Bridget Hampstead's Journey: Autism, Community, and Radical Love

Welcome to Why Not Me the World? Podcast hosted by
Tony Mantor, broadcasting from Music City, USA, Nashville, Tennessee. Join
us as our guests tell us their stories. Some will
make your laugh, some will make you cry. Real life
people who will inspire and show that you are not
alone in this world. Hopefully you gain more awareness, acceptance,
and a better understanding for autism around the world. Hi,
I'm Tony Mantor. Welcome to Why Not Me the World?
Joining us today is Bridget Hampstead, founding director of Fish
in a Tree, an organization dedicated to supporting and championing
neurodiversity in New Orleans and surrounding areas. Prior to Fish
in a Tree, she was awarded Activist of the Year
in twenty twenty three and became US representative to the
UN for World Autism Awareness Day twenty twenty four. She
possesses a wealth of knowledge and we are honored to
have her on the show. Thanks for coming on.
Yeah, I'm happy to be here with you.
So can you tell me how did you get involved
in what you're doing now?
So I'm an AUDIHD person myself and just because of
my own Nerdi Virgins and my experience, my kind of
what I thought was a very unique experience of my
nerdivisions I'm coming to learn is not so different from
other late diagnosed autistic women.
What began me on that road.
And then I was working for a big name disability
organization spearheading a program that was training and educating autistic
youth in coding and computer languages.
And then we're finding them jobs in the tech industry.
And I was left to my own devices to spearhead
that program, and so I set it up as a
neuroaffirming program.
And what I found was that.
We could get people trained and get them jobs, and
that kind of wasn't an issue. The issue was them
keeping the jobs once they got them, because the companies
that were receiving them were not prepared to accommodate them
or to manage them in a way that worked for them.
You know. I was kind of struggling with how do
we prepare employers to take these people on? And is
what we're doing ethical, like training people and finding them
jobs that they can't keep, is that useful to anyone
at all?
And so I was really struggling with that, and.
I went to a conference in Italy with my partner,
and the conference brought together indigenous and First Nations peoples
from all.
Over the world, and a lot of the conference was.
About food ways and natural ways of producing food and
cultural ties.
To food and stuff.
Even though that was kind of the topic of the conference,
what ended up being the real topic of the conference.
Underlying everything that everybody talked about were communities. These communal
ways of mutual aid and taking care of every member
of the society, and people coming together to help in
one area because they weren't able to do something in
a different area, and that was responsibility with different group.
And it was all.
About community and breeding identity and authenticity and being a
part of a community. It really hit home for me
and to see all these people from all over the
world talking about the importance of community, and I was
really hit hard by the fact that as a nerd
divergent person who was raised by people who told me
that was a shameful secret and never to share that
with anyone, I realized that I had no community, and
that I suspected that there were other nerd dibrigent people
out there who also didn't have a community. And that's
where the idea for a virtual NERD Revirgent Community center
came from That was my takeaway from the conference was
this idea of like, we have to do this, and
I don't know who's out there, and I don't know
who this will resonate with, but it just became this
thing that I had to do. So when I came
back from the conference, we founded Fish in a Try
and I left my position at the nonprofit to run
Fish in a Tree and it's really taken off.
That's great. Once you had it started, what came next.
We started with the physical center here in New Orleans.
We kind of found that most people that.
Were coming were actually more interested in virtual options, and
so we pivoted and we let go of the space
the physical space. We pivoted to have all of our
programming online and it increased our reach. So now we
have people from all over the country and in some
cases some international people who participate in all of our programming.
That's grant funded, so it's at no cost to people,
and it's been going really well. It's been growing, and
we now have the blog, so there is an advocacy
piece to what we're doing. And then we also do
consultings that We work with organizations that want to support
ner divergent people. We work with music venus and theaters
and festivals and parades that want to accommodate nerdi virsion people.
And so we do a lot of consulting work, which
is kind of they not the forward facing part of
the organization, which is the community center piece, but we
do a lot of that in the background.
When you started, what were some of the first challenges
you faced in getting this going well.
One of the particular sort of immediately apparent challenges was
that the language and the ideas of the neurodiversity movement
and the neudiversity perspective have not quite trickled down all
the way to the Deep South. We're here based in
New Orleans, and not a lot of people use the
language of neurodiversity to identify themselves, and not a lot
of autistic and ADHD and dyslexic adults are using nor
divergent language to understand themselves. And so it was hard
to develop an audience because of the language we were using.
But I didn't want to compromise on the language we
were using to describe ourselves because that is what we
are and what we're influenced by and what we adhere to,
and so I didn't want to let go of that,
and I didn't feel comfortable using different language that I
didn't agree with. So we held on to that, and
it's been changing even over the last three years, a
lot more people are coming or seeking us out using
that kind of language.
Another challenge was here in New Orleans.
There are several organizations that serve autistic youth, and not
all of them are neuro affirming organizations, but there's a
lot of stuff out there, and there are a lot
of resources good or bad, or helpful or unhelpful for
very young autistic people and their neurotypical parents mostly, And
so that's what everybody assumed that we did.
