Autistic and Living the Dream

Tag: Neurodivergent

  • Trans and Autistic: sorting my gender after diagnosis

    Trans and Autistic: sorting my gender after diagnosis

    I have always been weird. At school I always played alone at breaktimes, I talked to myself as I explored the sports field and wild areas of the playground. In my pockets I collected interesting things I found; acorns, a shiny rock, part of a bird egg. I was happy in my distant reveries, often…

  • Making “good choices”

    Making “good choices”

    In schools and educational settings across the UK, Neurodivergent children, including those with mental health conditions, are praised for “good choices” and punished for “bad choices.” This may seem effective on the surface but this idea puts the onus of ‘appropriate’ behaviours, reactionary and otherwise, on the child in question. This is harmful for several…

  • Are Autistic people supported at University?

    Are Autistic people supported at University?

    The undue pressure to meet our own accessibility needs in education is astounding. We have to constantly rely on our own advocacy, of that of our loved ones to be taken seriously. And it doesn’t get any easier in further education. University is filled with so many difficult social interactions, overwhelming spaces, inconsistent timetables and…

  • Under construction

    Under construction

    I haven’t written poetry since I was a teen, it used to help me when words came to me in less conventional ways. I’m excited to start with that side of writing again.

  • Counterculture: Autistic shielding and neuro-anarchy

    Counterculture: Autistic shielding and neuro-anarchy

    “There are several aspects to neuro-anarchy and several ways it can be engaged with consciously and unconsciously, it is a big part of Autistic shielding, especially the conscious choice to engage in counterculture and culture which sits on the outskirts of counterculture itself.”

  • Why youth work gives me Autistic joy

    Why youth work gives me Autistic joy

    As a Neurodivergent and Disabled youth worker I learn so much from the Disabled kids I work with. I realised I was Autistic after doing home visits and writing kids paperwork which could have come straight from my own childhood – the anxiety, the need for sensory input, the inability to be quiet or sit…