maybe the prestigiousness would have been too much for me and so like in the fact that i would have been way too perfect all the time i would have been trying so hard to strive and achieve and so that was why i made the decision i made but it's still hard sometimes to be seeing people who are getting into such great schools and i'm just like i know mine's a great school too i just it's hard when like i said when when you've got the neurotypicals who are achieving so high and i know that i'm a high achiever too um it's just you still compare yourself sometimes to them and so which is problematic right i mean i'm hearing that over and over again right yeah
049at the end of the day what determines if you are successful in your life is you are you happy i do you find someone on that you love whether it's platonic or romantic do you are you doing a job you like are you doing a hobby you like are you doing something that you feel makes the world a little bit better than when you start those are a lot more important in my opinion than anyone's opinion of what what the typical person should be doing well thank you so i have just added jesse another jessie we have a three jesse to the same oh no it's a plague and then the two jessie's are spelled differently yeah at least with that definitely that helps um so i can um pull some questions i don't know
050um just see the then juliana jesse if you um have anything that stood out to you that you think um would be good to ask so sure so to jesse cave uh mara would like to know where do you actually go to college uh it's called um university of the ozarks and it's in a very small oh i see the question wow um it's uh university of the ozarks it's in a very small town called clarksville arkansas it's probably it's close to fayetteville if you know where that is a lot of people don't know where that is um it's also about 90 minutes away from little rocks so if you know where little rock is it's the capital of arkansas um it's a small like i said liberal arts college and it is um very
051helpful for students with learning disabilities so i've been able to get a lot of support here great um to leilani from aryan do you have a fursona uh yes i have a little fluff cat dragon thing that i'm sure that's one of the persons from my discord so uh shoot me a ping on my discord and i can show you lots of art and some emotes it's not that's one of my current students oh it is oh i'm sorry i presume because i put this on my uh discord it's full um yeah i i do um how about you go through the questions and i'll just pop a picture of her on my screen great so uh sarah would like to know what's one thing that you wish you had done in school that you
052didn't get to do everybody did everything they wanted to do no i uh i'll answer i guess um i wish that oh okay well i'll give you oh you can i've got answer okay i wish that um i could have lived my life a little bit more meaningfully um a little bit more authentically i think there were still parts of me that i was still trying to figure out and trying to understand and now that i've tasted that ingredient now that i've tasted these things um i don't really want to go back you know and so that's something that i wish i could do and like live in the moment i was so like gotta get this done go go go all the time i was missing things i was missing what's important in life
053and so yeah i wish i could have lived in the moment a little bit more when i was in high school but you know we live in leeward so thanks uh levi did you have a yeah my answer was in eighth grade there was supposed to be a town show and getting on cancel and that we and i really really wanted to do it so i really haven't wished i want to show my talent of somebody into the world that's kind of something i appreciate that when you have the chance put yourself out there that's what i'm here yeah nice um yeah i read a lot of very manga to brighten my spirits and um a lot of them you know cover high schoolers who have like friend groups and go to going to high
054school and stuff and it's that keeps reminding me every day that i feel so sad looking back on high school and middle school too and thinking about just like the magic of having friends that you'd hang out with and like a lot of kids would walk into town and amherst and spend an afternoon and i just went home on the bus every day to be alone in my house in the woods like miles from anyone i knew and in the woods we kind of are we debate aside the chance to really just like get to know people and have fun and socialize because i just couldn't connect with fully with like the other kids that i liked or thought were interesting i i never got that and so you know i just i wish i
055could have that time to like thrive in the social community of the high school instead of being kind of off in my little world with you know as the wife was they were only the ames kids for socialization i i'm sorry guys i'm trying to show my uh the thing i was asked about but i can't we'll do that in the after party i'm gonna put a link in here there's the after panel party it's a google meet so we'll we'll do all of that but everyone i guess i can do this at least oh yeah it's going to be great yeah everybody should come to the after party because leyland is going to be um live streaming her art so that's going to be cool um right really was going to say something about
056oh and then can we do that can we get stanley's and then chains okay uh probably one regret would probably try to be asking someone out like on a date or something because i kind of like high school it was more like i'm around people and i have my family it's like that's enough social interaction for me now kind of with a pandemic where it's like i've been cut off from interacting with people for so long part of me thinks maybe i could have tried to be a bit more bold not really too bold because i think i would i was still like trying to figure things out and also i'm not too fond of being here and also i kind of do like having time away from people but i feel like if i
