Contains candid, difficult content.

I am a disabled artist
Always been a disabled artist.
Whether one can ‘see’ my disabilities or not.

Seeing impairment.

Autistic.

Hard of Hearing.

…

Growing up,

theatre and dance

were one of the only

things that made sense.

Instructions in theatre were:

‘Stand on number 6.’

‘Sing your heart out.’

‘Don’t eat in costume, damnit.’

Or audition audition-advice — one of the first instructions in the world I could process — that

started unmasking my Autism and a Spiritual Awakening 20 years ago:

’Never be more than who you are or less than who you are’.

(Note: ‘Being who you are’ is not ‘safe’ for everyone or in every moment.)

…

Art, creation can be lifelines.

Access to them is life-saving, pathologically denied.

And if you were coming to my house after school, you were coming to be in a show.

…

Did the first show at age 6.

Was the "Star Search" Junior Vocalist winner for the state of Michigan, age 9.

Made a professional debut the next year working with Academy / Tony noms.

Authentic, uninhibited,

with a pervasive drive for nervous system regulate dependent on the structure of a show schedule.

A triple threat!

Like many, I’d encountered a life-saving interest.

. . .

Moved to New York to attend NYU.

My first day of classes in a BFA program there was 9/11.

Subsequently, I entered the Mental Health Industry.

. . .

In 2006, moved back to NYC, got a job.

The job was called a ‘swing’ — a person who understudies 7 ensemble / dance tracks.

. . .

This whole time - I wasn't seeing, hearing, processing in the ways the industry (and many people) did.

I was processing in many great ways. (Woohoo!)

The disparity, burnout, misdiagnosis, marginalization were disabling.

I did things like:

+ Walk in on the person before me's audition (when I couldn’t process the monitor’s instructions in an echo-ridden hallway).

+ Attend an audition on behalf of my agent, then not be able to read the script.

+ Plow through “Law & Order" sides, not remember the casting director’s name and do what one might consider logical and

….ask.

. . .

In 2007, I was dancing 6 hours a day.

Class was a place to feel my body, connect helpfully.

My outer world was devastating.

(And because....dance ❤.)

. . .

Around this time, I was called in for the Maggie / Val cover of the 1st nat’l of the Chorus Line revival.

(The most accurate psycho-identity analysis I’ve received to date.)

I’d done the show,

but got to the audition,

with a nervous system so burnt out I couldn’t point my toe.
. . .

Within 2 weeks, I was in outpatient therapy 4x / week and could barely walk.

25 years old, in olympic-style shape, able only to sit and look at my hand.

Not depressed.

Catatonic.

. . .

The mental health industry is known to pathologize difference, further marginalize it.

That institution began to take over my life.

Over the next few years, I
was put on a total of 7 psychoactive medications

that I didn’t need,
I didn’t help,
I don't take,
and that wreaked havoc on my personhood.

(Medications can help some people.

Like some Autistics — research has shown — I evolved out of any benefit,

each and every time and then more were added.)

. . .

Nothing was going to alter my deeply-embodied - albeit distressed - life-energy, except understanding and support of the differences, disabilities and what was really happening…a Spiritual Awakening.

. . .

Therapy, is where I (and my parents) spent 25 years.

As I went on in ‘therapy’ my internal resources disappeared further, I exploded more, lost the ability to hear my voice, words, and eventually produce mouth words altogether.

Thus, the more ‘therapy’ I ‘needed’.

. . .

The ability to access art — to sing, to dance, listen to a song, to speak — left for years at a time.

I processed language in different ways / at different rates.

I dedicated my life to therapies, medications, places, people, ways that reinforced the roots of my problems.

And was blamed each step of the way.

I would get jobs and get fired;

Or have to quit after a week.

(*A common experience to wish on no one <3 )

If there had been "a way" that way - or, frankly, any other way - I had the will.

. . .

For whatever reason — monotropism, pervasive drive, passion, stupidity, co-dependence — the theatrical sacred contract wasn't done yet.

In 2017, I moved to New York City, a 3rd time,

to “try to make it on Broadway”.

. . .

Social media, visual components I couldn’t do, rapid-fire communication had taken over.

I could not understand social media

or the Industry’s hyperized need to create carrots like ‘pay to plays’.

Or what was even happening there and the narratives I was supposed to create to get work that were so avoidant of what realities of what was happening (there and with me).

