Finding HopeWorld Autism Awareness Week 2021
Posted on March 29, 2021
And World Autism Awareness Week is here again!
Over this week, I’ll be sharing a series of posts focussed on Autism and my experiences with it, as well as resources from various organisations that may be useful for those of you who are autistic or support someone who is autistic.
Here are some great organisations that provide support and/or information:
On this blog, I’ve written multiple posts about or including various aspects of my experience with Autism and so, to begin this week, I thought I’d collate them in one post so that they’re easily accessible…
- Happy Diagnosis Day! – Celebrating the two year anniversary of my Autism diagnosis.
- Disability Pride in Brighton – Performing at Disability Pride and my thoughts on it.
- Eye Contact – My thoughts on eye contact as a person with Autism.
- One Woman With Autism – My experience of Autism Spectrum Disorder.
- Tired – My history of fatigue and how it relates to Autism.
- Christmas and Autism – Some thoughts on Christmas and how to make it an enjoyable experience as a person with Autism.
- A Study of Autism – Why I love doing Autism research studies.
- When I Said I Wanted Superpowers, This Isn’t What I Meant – Just me rambling about the use of superpower metaphors in Autism and mental health.
- When You Feel ‘Too Much’ – Some tips for managing strong emotions.
- Snapshot #1: Country2Country Festival as an Autistic Person – A day-in-the-life style post about attending Country2Country and my experience of it as an Autistic person with mental health struggles.
- World Autism Awareness Week 2018 – Introducing World Autism Awareness Week and Autism itself, as well as some useful links and the video for the awareness campaign.
- The Consequences of an Autism Diagnosis – My personal pros and cons of being diagnosed with Autism.
- Living With The Volume Up Loud – My experience of being highly sensitive to the world around me and what can cause me to go into sensory overload.
- Learn With Me – My experience of being diagnosed with Autism at 20.
- Introducing My Autistic Self – How I told people about my diagnosis.
- Introducing my Mum – My Mum is my hero and she needs her own post, plus she may be writing some of her own pieces in the future.
- When Anxiety Is The Only Thing On The Menu – My experience of food and eating as an Autistic person.
- Autism Awareness Day 2018 – A round up of my Autism Awareness Week posts and some encouraging words for anyone struggling.
- Moving House When You’re Autistic – Tips for moving house from a person with Autism.
- Autistic and Afraid of the Dentist – My experience with dentists as a person with Autism and how seeing a specialist dentist helped me.
- Autism’s Got Talent – Performing at Autism’s Got Talent, a showcase for autistic people, run by Anna Kennedy Online.
- Snapshot #2: Taylor Swift’s Reputation Tour – My experience of seeing Taylor Swift in concert (as a person with Autism and anxiety).
- Travelling as an Autistic Person – Some of the things that help me when travelling.
- Getting A Diagnosis – The Autism Edition – My experience of getting an Autism diagnosis.
- ‘Is Autism a Gift?’ (At New Scientist Live) – Dr Anna Remington’s talk about some of the positives of Autism.
- Things I’d Tell My Younger Self – Looking back on my younger self as I turn twenty four.
- My Experiences with Therapy – CBT, EMDR, DBT, and my experience of them.
- Meltdowns, Halsey, Halsey, and Meltdowns – A really intense weekend where I saw Halsey twice and had multiple meltdowns.
- What Women With Autism Want You To Know – A video about women with Autism.
- Metaphors For Autism – A handful of metaphors for Autism.
- A Lot Has Been Happening – After accidentally abandoning the blog again, an extended update on what has been going on in my life.
- My DSA Assessment – The traumatic experience of being assessed for Disabled Student Allowance.
- The First Semester of My Masters – The highs and lows of the my very first semester as a Masters student.
- “It was the end of a decade, but the start of an age…” (2010 – 2020) – Looking back over the last decade.
- Living With Autism During A Pandemic – My experience of living through this pandemic so far and some tips for coping, both for those with Autism and those without.
- Seeing Yourself In The World Around You – The importance of the representation of mental health and neurodiversity.
- The DSA Process For My Masters Degree – How I got Disabled Student Allowance and tips for those going though the process.
- Going Back To University During A Pandemic – My feelings on the new academic year while we’re still in the middle of a pandemic and the choices I’ve made to make it as safe and anxiety-free as possible.
