Finding HopeAutism Dogs – It’s A Match!
Posted on February 9, 2025
NOTE: Between my brain fog and a WordPress update, I lost track of the post between the first post – The Application – and this post, where I went up to the Autism Dogs farm to discuss the Advanced Tasks my dog would need to learn and met a few of the dogs they’re currently training. That post is here, in case you missed it. This post follows that one.
In April 2024, I went up to the Autism Dogs farm to discuss Advanced Tasks and meet some of their current dogs to get a sense of what breed of dog would be a good fit for me. We came to the conclusion that a female Labrador would be the best choice and not long after, in May, they contacted me to tell me that they had a potential match, a female black Labrador called River. They sent us a couple of photos and although she was very cute, I was reluctant to open myself up to getting attached before I’d even met her. What if I fell in love with her and then we weren’t compatible? I wanted to meet her before I let myself feel anything. So I waited – both excitedly and anxiously – for our next trip up to the farm.
It takes several hours for us to get up to the farm so my Mum and I caught the train to Stoke-on-Trent and I stayed over the night before at the Holiday Inn (they were dog-friendly and had many of my safe foods). We got there without too much trouble, although I do find travel tiring, and settled into our room – which had the biggest bathroom I think I’ve ever seen. Given how busy my week had been, having a quiet evening before our session with Autism Dogs and before meeting River wasn’t the worst thing.
Originally, the plan had been to bring Izzy so that she and River could meet but, as we got on the train, they called and asked us not to bring her as River had a bit of a cough; she’d be seeing the vet within the next day or two and they weren’t worried but they were reluctant to have the two dogs mixing just in case it was something infectious. But we were already on the train with Izzy so one of the team would look after her while we met River and the two could meet on the next visit should everything go well.
Izzy had never been in a hotel room before and while she initially found it the most exciting thing ever, she did start to struggle with the noises on either side and in the corridor. She found it hard to settle and she barked a bit but she wasn’t too bad, all things considering; it was a completely new experience for her, on top of all the travelling. I mean, I was feeling quite overwhelmed so I’m surprised she wasn’t more unsettled.
The next morning, we got up and – after a breakfast of ALL safe foods! – got a cab to the Autism Dogs farm. Izzy hung out with a member of the team: given how adorable she is, I’ve yet to find someone who doesn’t want to spend time with her. And once she was settled, Mum and I got ready to meet River. She bounded into the room, this gorgeous black Labrador – bigger than the black Labrador I grew up with – bounded into the room, super excited and running back and forth between me and Mum. Her enthusiasm was infectious. But once she calmed down a bit, she was so sweet and so gentle: she curled up with her head in my lap, soft and warm and snuggly, so quickly. I was in love.
We got to just hang out with her for a bit: play and stroke and cuddle and just really get a feel for each other. It wasn’t a hard decision at all. Mum and I both felt like she was a really good fit: personality wise, good size, her fur isn’t a sensory issue for me, we have experience with Labradors… She was so sweet and affectionate and it just felt really right. The team members who were present for that session said that they don’t often see dogs connect so quickly.
Early on in the process, we had asked whether we would be able to name the dog I was matched with, as I had a specific name in mind – if possible. They said that that was unlike to be a problem, especially if it was the same amount of syllables as the original name. So River became Daisy, my personal superdog, inspired by Daisy Johnson of Agents of Shield (my special interest character for those of you who don’t know). And while I am, of course, biased, I think she looks more like a Daisy than a River.
I can’t get over how lovely she is and I can’t wait to start really working with her and learning the training and really building that bond. Unfortunately, we couldn’t stay there indefinitely so, when our time was up, we said goodbye to Daisy and were reunited with Izzy, who was very excited to see us. We caught a cab to the station and then the multiple trains home. We were all exhausted and so finally, finally getting home was wonderful. My bed had never been so appealing and me and Izzy snuggled down together. She’s handled the whole thing really well, given how many new and potentially overwhelming things she’d encountered over the previous two days; I was really proud of her.
It was a really good day and I can’t wait to visit Daisy again.
It was a long, exhausting day but I felt like we’d made a real leap forward, having matched with Daisy. I do feel pretty overwhelmed and emotional by the whole thing but I only had to talk to Mum to restore my confidence in the choice. It’s just a really big change and I always find big changes very unsettling. But even though it does feel quite overwhelming, the team are great and I have faith in them to guide me through Daisy’s training and then support me once she comes to live with me. So, yes, there’s anxiety but, for the most part, it’s not overwhelming; I know it’s just my brain spiralling because that’s my knee jerk reaction to any upheaval in my life. But I feel well supported and, ultimately, excited about the path we are now absolutely on.
Write This Out – Out Now!
Posted on January 15, 2025
If you follow me on one or more of my social media platforms, you will already know this but if you don’t… SURPRISE! My new single, ‘Write This Out,’ is out today! I’m so excited and I cannot wait for you to hear it!
‘Write This Out’ is the very first single in a much bigger project, one that I’ve been actively working on since 2021 and thinking about for even longer. But details about the project will have to wait. Today is for ‘Write This Out’ – my first song to be released since ‘House on Fire’ in 2023. It was inspired by this fear that I’ve always had: the fear that, if I forget the details of my life, then I would be losing all of the pieces that make me who I am. I think this is very tied up with my OCD – in the form of memory hoarding – but I think it’s also connected to a lifetime of masking and my struggles with unmasking; my memories anchor me and without them, I would have no idea who I am. This manifested as a desperation to keep these memories safe and so I’ve been writing everything down for years. The memories are preserved and so I don’t have to try to hold onto every moment of my life at once: as an autistic person, I can find it really hard to regulate my emotions and they can get utterly overwhelming and I cannot function if I’m trying to hold EVERYTHING – the past, the present, the future – in my head. So if I’m going to function – and function I must, to some degree at least – I have to get those feelings out before I start to lose things and ultimately lose myself. I have to write it all down, something that is completely exhausting but feels impossible not to do. I have SHELVES of notebooks in my room, filled with my thoughts and feelings and experiences.
