All my life I have wanted to blend in. I have wanted to be understood, to feel safe, to be able to tolerate a bit of vulnerability without needing to retreat for days to recover, and to be accepted for who I am. I have tried so hard to look the part, talk the talk, be one of the gang. It’s possible people do actually perceive that I have achieved that, but in my mind I have not. I have always still felt on the outside and uncomfortable, no matter what I have done to fit in. Continue reading
Do you live independently? Yeah. Me too.
I live in a house with my partner. We both have jobs. I buy food, pay rent and bills, and drive my car. I am raising six children. I care for our pets. I clean the house, wash clothes, garden, and grow some of our own food. I go to appointments, deal with necessary bureaucracy, and I vote. Continue reading
Earlier this year MissG and I were to participate in the annual Autism Positivity Flashblog. The topic was Acceptance Love and Self-Care. I hoped to ask MissG some questions about how she looks after herself and submit her answers, but as you will see the discussion didn’t go as I thought it would. Continue reading
We pulled into the parking lot at the huge shopping centre an hours drive from home. We always have a lot of things to get done when we come here. Continue reading
There are a lot of definitions of success, and consensus over what is successful seems elusive. As a society, at least from where I sit, it looks like while we consistently see some things as signs of success, we do acknowledge that different things are regarded as measures of success in different situations. But I also see evidence that there are some things that are definitely not considered to be signs of success. Continue reading
From time to time, I notice a resurgence of the “letter to the new ‘autism parent’ from the experienced one” sort of articles in the blog/facebook world.
I get why these posts are popular. When your child is identified as autistic, it seems expected that people go through a period of feeling sad and overwhelmed. These letters tend to focus on that and give strategies to deal with the “awfulness” that life is with an Autistic child. Continue reading