So we were lumped into, you know, kind of like, oh.
Well, you're over there with the with the ABA providers,
and so it was it was really a struggle to
be like, that's not who we are and that's not
what we do. We do have a couple of programs
that are for youth and families, but most of our
work focuses around neuro divergent adults. From a neuro affirming
perspective and approach, we had to really fill that out
a lot, and we keep having to explain that. But
it's been good the response when people hear that and
then they get it, or it spurs a discovery of their.
Own and then they come to us, it's been good.
So there was a time where things didn't seem to
be landing, but they this is our third year and
they seems to be hitting a lot more with people.
What were some of the things that you found that
you had to do so you could get the word
out there so people could see the difference in what
others do compared to what it is that you do.
You know, we had to kind of let go of
trying to compare ourselves to what existed and trying to
like make that distinction for people.
That was originally how we were approaching it. This is this,
and we are this, and we are different than this.
It almost sounded from a third party as like a
kind of a.
Unnecessary conversation or like a petty conversation. So we had
to let that go and just focus on explaining who
we were and what we did and how we were
informed by neuroaffirming practices and just let that sit with people.
Because some of the people that we I talked to
you in year one who were like, no, that's not
for me, or no, I'm not I don't identify that way.
Have come back in year two or year three and said.
I heard more about that from other sources, or I
went into doing some research on my own. I've come
to this on my own, and now I'm back, so
try to find our own way and develop our own
brand and kind of not really apologize for it.
Sure, now I've seen where you've done quite a few
things yourself. I think I saw that you as Activist
of the Year in twenty twenty three. I see where
you were involved with a un last year. Can you
expand on what that was about.
I did last year for Autism Acceptance Month April, and
the day was April second. I believe the United Nations
was having an event as they do every year for
Autism Acceptance, and I was invited as the United States representative.
I was one of two to talk about the state
of the autistic experience in this country and to talk
about the very current issues affecting autistic people and how
we need to address those issues. I was on a
panel of other representatives from North America, and we were
asked ahead of time some questions that could have been
the answers.
Could have been books.
It could have been a series of books addressing just
these very almost simple questions.
And then we.
Had to reduce our answers into like twenty second responses,
which to write in a concise way takes more.
Time than to write any standard way.
So I took a lot of time and care to
craft my answers, and I addressed things like the policing
of autistic people in schools, and issues facing autistic people
in the current political environment and economy, and what's currently
going on for autistic people.
And I enjoyed doing the work I did.
When I watched it back when the UN was streaming
it on their platform, I did notice that I was edited.
They did take out some of the things that I said.
There was a call, my own personal call to the
United States to abolish the practice of ABA therapy in
this country.
They took that out.
And then I also talked about autistic suicide, the prevalence
of autistic suicide, and the importance of addressing mental health
care and its understanding of autism and its approach towards
autistic people, and that was also cut out.
That's rather surprising. That's a big issue. Side is the
second leading cause of death among autistic people around the world,
so that does kind of surprise me.
I don't I'm not entirely sure of the reasons it
was taken out, And I don't know if the United
Nations themselves took it out or at the third party
between me and the United Nations that was putting the
videos together took it out. But yeah, those were two
of the most important things I had to say, and they.
Were cut out. Other things that were left in that
I feel good about.
Well, that's good. At least some positive came out of it. Now,
when you speak at a form of that magnitude, it
gives you the opportunity to network. Did you find yourself
having the ability to network with people that you just
didn't realize that you'd have the chance to in any
other situation.
Absolutely.
I still the panel of like six people that I
I was on with, and the organizers of the panel
and the moderator of the panel and I are in
a group chat and have been for you know, since
last year when we all got together to film the panel,
and we still talk to each other, you know, probably
almost every day. Hey did you hear about this? Hey
this is going on. Hey I've written this thing. What
do you think? It's been a great sense of community
for me to connect with other neurodiversity advocates kind of
across the North American continent. It's been great. And then
it's also brought me in contact with a lot of
people who you know, saw the stream and reached out
to connect, and it's it's turned into into some great
side projects and definitely meeting some really good people nice.
That's always great to meet new people and network so
that you can grow your initiatives of what you're trying
to do. So, what's next. You've done all this advocacy,
you started fishing a tree. What's next on your agenda?
What do you see in your future?
Well, you know, that's a great question.
I think when I was planning on what was next,
it didn't occur to me that the political climate would
change so drastically and so quickly and be continuously evolving
day by day in such an extreme way. So I'm
really trying to at this time kind of look at
what my goals were for this year from last year
and reassess those based on what's really affecting our community
right now and what's really affecting even my own family.
I have a fully neurodivergent and gender diverse family, and
a lot of what's going on directly impacts members of
my family and myself, And so I'm really think about
and looking into and connecting with people about how do
we influence legislation and how do we how do we
fight back and what do we need to do politically.
So I wouldn't really say that my work was political.
