Dreams, Passion and Purpose – SUSS 2023 10 10 Convocation Speech

Posted on October 10, 2023 by dawnjoyleong

As promised to some of my friends and followers of my pages, blogs and website, here is the transcript of my convocation speech tonight at the SUSS Convocation 2023: Session 3 – Undergraduate Programmes (NSHD). The Youtube ‘live’ video (link below) does not have captions, so I have put my transcript here.

Mr Aaron Tan, Member of SUSS Board of Trustees; distinguished guests, graduates, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for this honour. My heartiest congratulations on this very special occasion.

I cannot tell you how to make a lot of money, rise up the corporate ladder, or how to achieve worldly success. I have never managed any of these. I owe my very existence today to a few loyal friends, my one supportive sister and a gentle yet magnanimous creature called Lucy Like-a-Charm, a Greyhound rescued from the cruel racing industry in Australia.

(Slide 1 – Lucy Like-a-Charm, a black Greyhound is lying on a white puffy quilt, head upright, looking at camera, ears perked up and spread out, mouth open in a happy smile.)

So, what can an ordinary person like me bring to this milestone occasion? Please allow me to share a glimpse of my life’s journey. I was born in 1965, the year of Singapore’s independence. Like many in my generation, I found out my Autistic identity only in my early forties. I’ve also struggled with a lifelong, painful medical condition.

My childhood dream was to become an artist, musician and scientist. I loved animal science and multidisciplinary arts. Learning was smooth sailing at first when I was allowed to pursue my own interests at home. Sadly, my learning journey was derailed after I entered mainstream education. I went from being labeled a “kid-genius”, to “rebellious” teenager, and onwards to “lazy, useless bum”. One art teacher told me I would never become an artist because I could not colour within the lines. By the way, I still do not colour within the lines.

After a lot of stubborn perseverance, I managed to gain an undergraduate place to major in music at the University of Hong Kong. There, in Hong Kong, I met professors who recognised my unusual learning style. Nobody talked about autism at that time. I was thrilled to be encouraged to bring difficult questions to class — my professors were happy to push boundaries and expand their own paradigms. I am most fortunate to still be close friends with two of my early mentors to this very day.

I returned to Singapore after graduating, and unfortunately spent the next twenty years employed by a former family member in a job that I was most ill-suited for. My medical condition constantly triggered, and I felt as if my entire mind and soul had been stolen from me. During those bleak years, I still managed to author and illustrate three music textbooks widely used in Singapore schools; write and record two albums of my own songs; and produce, direct and perform in two public music concerts.

In 2007, at the age of 42, I finally broke free and returned to the University of Hong Kong to pursue an M.Phil in music composition. Faced with a confusing social situation, struggling with my illness, dealing with my father’s death and family disintegration, I was pushed to the edge of mental and physical breakdown. I sought help from a psychologist and that was when I found out about my Autism. It was a pivotal moment for me, a vindication that I was not deliberately bad, rebellious or lazy, my brain merely functions differently — simply put, I was like an Apple computer living in a Microsoft world. I am disabled according to the social model of disability. In 2012, I was awarded a full Ph.D scholarship by the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. I adopted Lucy that same year and with her, began the best ten years of my life.

“Like-a-Charm” was Lucy’s former racing name, and I kept the name because it rang resoundingly true. Lucy became my autism anxiety assistance dog, and was the first Greyhound assistance dog in my university and, in fact, all of Sydney, inspiring others, especially Autistic persons, to adopt and retrain rescued Greyhounds as assistance dogs thereafter. We were interviewed by television, radio and newspapers in Australia about my research in autism and multi-art practice, Greyhounds as assistance dogs, and autism and disability awareness. She was also the first Greyhound to be invited into Parliament House during a campaign in 2016 to ban Greyhound racing.

Much more than a pet or assistance dog, Lucy was my creative muse, research assistant and the driving force for my PhD dissertation on autistic embodiment and alternative non-human sentient and material empathies. In 2016, we graduated together with the highest honour, the Dean’s Award.

