Welcome to Why Not Me The World Podcast, hosted by Tony Mantour.

Broadcasting from Music City, USA, Nashville, Tennessee.

Join us as our guests tell us their stories.

Some will make you 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 Mantour.

Hi, I'm Tony Mantour. Welcome to Why Not Me the World. Today's subject is going to be a very tough one.

It is said to be the hidden crisis for autistic people. The subject is suicide. the suicide, second leading cause of death for autistic people, up to 66% have

considered suicide. That with 1% of the population means that 11 percent of suicides are those which are autistic.

This is a subject that my guest and I will be talking about today.

Dr Rachel Mosley, she is autistic, a researcher, she focuses on mentally ill health and suicide. So welcome to the show, Rachel.

I think it's amazing work that you're doing and it's so wonderful that you're raising tension and awareness to this so thank you.

Oh it's my pleasure. I really appreciate you taking your time to come on the podcast and give this information. So let's kick it off with I understand that you're autistic and at what age was you diagnosed?

So I was 28 years old, so quite late. There were signs way back when I was a baby and my mother took me to many, many specialists

throughout my childhood and teenage years. But back in the 90s and the 2000s, knowledge about non-theriotypical presentations of autism was really poor. So although this label autism was was mentioned to my mother. The

doctor said you know I don't think that's the case I won't they wouldn't put me

forward for an assessment.

So I grew up without that label, always knowing there was something,

just not having a name for it really. And then I only found out when I did my PhD

and my mom happened to mention to me,

...