Frozen 2: The Mental Health Message

First of all I need to let you know that this is potentially my last ever blog post. The reason for that is I've been looking to make the jump from blogging to YouTube so I'm in the process of working on the YouTube side of things at the moment. I might still post here on the blog occasionally, but it won't be a regular thing any more unless it doesn't work out with my YouTube channel. Please check my social media at the links at the bottom to stay up to date with how it's going. With that said, this week's post is one that I was really excited to write, so let's get into it.

I recently took the opportunity to watch Frozen 2 for the first time, and not only is it a really good film, but I'm also addicted to the soundtrack, and I love the multiple mental health issues it shows. In fact, if I love the soundtrack of something it's usually a good indicator of how much I love the thing itself, regardless of what style or gene the soundtrack is in. Not sure if that's an autistic thing (it probably is) but I'm just putting it out there.

*****SPOILER WARNING*****

The rest of the post contains spoilers from the film, so if you haven't seen it yet it's recommended to only read this after you have.

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The main theme of the film - dealing with change - is set in one of the earliest scenes where Anna and Olaf contemplate the nature of time and how things are always changing. The song Some Things Never Change cements this theme by mentioning how even though seemingly everything is changing (everyone's getting older, the summer is turning to autumn and so on), some things stay the same (they'll always be friends, Kristoff's love for Anna is unconditional and they, as the royal family, will always work towards peace and the good of Arendelle).

It's not so much the theme of change that carries the messages, but more the way each character is affected by it. Anna and Elsa each represent depression and anxiety respectively (not to mention the widely held fan theory that Elsa is autistic, and of course autistics are particularly prone to struggling with change, as well as having more generalised issues with anxiety than the general population). The next song after Some Things Never Change is Into The Unknown, which is Frozen 2's successor to Let It Go. Into The Unknown begins with Elsa hearing a voice and recognising her purpose being to follow it into a journey of self-discovery. She initially resists because she doesn't want anything to change, but during the course of the song she admits that she's out of place as Queen of Arendelle and throws herself fully into following the voice.

It takes Anna, Elsa, Kristoff, Sven and Olaf to the enchanted forest where they're initially attacked by the forest's guardian spirits. Olaf's song When I Am Older is next, which sticks with the theme of changing with time, but I also interpreted it as Olaf being in denial that things are currently bad as he sings that it'll all make sense when he's older and "This isn't bad, it's good." He later starts to accept that not everything is good and that - as the old saying goes - "it's ok to not be ok" when Elsa sends both him and Anna away and he realises he's feeling anger for the first time. I guess it could also be interpreted as alexithymia, but I think that's too obscure a condition to be addressed in one of Disney's most successful film franchises, so I think denial is more likely.

Kristoff spends the film trying to propose to Anna but his efforts keep getting sidetracked by one thing or another. His frustrations and self-doubt come to a head in his 80's rock-style ballad Lost In The Woods where he contemplates whether he and Anna are actually meant to be together since every time he tries to propose something else comes up. The obvious answer is yes, but he shows his heartbreak in this song, while the real meaning behind it is that Sven validates how he feels. One of Sven's lines here is actually my favourite line from the whole film; "You feel what you feel, and those feelings are real."

Back to Elsa for a little bit now when she tries to cross the ocean to reach Ahtohallan. Elsa's anxiety is represented by the storm that's raging and preventing her from crossing. It initially pushes her back to the shore but she perseveres by using her ice powers to create platforms across the waves until she's thrown into the water by the Nokk (the water spirit). She goes on to fight and then tame the Nokk, calming the storm and riding her new horse-shaped companion across the sea to the frozen river of Ahtohallan, symbolising that she has conquered her anxiety through hard work and perseverance.

Once Elsa reaches Ahtohallan and discovers the truth about not only herself but also the Arendellian royal family's past she is frozen solid, mirroring Anna's freezing in the original film, but not before she can send a message revealing the truth to Anna and Olaf who are searching for a way out of a cave that they ended up in after Elsa sent them away. Because Elsa is technically dead at this point, the magic that keeps Olaf alive is no longer there so he flurries away into a pile of snow leaving Anna distressed and alone. This is where her depression is shown by her song The Next Right Thing. It includes the line "Hello darkness, I'm ready to succumb," which is probably about as dark as it gets for a family friendly film. Of course, the film is all about overcoming these mental struggles, which Anna does by breaking each task down into tiny, manageable actions; "I won't look too far ahead, It's too much for me to take, But break it down to this next breath, this next step, This next choice is one that I can make." She escapes the cave and does what she has to do to make up for her family's past and put things right - even at the risk of Arendelle itself.