057i do kind of hope i i kind of do regret not being a bit more bold plus when someone asked me to go to their prom i was pretty much i pretty much had a smile on my face for like 30 minutes straight so i'm so i have some idea of how when you ask someone out that kind that kind of like they it's not necessarily like you should expect them to say yes but you should kind of think that the person may think oh this person finds me interesting or this is a this is this is nice it's a great feeling to it's a great feeling yeah i love that turned really red i just realized that um i yes i did ask stanley to prom um and i had a lot of fun
058so anyway but i i turned really red when he said that i had no idea why and i thought it was funny because i was sitting there looking at myself that was adorable it's everything yes i had a lot of fun uh it was a lot of fun with stanley at prom so thank you and shane yeah i related a lot to what ellie said and i i wished i had um personally that i had made more uh that i had reached out to some of the people in my graduating class because i um yeah i haven't had a lot of contact with them since and i just yeah i feel like i missed a lot of opportunities to kind of get outside of my comfort zone and try to overcome some of the social
059anxiety like i've experienced and kind of you know just talk talk to people and hang out with them i guess bit of an odd one but i wish i'd uh spoken out more about what my living situation was like because maybe i could have had good advice good help maybe things could have changed aged if i'd uh been more open about things and i also wish i had spoken more to people who weren't just in that ames room because i would have liked the chance to connect to more people's old people just because i i am a complete and utter extrovert so yeah you're giving me lots of pause there thinking about how we can make that happen more absolutely um we probably have time for like one more question i mean we have two
060minutes is there anything else so here's the fun thing i would like everybody to know both watching and whatnot that we are actually international right now somebody is watching us from finland of mine actually so i think that that is awesome like so way to go guys you guys have gone international um and our last question that we have in the chat is um what do you think would have been helpful to work on in speech and language sessions this comes from rael who is one of our speech and language pathologists in the middle in high school um oh i have an answer for that okay um so i actually work with the speech and language pathologist i guess i mean i put that in quotes um they're actually called uh autism spectrum coordinator i
061think it's the same kind of thing um it's probably more of what kathy's job was actually to be completely honest but regardless um i wish that i worked a little bit more with like how to enter a conversation um because i feel like that's still something that i struggle with and i've definitely gotten a lot better um i actually was looking for the captions on here so i could turn on the captions um that's been a strategy that i've been using to kind of help me figure out how to enter a conversation and also exiting the conversation i am the worst at exiting conversations and i feel like that would have been really useful too because it's like how do i stop how do i stop saying what i'm saying you know like how do
062i make it respectful and how do i leave this just feels so awkward like okay i'm done talking but i just kind of fade out like me could not do that um so i wish i had learned those things and this is awkward now i have to exit this conversation here i'll help you give me something to say myself um first of all uh positive thing is i completely agree with that especially when i'm in a group i have such a hard time figuring out like where's my opening to nudge in here um is it there is it there uh there's silence for two seconds oh no that person started talking again and i can certainly ramble too long as well so that's all very useful i agree with that one other thing that i
063think about uh most special ed or even school in general though is that you'll have a great deal more luck working with a kid rather than against them so if you try to have a conversation about something they like and they're going to be enthusiastic about they're going to much more want to communicate with you and to know how to communicate it but you know i honestly that is so poignant and i honestly want to kind of leave it there um working with rather than against right and with with yourself rather than against yourself right work with others rather than a guest so it's everything well and i just i put in the link to the chat no not i put the link in the chat that's the google beat after party so everyone can
064round up and come there but just thank you so much this has been amazing you all are about the after party so the lonely the lonnie aside my family and i agree that for the most part like an autism social event seems like a bit of an oxymoron not necessarily it's just different i'm in a struggle again it's like oh great i'm so excited and then i'm like how am i going to enter a conversation again in the group oh gosh oh and one other thing i'll just throw quickly in the in the chat here is the link to our website that many people here on this panel have contributed to and many others who um couldn't be here tonight but they contributed um artwork and writing and music and there's so much to look
065at on this so please check it out oh people are already in the party so i'm gonna end this and see all over there thanks for coming everybody our wonderful invisible audience hopefully we can get some stats on later yeah um well i might not go to the party because my my computer will try so i don't really know okay bye guys love y'all