(Slide 2 – Convocation – Dawn-joy and Lucy receiving their PhD from the Chancellor, UNSW, Sydney Australia, 2016)

Now, don’t get me wrong, those years were wonderful, but still no easy breeze. I faced intense internal and external challenges, which I don’t have time to tell you about, but I had Lucy with me. She was my rock of stability and strength throughout. In fact, she saved my life just a few weeks before my PhD submission, and I am alive today because of her. Lucy taught me how to recognise my own vulnerabilities and strengths, and to accept with gratitude and grace support from others.

Finally, I’d like to end my story on the importance of Dreams, Passion and Purpose. I am blessed that three of my Dreams did indeed come true, and with many wonderful bonuses too.

I was 7 years old in 1972, suffering a painful attack of mouth and throat ulcers where I could barely open my mouth or swallow, when I dreamt that I had a voice and I could sing. In 1999, I wrote and recorded my own collection of songs, a dream come true that a precious friend helped to finance. The bonus was that my existential questions in these songs finally found resolution many decades later, in Lucy.

I also dreamed of a transdisciplinary art-science PhD from a very young age. After forty years, I received a full PhD scholarship. As a child, I yearned for Love, and went looking in all the wrong places. Well, I finally found the Love of My Life, Lucy Like-a-Charm, who brought me a Perfect Love that no human or non-human ever could.

I’ve lived a privileged life, but I also faced great persecution for having Dreams at all, ironically from some of those I thought were closest to me. I not only worked hard, but I fought very fiercely for my Dreams, they didn’t just drop onto my lap. In the process, I lost most of those I once considered close friends and family. However, I found truly loyal friends both old and new who helped me along my journey, and my one good sister has never wavered in her support for me.

Since returning to Singapore, with Lucy by my side, I have exhibited my art locally and overseas, engaged in autism research, conducted workshops and given talks on autism and art, mentored aspiring artists with disabilities, been interviewed and featured in various media, delivered a TEDx talk, and volunteered at disability-focused organisations.

(Slide 3 – Dawn-joy and Lucy Like-a-Charm speaking at TEDx 2018)

Gratitude and humility now lead me onwards, as I am nearer the end than the beginning of my journey. I suffered two losses this year. One of my very best friends passed away from cancer in late February. Two weeks later, in March, Lucy died, at the age of 14 human years. My promise to Lucy on her death bed, was to complete our Magnus Opus, the hardest work I’ve ever attempted, an autobiography in the form of a multi-art multi-access fantasia, entitled, “Wake Up in My Dreams”, in honour of Lucy’s legacy of Love and Truth.

(Slide 4 – Full frontal head shot, digital composite portrait of Dawn-joy and Lucy Like-a-Charm emerging from both sides of Dawn-joy’s face.)

Thank you for bearing with me, and congratulations once again! Lucy and I wish you all the very best that life can bring, and may your dreams come true in the strongest of ways, beyond even your own imagination.

SUSS Convocation 2023: Session 3 – Undergraduate Programmes (NSHD) – full video

(My speech – around 44:29)

Lucy Like-a-Charm – Elemental Empathic Resonance.

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Posted on July 4, 2023 by dawnjoyleong

Author’s note:
This piece took me awhile to complete, because I have been struggling with the devastating aftermath of Lucy’s death on my mind, body and every part of my existence. I was invited some time ago to write a reflection for a blog-journal, but upon submitting it on 4th July 2023 at 14:22 Singapore time, I was told by the editor (in the UK) that they will push back my article to end July, because the editor was too busy with other things. Coincidentally, they have just published another piece expressing almost identical thoughts, though written in a completely different style, of course. I am fine with that. The more people asking the same questions, the louder our voices become.

