A Suffolk man has started a petition for more help for Autistic people
This is after he suffered a mental breakdown during the pandemic, feeling there was no autism-friendly information available
A Suffolk man has started a petition wanting more help for neurodiverse and vulnerable people after he suffered a mental breakdown during the pandemic
Ivan Ambrose is autistic, before the pandemic he lived independently, had a lively social life and worked full-time, but when the pandemic hit autistic traits were exacerbated.
The constant change in rules, and what he often felt were contradictory behaviors from others left him feeling immensely confused and anxious.
Not only this but he told us he feels the information about covid and the rules was not autism-friendly and people like him were forgotten about.
He told us why he has started the petition.
"It all started from my bad experience during the pandemic with regard to the lack of consideration for people with Autism.
"And I really wanted to highlight concerns that became very apparent during the pandemic. With the aim of making sure this doesn't happen again in a future health crisis."
Ivan and his mother Jayne, like many during the pandemic, found it hard to keep track of what you could and could not do.
Thus, creating more stress in an already difficult time.
Jayne told us Ivan "could not understand why, you could go to a pub, lots of people. Perhaps forget what we're doing here and different things, but you couldn't just have one person extra to mix with from outside"
Ivan acknowledged this would have been "exactly the same for other people like myself, who are housebound."
Jayne said that it "felt so wrong, it was so hard."
Ivan explained what made it harder is that "there was a lack of support for finding appropriate autism-friendly information, (that) autistic people (would) understand."
Jayne confirmed, "it was too confusing, the only place we did find help, wasn't through the government website, it was through Suffolk Mind."
This Petition asks that if there was ever a health crisis again, like the pandemic, that websites included a section for neurodiverse people, that was simplified, uses bullet points and pictures instead of jargon and long paragraphs so it is easier to follow, and make sense of.
The stress of it all even caused Ivan to have a mental breakdown. Any previous autistic traits he had increased tenfold.
Ivan even became mute for a period of time he used the phrase 'that's what it did to me' expressing the lack of control he had over the situation and himself.
He told us more about his breakdown.
The feelings he held at the time were "extreme and heightened anxiety and uncertainty in the sense of 'oh what's going to be said today what am I going to hear about today which I don't understand.
"Or I might think to myself 'why are they doing this and not doing that' or 'why can you do this and you can't do that.'
"It was extremely frightening and lonely, lonely in the sense of 'why am I finding this so difficult because the fact is the entire population found it difficult, but for people with a disability like myself it was even more so."
Jayne told us it was a difficult time for the family as Ivan would have frequent panic attacks, they would try to help the best they could but there was only so much they could do.
"We were struggling but for Ivan to be having even more sensory information overload, it was horrible, because... you just felt helpless."
Ivan and his family have reached out to multiple people including Tom Hunt to help with their cause. The petition needs to reach 10,000 signatures in the next few months.
Ivan is incredibly passionate about this and wants a resolution.
"I want all these lessons to be learnt so it doesn't happen again, it shouldn't have happened in the first place any way.
"Because, if things are just kicked into the long grass and brushed under the carpet, say if there is another pandemic if these lessons aren't learned the same thing will happen again."
His petition can be found here