Autistic and Living the Dream

Category: Blog

  • OCD in one word

    OCD in one word

    I’ve been trying to write some poetry around the words you all gave myself and Autistic Realms about your experiences of OCD. My rewording couldn’t do justice to the powerful words you shared with us, so I created this instead. The other work in the Autistic Dream Realms project can be found here and here.…

  • Autistic parenthood: Living with mum guilt

    Autistic parenthood: Living with mum guilt

    Content note: transphobia, death, grief, mentions of assault and murder, trauma. I’ve been struggling with a lot of things lately and it all centres around being a mum and not feeling good enough for the job. My feelings of mum guilt is massive. I feel I’m not doing enough for Little Man. I feel guilty…

  • Autistic parenthood: Who am I?

    Autistic parenthood: Who am I?

    I’ve been off the last few weeks, not really feeling myself, I’m content but also really low. Nothing has been interesting me, I just get up do whatever I’m doing and then wait for bed time, to get up and do it all again. I have lots of projects ending, projects beginning, lots of waiting…

  • Advocacy: small steps, big impact

    Advocacy: small steps, big impact

    There’s an idea that online advocacy has to be that you reach X amount of people that you have to be on all the platforms, and you have to continually make content. I see too many Autistic advocates online apologise for going quiet for periods of time. You don’t need to apologise. What you’re giving…

  • Trans and Autistic: Getting my hair cut

    Trans and Autistic: Getting my hair cut

    I haven’t had the energy to get my hair cut in SO long, category was: scarecrow. It’s a worry for me to go in to the hairdressers for a ‘mans’ haircut, people either think I’m being cute or give me a feminine version of it, all the while I get referred to as a ‘lady’,…

  • Cancer services accessibility report

    Cancer services accessibility report

    The What I Would like to Say project has been running since April 2022 and we’ve been able to speak to some amazing Disabled and Neurodivergent people about their experiences with cancer services in the UK ranging from accessing information and screening, to treatment, recovery and aftercare. Through creative arts we were able to share…

  • The truth about ‘challenging behaviour’

    The truth about ‘challenging behaviour’

    Cw: bullying, mention of abuse, mental health, substance use and death. Challenging behaviour refers to a range of intense and frequent behaviours that threaten the quality of life and / or the physical safety of the person and those around them, behaviours can include aggression, verbal abuse and bullying (Imray, 2017). Challenging behaviour is socially…

  • Where my OCD and Autism overlaps

    Where my OCD and Autism overlaps

    It can be difficult to tell Autistic and OCD experiences apart! Some may wonder why this matters, but to manage OCD intrusive thoughts and compulsions it’s of utmost importance to understand how these two neurodivergences clash but also how they overlap. I have summarised my main experiences of being an Autistic OCDer: Autistic experiences:HyperfocusSensory differencesSocial…

  • Internal conflict in queer spaces

    Internal conflict in queer spaces

    There’s an awareness day and month for pretty much every identity, disability and living circumstance. For trans and gender diverse people we have  Trans Awareness Week and Trans Day of Visibility just in case you weren’t aware that we exist! Then we have  Trans Day of Mourning. So, our three trans community moments in the…

  • Autistic and OCD: left adrift

    Autistic and OCD: left adrift

    I started working with Autistic and otherwise neurodivergent and disabled young people when I was about 23. When I started doing home visits with families I kept thinking “I do that. I completely and utterly understand what you mean when you say something utterly outrageous, or what other people might see as peculiar.” And the…