This morning, this study landed in my inbox. Masking is Life: Experiences of Masking in Autistic and Nonautistic Adults I don’t know how we learn this, but from a very early age, we are taught that what we choose to do as a career as adults forever defines who we are as people. People who…
Category: AUTISM
Ramblings
I’m on the sofa. Completely shattered after what feels like one tsunami of life events after another. Looking from the outside people see a beautiful home, good income, what on earth does she have to worry about, or be miserable about. I feel very judged. And guilty. I know I have so much. I castigate…
Letters to Little Sarah – 17.08.2021
Before you read this first entry in Letters to Little Sarah, I wanted to give some context of how this came about. In May 2020, I was diagnosed with Autism. I was 52. A diagnosis of ADHD followed a year later. Whilst I thought discovering I was neurodivergent would immediately make me feel better, it…
A sense of place
Sitting at my desk in my craft room, making some cards for some friends, radio playing in the background, my thoughts turn to what it means to have a sense of place and with it a sense of belonging. I am transported to age 8 when I am catapulted from our small 2-up, 2-down council…
Project Hope
I have heard it said that some Autistics have an ability to feel so much empathy that they can feel extreme pain if someone else around them is in pain. This of course flies in the face of what many still believe about Autistics. I have always felt the pain of the others around me….
Autism is not a disease!
One of the things that has come to light since my Autism diagnosis is when my core values appear to me to be either under threat or are being transgressed in any way, I become very black and white in my thinking. I’ll admit, this came as a bit of a shock. Whilst I have…
I am who I am
I wake up with a familiar gnawing in my gut. I feel sick. Sleep eluded me last night, nightmares filling my brain with terror. I feel the swell of my ever increasing abdomen on the bed. Middle age has not been kind to my body. Dave used to spoon me in bed and bend his…
Life is short
I’m documenting my journey. 2020 is honestly proving to be a rather challenging year and I need to make sense of it in my head. I’m lying in bed as I write this. Nearly 11am, still in my pjs with the electric blanket on. I feel the cold so much. I have so many days…
You’re autistic : May the fourth be with you
Driving in the car, I feel a hand take mine and squeeze. I am anxious and he can see it. “How are you feeling?” He knows the answer but it’s something to break the silence. “I feel sick.” He nods. “I feel sick because I’m terrified it won’t be what I want to hear.” He…
The yin and yang of the week that was
So this is how my week has been: We withdrew Master J from school. Only a term before the end of VCE, only a term before the end of his entire 13 year career. We withdrew him because he could take it no longer. He could no longer endure the place that promised us that they…