I have therefore decided to put mine here, unedited, with date and time reflecting the exact moment my piece was submitted via cyber-waves into the Great Unknown. Whether or not the journal’s editor decides to publish it in the near future, when and with what edits they deem fit, is immaterial to me. The Artist respects the autonomous entity of The Work, which will forge onwards along its own inexorable path, free from the tyranny of control and manipulation at the hands of humans preoccupied by and with human-centric glorification and maniacal demands of human ego. After some deeper contemplation, I feel that The Work, in this embodiment, is telling me that it would like to be launched from this Clement Space, an interstice created for me, for us both, by Lucy, because it is in its very purest essence an intimate tribute to Lucy, and to her and only her, do I really owe anything at all. When the Artist frees The Work, the Artist shall also be emancipated. I love you so, Lucy Like-a-Charm, thank you for teaching me such profound sensing.

Content warning: suicide and death is discussed in this article.

Lucy Like-a-Charm – Elemental Empathic Resonance.

For ten years and eight months, I awoke and drifted off to sleep gazing into the eyes of the purest Beauty I have ever known, my heart brimming over with awe and gratitude that she was mine to have and hold: this amazing canine called Lucy Like-a-Charm, rescued from the cruel Greyhound racing industry in Australia.

Lucy entered my life on 11th July 2012 in Sydney, Australia, during the first year of my PhD candidacy at the University of New South Wales. I did not know then, but that moment marked the beginning of the very best years of my human existence.

I was unaware of my Autistic¹ identity until my early forties, hence, I belong to the category frequently referred to as the “lost generation”.² During my childhood, I was surrounded by pets — white mice, guinea pigs, rabbits, ducks, chickens, fish, and dogs. I loved the Dr. Doolittle stories by Hugh Lofting, which I read over and over again. Even though I knew these stories were fantasy, I was nevertheless convinced that non-human animals communicated in their own languages, and we humans could do so with them, if only we learned how. Back then, people just laughed at me, but today, more than fifty years later, animal communication has become a subject of extensive study and practice. At the age of five, I developed persistent painful, visible physical symptoms that confounded medical experts, so they said it was “psychosomatic”, and people accused me of deliberately making myself sick, as if I was gifted with such a super power! Medical science has since progressed a long way, and doctors now presume it is probably an autoimmune condition (still unconfirmed) under the broader category of vasculitis.

Looking back, I realise that most of my struggles were the consequence of society’s inflexible, prejudicial attitudes towards conflicting divergences. As if chronic illness were not challenging enough, navigating an alienating human social system with its sensorially assaultive built environments became increasingly perilous as I grew older and the politics of neurotypical human interactivity became more and more convoluted. Like many Autists in similar circumstances, I found solace in the non-human domain: spending time with my pets and other creatures, plants and trees in the garden; engrossed in my chemistry set; reading, creating art and music; and collecting favourite objects. Here, in this vibrant ecology of wonderment, instead of being a hindrance or anomaly, my Autistic heightened senses, attraction towards detail and minutiae, and fascination for rhythm, pattern and order found mellifluous reciprocity.

Humanity considers itself superior to the non-human, a perception I suspect is based on what we humans do not know, rather than what we know, about the non-human animals who share our earth, in close proximity and beyond. Between us, Lucy was the finer being by far. She carried me into a dimension of symbiosis far richer than any relationship I’ve ever had before — whether with my pets or the few good humans I know and love. She has never once failed me, but I, maladroit human, have failed her over and over again, each time being humbled by her forbearance and forgiveness. No human possesses that capacity and strength of heart and soul. Lucy understood my expressions many times better than I hers. She taught me our own secret language of exuberant joy, kaleidoscopic colour, thrilling exhilaration, quirky eccentricity and reverent wonderment. For more than a decade, I completely forgot what loneliness felt like.

Numerous studies reveal that suicidal thinking and suicide rates are disproportionately high among Autistic people.³ Lucy saved me from suicide in 2016, during an intensely traumatic incident just weeks before the deadline for submission of my dissertation. Pressing her front paws hard on me, she awoke me from my dissociative state to her presence.⁴ In that instance, a simple thought entered my mind: “What would happen to Lucy if I died?” From that moment, Lucy became my reason to live, compos mentis: I was determined to survive because of her.

