Today, the Latitude Film Awards Silver Award arrived in the post for Autism: The Gift in the Curse.

It feels quite surreal.

When the award was announced online, I was obviously proud, but there is something very different about having the actual award sat in front of you. Holding it in my hands somehow makes everything feel more real. Something I can physically point to and say, “I’ve done that.”

It has come at a really important time too.

As many people know, I am currently experiencing burnout and taking some time to rest. When you are in burnout, it can be easy to lose sight of what you have achieved because your focus shifts towards simply getting through each day. Receiving this award has reminded me that, despite everything, I achieved exactly what I set out to achieve when this journey first began.

Over three years ago, the Eklectics team and I started filming what would eventually become Autism: The Gift in the Curse. From the beginning, the vision was never to create a documentary that made people comfortable. It was to create something meaningful that shared my experiences honestly, both the positive and the difficult parts. I wanted people to see the reality behind the labels and assumptions. The highs and lows, the confusion, the creativity, the burnout, the hope and the despair. Most importantly, I wanted to create something that challenged barriers that should never have existed in the first place.

Looking back now, it’s crazy how much has changed since we started filming.

During that time, I have been invited to Buckingham Palace in recognition of my contribution to education, received the Autism Hero Award and become an Ambassador for Anna Kennedy Online. I have also created projects in schools and prisons that are helping challenge perceptions around neurodivergence through lived experience, and through my art donations I have helped raise thousands of pounds for different charities and causes.

For over twenty years, I was in the mental health system carrying a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. I was prescribed countless combinations of antidepressants and antipsychotic medications. I was constantly searching for answers to difficulties that nobody seemed able to explain. I attended appointment after appointment, trying to understand why life was so difficult while constantly adapting myself to fit into a world that I never quite understood.

There were times in my life when I truly believed something was wrong with me. There were times when the weight of everything became so overwhelming that I came frighteningly close to becoming another suicide statistic.

These are difficult truths to talk about, and uncomfortable for others to hear, but they matter. Receiving a diagnosis does not magically remove the challenges autistic people face. Whether someone is diagnosed early, later in life, or not at all, many still struggle with burnout, mental health difficulties, isolation, misunderstanding and a lack of meaningful support. This documentary does not shy away from those realities. Instead, it gives them space to be seen and acknowledged.

The documentary does not claim to have all the answers, and it was never intended to. It is simply a glimpse into what it can be like to receive a late autism diagnosis and to try to rebuild your understanding of yourself after decades of misunderstanding. It also explores the role art has played in my life and how creativity became one of the key tools in helping me understand myself when words could not.

Over time, art became something much bigger than personal expression. It became a way of helping others through public exhibitions, school projects, prison rehabilitation programmes and conversations that otherwise may never have happened. Many of the opportunities I have had over recent years have come from people connecting with those stories and seeing the value of lived experience.

None of this would have been possible without the Eklectics team. Jon and Robin have both played huge roles throughout this journey. Jon is the person behind the camera capturing the moments that matter, while Robin has taken years of footage and shaped it into a story that people can emotionally connect with. From the very beginning, I knew I had to play a major role in shaping the documentary because we were talking about my life. More importantly, autism remains surrounded by misunderstanding and stigma; both myself and the team felt a responsibility to make sure the story was told in a way that genuinely raised awareness rather than reinforcing misconceptions.

This is not a manufactured documentary designed to make people feel comfortable because the reality many autistic people live is not comfortable. The masking is not comfortable. The burnout is not comfortable. The constant adaptation is not comfortable. The mental health consequences are not comfortable. These experiences are real, and pretending otherwise does nothing to improve understanding.

If people watch this documentary and leave asking questions, wanting to learn more or trying to better understand autistic people, then I will be happy. If it challenges outdated beliefs that should never have existed in the first place, then I will be happy. If it helps somebody feel less alone in their own experiences, then I will be happy.

I would like to thank the Latitude Film Awards for recognising Autism: The Gift in the Curse with this Silver Award. Of course, I would love to see the documentary continue to do well on the film festival circuit and hopefully pick up more awards along the way. However, if it doesn’t, that’s fine too because the bigger goal has always been getting the story out there and creating conversations that lead to meaningful change.

From the very beginning, this documentary was never intended to be a standalone project. The goal has always been to build this into a series exploring the many different areas I have become involved with throughout my journey, including education, prisons, healthcare, business and other sectors where neurodivergent people continue to face barriers that are misunderstood or overlooked.

That is why we are still filming.

There are stories that have to be told, experiences that deserve to be heard and important conversations that still need to happen. The documentary short is only a small glimpse into a much bigger picture. It introduces some of the challenges, but there is so much more to explore around diagnosis, support, rehabilitation, education, employment, creativity, and the impact that understanding neurodivergence can have when people are willing to listen.

For me, this award isn’t the end of anything. If anything, it is confirmation that people are connecting with the message. That was always the objective, and it remains the objective today.

For now, though, I am going to take a moment to appreciate what this award represents. Not because it validates me as a person, but because it proves that a story which started well over three years ago, built on honesty and a willingness to talk about difficult realities, is connecting with people.

For somebody who has spent most of his life being seen but never truly understood, this means a great deal.

Thank you to everyone who has supported the documentary, taken part in it and believed in it.

The journey is far from over.