- Mental Health Update (September 2020) – An overview of my mental health before starting the second year of my Masters Degree.
- Creative Difference: Exploring Art and Autism – A webinar held by Autistica where four autistic artists talk about the relationship between their Autism and their approach to art.
- A Week In My Life (November Reading Week) – A week that involved my university’s reading week, the US election, Bonfire Night, and the beginning of England’s second national lockdown.
- A Day In My Life (University with Autism Spectrum Disorder) – A day in my life as an autistic university student.
- Autistic Students: Coping With Change – Speaking at a Conference! – I got to speak about my experience as an autistic student at a conference.
- A Week In My Life (February 2021) – A week involving my first Occupational Therapy session, finding out my Musical Language module grades, a couple of really difficult medical appointments, and the various songs I’m working on.
I hope this post is an interesting and useful start to the week and I look forward to sharing the rest of the posts I have planned for this week in the coming days. I hope you’re all staying safe and looking out for each other!
Autism Awareness Day 2018
Posted on April 3, 2018
Happy Autism Awareness Day!
Having been posting all week, I’m not sure I have anything new or exciting to say today. Plus I’m really jet lagged and struggling after an allergic-like reaction that I had on the flight to Nashville yesterday. I’m not sure how many words I have in me until I’ve had at least another night’s sleep. But I wanted to post with all the links to those posts and throw in my two cents (I’m in America, geddit…) to the discussions going on all over social media today.
Remember that, regardless of the things you find difficult or are unable to do, you are important and what you do matters. We may not always live up to the standards imposed on us and we may not always be as good as we want to be but that does not mean that what we can manage doesn’t matter, whether that’s exam results, exercising, or writing songs. How you do something, with your unique emotions, thoughts, and experiences, will be entirely different to how any other person would do it. That’s special. You’re special.
I’ll see you all soon. And here are all the posts from this week, all aimed at greater understanding around Autism:
World Autism Awareness Week 2018
The Consequences of an Autism Diagnosis
Introducing my Mum
Posted on March 31, 2018
In this post, I’d like to introduce my Mum, Sandra. We’ve been talking about her writing a post or two for a while because I think she’s got some really valuable stuff to add to the discussion of Autism, and Autism in women. Most of the resources around Autism tend to be written by parents of young children and while that viewpoint is important, the lack of any other viewpoints is something that needs to be addressed. There’s very little written by young people with Autism and I can’t find anything written by the parents of young people with Autism. So we thought we’d throw this out there.
We’ve never had a typical relationship: I’ve never felt the need to rebel and I can probably count on one hand the number of times we’ve really argued. We just get on really well and we share everything; we talk everything through. So she’s been on every step of this whole journey with me, from the moment I realised that what I was feeling wasn’t normal. She must’ve talked to hundreds of people – friends, family, health professionals in multiple fields – and spent hours and hours reading up on every possibility. She’s been to every appointment with me and she came to therapy with me until I felt confident enough to do it by myself. She pushes me when I need pushing and she protects me when I need protecting. I genuinely wouldn’t have made it this far without her. She’s always believed in me and she’s never stopped pushing to get me the help I needed, not for a moment. I am more grateful than I could ever express. She spoke for me when I couldn’t and she still does if I need her too. I only have to ask and she’s there. She is my hero. I couldn’t be me without her.
Here is a little paragraph from her to start her off:
‘Get out and take up dancing!’ was one of the many pieces of well-meaning advice I was given during my search for help for Lauren. ‘Tough Love’ was another suggestion and was just another way of saying the same thing. Because of the age she was when we started seriously looking for answers, many people, both professional and otherwise, saw much of her anxiety and depression as the ‘normal’ behaviour of an adolescent. But I felt there was more to it and knew I had to try and get some answers. So I began researching: talking, reading, anything to better understand what I saw Lauren struggling with. Now, several years later, I still remember my response to that suggestion: ‘I will take up dancing once I find the help my daughter needs’. And I have been lucky. We have been lucky. We have found some extraordinary people to help and support her but it has often been a long and isolating journey and one that I wonder whether might be useful to share for other parents or carers finding themselves in a similar situation.
We’ve been throwing some ideas around but nothing’s written yet. Between work stuff, moving house, and my mental health, there just hasn’t been the time. But we’ll get there. Stay tuned!
Finding Hope 