As my assistance dog, she challenged stereotypes and transcended entrenched norms. Very early on, Lucy began to perform ‘tasks’ which assistance dogs are specially trained to do from a young age. Lucy was a former racing dog, how could she know? Yet, she knew exactly what I needed for my specific sensory anxieties and lapses in executive functioning even before I was aware of them, and decided of her own accord to help me — demonstrating acute discernment and autonomous choice. Lucy’s behaviour in public also rivalled that of assistance dogs, even before we began official training for the role.

It is common practice that when an assistance dog retires from active duty, the human handler would acquire another, either keeping the old one as a pet or rehoming the dog to someone else. When it came time for Lucy’s retirement, I was asked to consider finding a successor. I, of course, declined, but this brought to the forefront pertinent issues that greatly disturbed me about the system currently in place. Giving Lucy away was out of the question, but I could not even bear the thought of leaving Lucy at home while I take another dog out. Ours was a profoundly intimate connection. How would Lucy feel?

I have since begun to ponder more deeply the non-human animal’s mental and emotional experience and needs, beyond food, shelter and healthcare, and the problematic ways in which we currently practice human and non-human animal relationships.

Lucy was (and remains) a dynamic creative influence on my professional work. The symbiotic nature of our relationship inspired my PhD dissertation about distinct Autistic elemental empathic resonance with non-human entities.⁵ Observing Lucy’s way of ‘sensing’ precipitated richer interpretations of Autistic sensory-cognitive experiences in my artistic practice. Lucy even helped me to design and choose the materials for Sonata in Z (2015),⁶ an immersive installation exploring sensory comfort from the Autistic paradigm. From this emerged one of my most popular research trajectories, Clement Space,⁷ about finding and establishing conducive space for respite and restoration.

In 2021, I presented a whimsical glimpse of our close attachment in a multidisciplinary experimental digital show, Scheherazade’s Sea: continuing journey,⁸ featuring a cast of professional and amateur artists with different disabilities.

With Lucy, I have thrived and flourished, experienced amazing adventures beyond my wildest imagination, and my work has appeared in print, online media, television, radio, conferences, arts festivals and museums in the USA, UK, Australia, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan and Singapore. It is therefore a straightforward, unembellished truth to state that I owe my life and worldly achievements to Lucy.

When Lucy died in March this year (2023), I became engulfed by a crushing desolation that I had never known before, and I desperately wanted to follow after her. My entire world crumbled and I reverted to my old struggles with severe insomnia.⁹ Concurrently, a polyphony of medical conditions, extant and ‘new’, exploded with aggressive violence into the foreground. I do not believe in artists “suffering for art”, but in reality, my very existence has been marked by affliction, a confrontation that Lucy softened and alleviated. In fact, the healing that Lucy brought reached far back into my past. More than twenty years ago, I wrote and recorded some songs expressing existential questions and yearnings, but it wasn’t until I was softly singing and playing these songs to Lucy as she neared her mortal end, that I recognised in a concrete, palpable way how Lucy embodied the answers to all my questions, and she was the ultimate gift of perfect love that I had longed for since childhood.¹⁰ My greatest regret is that I had not more consciously apprehended this exquisite truth much earlier. I shall grieve for her to the end of my days.

Epitome of pulchritude, Valiant Princess, tender lover, creative muse, and my moral responsibility, Lucy revealed the infinite prospects of vivid, sonorous magnificence that lie beyond the human obsession for navel-gazing. Yet, I wonder, is it even possible for the limited human intellect and senses to attain such percipience — to discern the susurration of the universe? But I must leave these mysteries to researchers and thinkers of the future who, without a doubt, surpass my own capacity. I made a promise to Lucy on her death bed to live to tell our story, in honour of her legacy. My mission henceforth is thus to focus on completing our ‘memoir-fantasie’, a multimedia autobiography in the form of Fantasia, Wake Up in My Dreams, as a testament to the Love of My Life, Lucy Like-a-Charm.