I wouldn't have said that. Past me wouldn't have said
that my work was political. But I'm I'm learning that
just existing and my family existing is political now. So
definitely looking into how do we influence legislation in a
real way and in an immediate way. So that and
then also how do we expand phish in a try
thoughtfully to reach more people that are resonating with the
mission of Phishana Try. We're really noticing that the people
that come to us, the vast majority of them are
late identified late diagnosed autistic women is people that read
our web site and want to participate in programs and
sign up for things. So we're really thinking about do
we double down on that and start tailoring our programming
specifically for that group, or do we continue to grow
in different directions serve a lot of different facets of
the neurodiversity community.
So it's a lot to think about right now.
Currently, we're adding new programming monthly as we get funding.
Evaluating our funding sources is now a huge thing that
we have to do. So it's been crazy. These last
three weeks have really kind of changed everything for us,
and we're trying to respond in the immediacy of the moment,
but it's definitely taken some stepping away and some reflecting
to get a handle on what we need.
To be doing.
I noticed you write a lot of posts, a lot
of articles, a lot of blogs. Is this something you
write for yourself or does this reflect on fishing a
tree and what you're trying to do there.
I write every day.
I write articles and expanded writings on many topics that
are relevant to the autistic and neurodivergent community, many more
than we are able to actively address in real time
with PISSI in a treat programming. But as many articles
as I write and as many topics that I write
about behind the scenes, I'm writing just as many grant
applications to address those issues with Fish in a tries programming.
So we are attempting to address everything I can find
to talk about, but it takes a lot of manpower
of people who get it here locally, and like I said,
those ideas haven't quite trickled down here, So finding people
that really understand what we're doing and what we're about
to work with has been not impossible, but it has
been a struggle.
What are some of the things that you've encountered that
you're trying to work past so you can get to
a better ending to continue what you're trying to do
with your charity.
It just takes time to train people and to educate people,
and you know all that stuff.
So we're definitely trying to address things like the school
to prison pipeline for autistic kids and autistic suicide and
suicidal ideation. There's been talks of a hotline furbished in
a tree to run for autistic people specifically all these things.
There's talks, there's always stuff in motion, and we're doing
our absolute best to in real time address these issues
as they come up or as we're made aware of them.
But it takes a substantial amount of funding and finding
the right funders and getting the funding and having the
people to execute the programs. So we're still pretty tiny
in that regard our staff as small, and they all
work remotely, so you know, we're we're still trying to
figure all that out. But you know, if anyone listening,
you know, is interested in any of this kind of
programming and wants to talk about collaboration, we're very collaborative.
We're very open to working with partners. We just want
to provide the best resources and the best programming we
can to our audience.
Yeah, I think that's the best way you can do it.
Keep working every day diligently, step by step. Then after
a period of time, you look back and you'll see
a good body of work that you've created. The best fact,
you're helping people. What would you tell our listeners that
they need to hear and understand about what you're doing
and how you're trying to help people with your programs.
I think that our programming and all of the articles
that go into the blog and my writings that go
out into the world through other publications, all of those
offerings are my love letter to the nerdivergent community everywhere
in this country, especially if I could address the neud
virgin community in this country right now, there's a lot
going on that directly affects us. There's a threat to
vibe before, there's a threat to disability rights, there's a
threat to disability under civil rights. If I could rally
everyone to participate in local and national politics and to
influence legislation where possible, I would definitely put that call out.
But as far as Fish and ATRYT and our offerings,
I would just like to extend an invitation to people
to look into what we're doing and to see if
any of it resonates with them personally. The more demand
we have for our programming and the more interest we have,
the more we're able to do. A lot of things
that we want to do that we can't do is
because we don't have an audience yet.
We don't have a big enough pool of potential participants.
Check out the website.
It's w dot Fish in a Tree Nola nola dot org.
Connect with us, send us an email, let us know
what you're interested in, what you'd like to see. We
respond to every email that we get, I would just
like to say that.
You are so loved.
You are so loved, and the warm welcome awaits you
at fish in a tree where we see you, we
get you. You are valid, and you are the person
of honor at our table. Autistic people and nerdi virgent people,
you know, are often met with stigmatization and often met
with suspicion, you know, for various reasons, and often met
with this idea that they're somehow undesirable or unworthy. And
we want to combat that with radical love and acceptance.
Which sounds easy and maybe a little hippy dippy, but
it's not easy, and it's so necessary, especially with everything
going on right now all around us.
Yeah. I think that's a great message. The only thing
that we can do now is have some hope, help
each other out, and do our best to be kind.
I think the best thing people can do right now
is to stay healthy and to be joyous. As long
as you have joy in your life, that's the best.
Way to live.
That's the best revenge is still well and the best
way to combat all of this is to exist in
an authentic way.
Absolutely great comments. This has been a great conversation, great information.
I really appreciate you coming on the show.
Oh it's a pleasure meeting you.
Yes, it's been my pleasure. Thanks again. Thanks for taking
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