Eliot
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Eliot is in his 20s. Doctors diagnosed him with Asperger’s syndrome just before he started primary school.
‘I hadn’t expected school to be so confrontational and adversarial,’ Eliot told the Royal Commission.
When Eliot started high school ‘the bullying happened pretty much immediately’ and teachers regularly punished him for retaliating.
‘The teachers heard the shouting and everything, came over and of course I was the one who … seemed to be the instigator.’
Eliot said he struggled to find a school counsellor to talk to.
‘It was very, very difficult to get an appointment with them. And they were spread across three or so schools … and particularly if I was having a really bad day and I really needed to talk to someone with that kind of specialty training, I never really got that opportunity.’
Things weren’t much better when Eliot went to university.
‘I did tell them on the first day like, “Look I am autistic. It does take me a little bit longer to get these kinds of things. Is it possible to simplify it?” Their initial response was like, “You’re autistic? What are you doing here? Why are you doing this?”’
Eliot studies health and in his first year at university was placed in a high-needs aged care home. He was required to apply skills in which he hadn’t yet been trained, and ‘basically had a meltdown’.
‘I thought it would be more structured … It was all completely different to what I’ve been trained for and what I’m told. And so the outcome of that meltdown was essentially I got taken off the placement.’
His university supervisor asked him to explain why he ‘shouldn’t be expelled’.
‘I had multiple calls with the student advocacy service. He’d never heard anything like this happening before. It was all rather strange.’
Eliot said that after several meetings the university agreed to change its policy on disability and to provide more structure for students on work experience. Eliot completed his next placement and has ‘passed everything else so far’.
‘If I can help future generations in not having to go through that I reckon that’s a pretty good thing,’ Eliot told the Royal Commission.
Disclaimer: This is the story of a person who shared their personal experience with the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability through a submission or private session. The names in this story are pseudonyms. The person who shared this experience was not a witness and their account is not evidence. They did not take an oath or affirmation before providing the story. Nothing in this story constitutes a finding of the Royal Commission. Any views expressed are those of the person who shared their experience, not of the Royal Commission.