Endnotes:

1. I use Identity First language – Autistic / Autist – in line with the preference of the majority of Autistic persons worldwide. The premise for this is explained in numerous articles available online. Autistic advocate, Lydia Brown, wrote the following explanatory article in 2011. Lydia Brown, “Identity First Language,” ASAN – Autistic Self Advocacy Network, webpage, accessed 27 June 2023. https://autisticadvocacy.org/about-asan/identity-first-language/

2. Johan Nyrenius, et al. “The ‘lost generation’ in adult psychiatry: psychiatric, neurodevelopmental and sociodemographic characteristics of psychiatric patients with autism unrecognised in childhood.” BJPsych open vol. 9,3 e89. 24 May. 2023, doi:10.1192/bjo.2023.13

3. D. Mandell, “Dying before their time: Addressing premature mortality among autistic people,” Autism, 22(3), (2018): 234–235. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362361318764742

4. An action commonly referred to as “grounding”, a kind of deep pressure intervention that not only provides comfort during distressing situations but also serves to redirect or reconnect persons in dissociative states.

5. Dawn-joy Leong, “Scheherazade’s Sea: autism, parallel embodiment and elemental empathy,” PhD diss., (University of New South Wales, Australia, 2016), accessed 27 June 2023, https://dawnjoyleong.com/phd-dissertation-2016/

6. Dawn-joy Leong, “Sonata in Z, 2015”, webpage, accessed 27 June 2023, https://dawnjoyleong.com/performances-exhibitions/sonata-in-z-2/

7. Dawn-joy Leong, “Performances / Exhibitions”, webpage, accessed 29 June 2023, https://dawnjoyleong.com/performances-exhibitions/

8. Dawn-joy Leong, “Scheherazade’s Sea 2021 – excerpt ‘Celestial Being’, Youtube video, accessed 3 July 2023, https://youtu.be/iKbekC82VtU ; “Scheherazade’s Sea 2021 – excerpt ‘Lucy Like-a-Charm’, Youtube video, accessed 3 July 2023, https://youtu.be/lNfKW0Y6YQk ; “Scheherazade’s Sea 2021 – excerpt ‘Happy Feet’, Youtube video, accessed 3 July 2023, https://youtu.be/PAIyeZJhZZ4 ; “Scheherazade’s Sea: continuing journey, 2021,” webpage, 2021, accessed 28 June 2023, https://dawnjoyleong.com/scheherazades-sea-continuing-journey-2021

9. E. Halstead, E. Sullivan, Z. Zambelli, J.G.Ellis, & D. Dimitriou. “The treatment of sleep problems in autistic adults in the United Kingdom,” Autism, 25(8), (2021): 2412–2417. https://doi.org/10.1177/13623613211007226

10. Dawn-joy Leong, “Lucy Like-a-Charm – embodiment of love and grace,” Soundcloud audio playlist, 9 tracks, accessed 30 June 2023, https://soundcloud.com/dawn-joy-leong/sets/lucy-like-a-charm-embodiment

Autistic Thriving @TEDx

Posted on July 31, 2018 by dawnjoyleong

Lucy and I shall be at TEDx Pickering Street this Saturday 4 August 2018. Come join us and hear my ideas on how autistic and non-autistic people may grow and thrive, not despite autism but because of the unique features of autism, and what society can learn from autistic persons.

—

[Autistic Thriving – Dr. Dawn-Joy Leong]
There is a great deal of ‘awareness’ these days about Autism – mainly from non-autistic observations. However, where are the Actually Autistic voices in this cacophony of opinions and interpretations? What is it like to be autistic? Discover how Dawn learns to thrive within her autistic ecology, not despite but because of her autism.
Grab your tickets here: https://tedxpsthrive.peatix.com/

[自闭世界的生意盎然]
自闭症在当下取得了广泛的关注，只不过这些观察结果都是从非自闭症患者角度获得的。可是抛开这些不和谐的观点和解释，我们从何听到自闭症患者的真实发声？作为一个自闭症患者是什么样子？在这场演讲中，Dawn会向我们分享她是如何在患有自闭症的情况下茁壮成长。