I made myself sick to get money for lessons, pay-to-plays, and mostly predatory coaching.

If I could attend a dance audition, I had to push to the one place in the room to see the combination.

I needed something called….an accommodation.

I read lips and had no idea.

many of us are / were there in this situation.

(If you’re discovering and processing disabilities later in life, please feel free to reach out.)

‘Like a fool on a fool’s journey’, day after day, I marched onto the playing field, cymbals crashing, knowing deep down I couldn’t sustain playing…that way.

Like many, I threw myself, my body on the line for it all.

For love.

For survival.

As a Trauma Response.

To hear the chords.

And a perceived exceptionalism that had been sold, I bought, and was reinforced

Like Kevin’s ‘Orlando’.

. . .

The irony is:

I’m a worker.

A theatre-worker.

I was there to work.

I wanted co-workers, collaboration.

If the job was theatre, it was what I did.

Everyone kept talking about this community.

After 30 years of "being a part"

(albeit not with access to the ‘right’ door....)

I look back and

like Mayor Shinn, wonder:

WHERE’S THE [COMMUNITY]?!

. . .

Over this time, I was using audition technique and creative processes

to dig deeply, and connecting to my inherent way of being in the world….

and that was unmasking my Autism and a Spiritual Awakening.

It was brave, empowering,

dangerous,

bridge-burning,

liberating.

. . .

When the pandemic hit,

a theatre acquaintance

looked at me and said directly:

"You know, I think you might be Autistic."

There it was.

A truth from the Theatre Industry I could process and apply.

. . .

It saved my life.
. . .

After receiving an ‘official’ diagnosis of Autism and ADHD, the summer of 2021,

I was denied
medical and
mental health care
at 42 places

in 90 days

when moving back to New York City.

Denied long term mental health care at a public hospitals and other places for reasons like, ‘You can’t be diagnosed Autistic at age 37.”

(Billions-Dollar misinformation campaigns put on by the Autism Industrial Complex.)

. . .

My neuropsychologist suggested I come off the medications slowly,

but I was forced off of them overnight that summer — 7 psychoactive medications —

including an Adderall crash and SSRI —

some I'd been on for 15+ years
at a time when I had stopped breathing 80x/hour in my sleep.

My brain and body had not been getting enough oxygen for some time.

. . .

If you have not been able to access medical care in the United States, we have something in common

For the 3 years that followed,

there was a threat to my life:
1. If I went to bed.
2. If I woke up.

For me, this was worse than 9/11:

My husband and I became unhoused.

Lost family, friends, connection, communication, friendship, processing light, sound, motor function, hearing, seeing…..

And for better or worse was forced into a kind of solitude I didn’t want and wouldn’t trade for anything.

. . .

Depending on your life experience, what happened no surprise.

This is, in fact, how systemic isolation, pathologization,

dehumanization,

cultures of violence, dominance, and

control…work.

. . .

In 2021, when I couldn’t receive medical care in New York City, a fellow artist from a ‘theatre community’

I'd spent a lengthy amount of time in,

a person whom I’d spoken to in person twice or three times. . .

Saw me on West 50th Street.

Pointed in my face, and laughed.

. . .
Please excuse my language; Don’t think many would disagree:

What the actual [f*ck].

That was first day of the rest of my life.

That was the day YeahNo / GlindAu was born.

. . .

I was never an ‘actor’.

I was an Autistic Person, living through the songs, lines, process, characters

Roles I never played, except in my head, to stay alive.

I was someone who wanted it all…(drum roll!)

for the schedule.

We will share a bellowing cosmic laugh together about that.

. . .

Las year, I started to sing again.

Started doing small dancing videos in my kitchen.

I’m working with artists struggling on professional contract, those awakening, processing.

Because that was me.

. . .

The last contract I did was in 2017.

The one before that a decade earlier.

I haven’t been in a theatre in 6 years.

. . .

And for once, it’s became about not ‘chasing the music’ or ‘tyrin’ to get home’.

It was about realizing I’d always been there. I was just missing the point.

. . .

If you’re cheering this on, check out @YeahNo.GlindAu
on Instagram.

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It will take the villages to launch this.

If you’d like to be a part in helping this endeavor come alive, please do.

The honor is mine.

. . .

Peace, solidarity,

transcendence.

Vinnie