And beyond that being a part of my life that I wanted to express in song form, it was a concept that felt like a really important one to begin a project about being neurodivergent – although more specifically about being autistic – with because writing about my experiences of being neurodivergent, of being autistic, is something I’ve really wanted and needed to do. I never wanted to hide these fundamental parts of my identity but being open about them can feel really vulnerable and as much as I wanted to write about it all and put it out into the world, it took me some time to get there, as well as other life stuff – autistic burnout, chronic illness, mental illness, trauma, therapy, and so on – getting in the way. But I started writing songs because I never heard anything that I related to and I think every song I’ve written has been a stepping stone to this moment, to this project. I wanted to stop holding all of these feelings and experiences and difficulties and write about them, write about my reality, like every other songwriter gets to.
Plus there’s a huge population of neurodivergent individuals that have very little music written directly about the experiences that often make us feel separate from those around us. That’s not to say that every neurodivergent person WILL relate to this song and the songs to come but I hope that some will and that they can find some validation and some connection from them. We deserve music that covers our experience of the world, that makes us feel seen and validated and understood. As I said, no song is going to resonate with every neurodivergent person – being neurodivergent doesn’t automatically make us the same and grant us the same experiences – but I think we need more neurodivergent artists in the world and I’ve been so excited to see the number of artists talking about their neurodivergent experiences rise exponentially over the last few years. I’m proud to be a part of that, even as a little indie artist with a relatively small audience.
This isn’t an easy song to listen to: it’s bursting with panic and desperation and urgency. And if you relate to that, I feel for you; it’s an awful, exhausting way to exist. But I hope that, if it does resonate, you feel seen and you feel heard and you feel understood. Maybe this song can help you write out all of the feelings that are overwhelming you. Maybe it can help you say them out loud or scream them at the sky if you need to. You’re not alone.
Photographer: Thomas Oscar Miles // Cover Design: Richard Sanderson
As I said, I’m so excited to finally put this song out and for people to finally hear it. I can’t wait to hear what you think. Here’s to ‘Write This Out‘ and to all of the songs to come!
Autism Dogs – The Application
Posted on November 19, 2024
It’s official! I’m getting an Autism Assistance Dog! These posts are currently quite out of date because I wanted to get well into the process before writing too much about it but now that things are really moving, there’s a lot to share!
I applied to Autism Dogs twice, first in September 2021. But a month later, I was informed that I hadn’t gotten past the application round. They got in touch though and said that there was nothing wrong with me or my application, just that they always have more people apply than they can take on every time they open up the application process; they only have so many dogs and so many people to train them.
Once that happened, I applied again in May 2023 and, this time, they accepted me and I moved onto the next round of the application process, which involved more forms and and an interview with two people who work for the charity. The main point of the interview was so that they could get a real sense of me as a person and of what I would need from an assistance dog but it also allowed them to gather more information, like whether we would be able to care for the dog, whether we could fund the training process, and so on. They had my application form so they already had a lot of information about me but the interview gave them a chance to ask more questions and for us – my Mum and I – to expand on the information we’d already given them. It also gave us the chance to ask the questions that we’d started to come up with. Going through this process, guided by autistic people and people who’ve had lifelong experience with autistic individuals, I just felt like they got me: no request or accommodation was surprising or irritating; many of my needs and sensitivities were already accommodated for; and there were regular check ins, breaks, and as much flexibility as the schedule allowed. It was the first time I’d experienced anything like that and honestly, it was amazing, if kind of surreal.
They signed off on me and so I went on to do a one-to-one video call with the founder of Autism Dogs. She was really, really lovely and we had a really long, really interesting and engaging conversation; we talked about the charity, about me, about all of this going forward, and she was very happy to officially welcome me into the program and begin the process of having me matched with a dog, provided we could meet the financial requirement of the application, which we had been planning for – especially since we hadn’t been accepted the first time but had been encouraged to keep trying.
It was made very clear early on that it’s not a speedy process, that you can be on the waiting list for a year to eighteen months. That was always fine with me because making sure that a person is matched with the right dog can’t be a simple process and, of course, I’d much rather wait longer for a better fit. If you and your dog aren’t a good match, the whole point of having an assistance dog is undermined: you won’t benefit from the relationship and support and your dog will struggle and ultimately fail to thrive as an assistance dog. I can’t imagine that it’s a situation anyone seeking an assistance dog wants to be in. As the months have passed, I’ve stood by that belief because I want this relationship to be successful and helpful to me in becoming more independent and and having a bigger life; I know that can’t happen if I try to rush the process. Plus I have multiple sensory sensitivities which ruled out certain breeds of dogs, again slowing the process because they had less dogs to select from.
We had multiple meetings – both over Zoom and in person at the Autism Dogs farm – but it wasn’t until twelve months after I was accepted into the program, in May 2024, that I was matched with a dog, a gorgeous black Labrador who is now well on her way to becoming my assistance dog.
As I said in the introduction, I’m quite a bit further down this road than the blog post suggests but I wanted to detail the whole process from the beginning with as much information as possible but in digestible chunks (as well as writable chunks) so that it doesn’t take forever to post – unlike my yearly album posts.
NOTE: Between my brain fog and a WordPress update, I lost track of what was supposed to be the next post, the next step in the journey: discussing my Advanced Tasks list and meeting some of the dogs to get a sense of which breed I would be most comfortable with. That post is now up and you can find it here.
Finding Hope 