It is a wild offence

To stand upon the same ground

As our autistic ancestors

Who went unidentified

Dismissed, misunderstood

Invalidated and gaslit

And to not stand proud

In our identity and culture

With positive autistic identity

It is an outrageous insult

To be provided a time and place

Of...

I used to regularly go through periods in my life

Where I could feel myself unravelling

This could obviously only mean that

I spent the rest of the time tightly wound

Always hypervigilant about my behaviour

The way my face looked, my expressions

The way I moved my body

The tone, pitch and...

I prioritise autistic voices.

I listen to and respect the lived experience of our community.

BUT I don't have to bully, shame and harass non autistic professionals and families in order to advocate or to be respected by my community.

If we spent as much time supporting our kin and their families...

Joy

Morning joy

I’m always up before the birds and the sun

Always been a morning person

Partly due to a strategy developed in my early twenties 

To hit the deck as soon as my eyes opened

In order to avoid falling into the depressive abyss

 I often lived inside of

 Struggling...

As a PDAer, I cannot be seen or known to be learning anything from anyone else.

Ugh. Really?

Yep, really.

No help with homework thanks. No putting my hand up in class.

Always pretending to understand everything when I don’t.

There lies within me an internal resistance of which I have no...