The first five senses you learn about as a child are sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing. These senses tell you about the world around you. A few weeks ago, I covered the proprioceptive and vestibular senses, which tell you about what your body is […]
So it’s October 2020, ten months into The Year From Hell… And I have something to say. It’s ok to have bad days. I don’t want to be talking about this right now. I love October. The weather is perfect, everything starts to smell good, […]
At this very moment, I’m several hours into a Dark Shadows marathon. I love this show, even if it’s ridiculously melodramatic and diabolically slowly paced and made on a frayed shoestring of a budget that forced them to leave mistakes and prop fails and other […]
Recently, I ran across some kerfuffle in the Twitterverse surrounding the idea of “former gifted kid” trauma. You may have seen these posts from time to time, equating growing up with the “gifted” label with serious mental health issues in adulthood. Someone replied to these […]
There’s a troublesome stereotype that says autistic children don’t play “correctly”. It’s even considered a diagnostic item in some circles. This is usually meant to say that autistic children will line up their toys instead of playing with them “the right way” – like playing […]
We were all taught the Golden Rule as small children – “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” – but for autistic people, this idea can be tricky when put into practice. Because we operate on a different wavelength than neurotypical […]
School is starting again, but nothing is normal this school year. Parents are facing choices between virtual classes, part-time school, or full homeschooling. Kids are looking at limited socialization, only being allowed to interact with a few of their classmates, if any. Everything is weird, […]
When I was diagnosed with autism four years ago, my psychologist told me that my tentative bipolar diagnosis from when I was 19 was probably wrong – she said that I probably had “mood lability associated with autism”. I had no idea what this meant, […]
All this social distancing and staying home is often thought of as an introvert’s – or an autistic person’s – dream come true. And while that’s not necessarily wrong, I’ve found that I’ve lost a considerable amount of my social skills in the isolation (despite […]
One of the questions I’m asked most often by parents of autistic teenagers and young adults is how to get their kids to maintain proper hygiene. It’s not that autistic people are dirtier than others, but teens and young adults may refuse some aspects of […]
