The title is pretty self-explanatory, but regardless, to anyone who's interested, and especially to anyone who falls on the spectrum, I'd like to wish you a Happy World Autism Awareness Day! Last year on this same day, I made a post just like this one, because while I'm not the type that goes out of my way to post or share things in discussions unless I have something I have a really strong urge to share, this is one of those fewer occasions, because as someone who has a form of it known as PDD-NOS (I covered this last time, but for those unaware, that's an acronym for Pervasive Development Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified) and has known many people who fall somewhere on the spectrum, for me, this is one of the most important days of the year. After all, so many of us face additional challenges on a regular basis in addition to the ones everyone faces getting through this thing we call "life", those specific challenges and how we each handle them varies so much from person to person, and the more other people recognize that and perhaps even try to bestow us the gift of empathy, the more I truly believe all of us will collectively benefit.
Anyhow, I think I stated much of what I wanted to state about it last year, so this year, in order to avoid repetition, I decided to do something somewhat different and share this beautiful, transcendent moment on tv that I just so happened to be lucky enough to witness only last week and that happens to have a lot of relevance to this. Believe it or not, off all places, this came from a well-known "reality tv show" called Survivor. For a bit of context, this is a show I used to watch a lot back when I was in the late grades of elementary school and my first year of high school. However, as much as I enjoyed certain elements of the show, and as much as I still respect things about it and those who still watch it, after a while, I just couldn't watch either that or any other similar shows like it anymore, because among other things, beyond simply growing out of my reality tv phase, I just couldn't get over how mean-spirited, petty and spiteful some of the contestants could be. It left a really bad taste in my mouth, and catching word of some of the most negative incidents and major controversies that have happened on the show since then have only convinced me that it still isn't for me, or at the very least, is as much of a gamble as ever to tune into.
However, my mother is among those who still often watches and enjoys this show to this day, and just last week, when she was watching Wednesday night's episode, she actually went out of her way to pause what she was watching and then call me down to see what she had just seen, insisting that it was something I had to see. This immediately struck me as unusual, because she's done this before with things like funny commercials that she thought I would like, but for a show like Survivor I have long been out of touch with? I was pretty sure this was a first, so that immediately clued me in that it had to be something pretty special.
As it turns out, this couldn't be more true, and I couldn't be more grateful that she did. While I don't want to share all of the details upfront to avoid risking diminishing the impact of the scene, I'll at least give some basic context for those not familiar with the show at all; in this scene, the contestants, who have been split up onto three teams, are participating in something called an "immunity challenge", where they compete in order to avoid the next Tribal Council, where the next person has to be voted out of the game. In this particular challenge, a player named Eva Erickson, who is the first person to play Survivor to openly identify as being Autistic, ends up getting overstimulated as the result of being forced to endure an extremely stressful part of the challenge that pushes her to her mental breaking point.
What happens next? Well, I'll leave any who are even slightly interested to watch for themselves, but I will at least share this; it singlehandedly has me rethinking my stance on Survivor and the progress it's made, because I don't think something like this would have even been possible when it first aired. Even more significantly though, it was powerful enough to get a certain reaction out of Jeff Probst, the host of the show, which as he himself observes, is the very first time this has ever happened to him. And this show is on its 48th season. Yeah; even without being an avid follower or fan of the show, just knowing that should hammer home how strong this moment is. And you know what? I have no problem admitting this moment made me tear up watching it; I've always been a pretty sentimental softie, but this moment hits with its relatability and resonance to a degree that at least as of the time of this writing, I feel like I could watch it 100 times and have the same reaction; it's not just a great moment of representation for people on the spectrum, it's one of those moments that makes you wholeheartedly believe in the good people are capable of. And the fact that this just so happened to air on tv only a week ahead of World Autism Awareness Day? It's hard not to see it as fate, and there was no way I wasn't going to share it if I could.
So in the spirit of what is acknowledged and celebrated today, here's the scene in question; unfortunately, I couldn't find a single video that covered all of the relevant footage, so I had to settle for posting two separate videos that each show part of it. They overlap a little, but if you watch the one that covers the challenge itself and the immediate aftermath and then the one that covers all of the aftermath, you should be able to get the full effect. To everyone on the spectrum that I'm so lucky so share this world with, keep spreading your light, and remember that now matter how the world may seem or how you may feel about yourself, you are beautiful and you are never completely alone. And you know what? That goes for anyone in any other minority too. So while I haven't watched this show in such a long time, I'd like to give a huge shoutout to Survivor and especially the contestants Eva Erickson and Joe Hunter for giving so many of us such a great televised moment so close to World Autism Awareness Day! We needed this, and I dare say that the world needs more of this too. Lots of love, and enjoy the videos! 😊
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV1Zd9REHDo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbgXyK9CHZ0&t=112s