Elsa unfreezes with the wrongs of the past put right and rushes to save Arendelle from the impending flood by creating a wall of ice at the very last second. Earlier in the film it was revealed that there was a mysterious 5th spirit of the enchanted forest (the other four being earth, wind fire and water), which at this point it's made clear that it's Elsa as the ice spirit. So Elsa has now discovered who she really is, where she belongs, and why she was so out of place in the magic-less Arendelle. Going back to the fan theory that Elsa is autistic, this revelation and Elsa's journey strongly mirrors a late diagnosis of autism (much like my own) and is extremely relatable to a lot of the autistic community.

I've really enjoyed writing this post (to the point where I think it's official that Frozen is now my new special interest!) and I hope you've enjoyed reading it. Don't forget to hit the Follow button in the side bar and follow me on social media. I'm on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and you can buy me a coffee at my Ko-Fi account here.

[Image description: A screenshot of Elsa holding Bruni (the fire spirit) in her hand. He's a small, blue lizard with a white underbelly, big eyes and a happy smile. The caption at the bottom reads "Frozen 2 The Mental Health Message". I chose this screen shot purely because Bruni is cute AF.]

Social Robot

My name is Dave, and I am a social robot.

What I mean by that is, as much as I hate to admit it, I rely heavily on words and phrases that I've picked up from other people, TV, YouTube videos etc. My day job is to help customers via online webchat, and in the webchat world this kind of phrases are called canned answers or canned responses. I've always felt that I don't really have an opinion on most things, but I'm starting to realise that it's more that I do have opinions and feelings, but I don't always have the words to express them. Either that, or I don't care enough to have an opinion. Sometimes when I hear people talking about a certain topic I'll take a word or a phrase that I've heard them say that most closely matches what I feel and either repeat it back to them in the conversation to show that I agree with them, or I'll use it next time I'm talking to somebody about that topic. I think politics is probably the main topic that I've done this with because until a few years ago I really didn't have a clue about it. Not that I know what I'm talking about when it comes to politics these days, but I definitely understand more than I did.

This use and recycling of social canned responses is part of autistic masking, but it's also a way to learn about things for me. It gets me involved in the conversation (or what little conversation I generally take part in...) and helps me to pick things up and learn that way. And I guess the fact that most people don't share a lot of my interests probably helps with the masking side of things in that they don't know that it came from a game or a film or something like that.

Not all of my canned responses came from other places. I came up with some of them myself (although they were usually short) and I have been picked up on using the same words and phrases a lot in the past. One that I remember when I was a kid was that I used to "Yeah, fine" a lot and my dad joked that I should have a button to press so that it says it for me. Looking back it probably sounded a bit dismissive but it was the quickest and easiest way for me to express that whatever we were talking about was ok. I never was one for talking lots.

The term "social robot" itself came from a book I read probably around 10 or 15 years ago about how to meet women. The writer used it to compare the performance of meeting people and obeying social rules of "popularity" to how you would normally be in every day life. I feel that being a social robot is better suited to autistics in reference to masking for survival and to get through social encounters with neurotypicals. A lot of us have actively spent time studying social rules and observing neurotypical behaviour so that we can learn the behaviours and communication methods that we can then perform rigidly in our robot state to pass as neurotypical. I personally haven't done a lot of conscious studying of people, although I do definitely pick up bits and pieces as I go through life and they sometimes become so ingrained in me that I can't always remember where they came from, or that it even came from somewhere else in the first place. This is similar to (or maybe part of) how many autistics including myself have confessed that they don't know where the mask ends and where they begin. I would go into masking in more details but it's not something I've really got my head around yet in terms of how/when I do it, so I've asked somebody for a guest post about it from their point of view which should be coming up soon.

In the meantime, as always, please hit the Follow button in the side bar and follow me on social media. I'm on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and you can buy me a coffee at my Ko-Fi account here.

[Image description: Black silhouette of a toy humanoid robot on a white background. Under the silhouette is the word "Autism" in rainbow colours, and under that is "Social Robot" in black.]

I Lost My Special Interest

Anyone who knows me knows that my main autistic special interest through my entire adult life has been professional wrestling. But ever since the Covid-19 outbreak things in the industry have taken a turn for the worst and while I still love wrestling in the sense of the art form, the athleticism and so on, I've majorly fallen out with the industry and I'm no longer willing to support it. This post is more of a rant than anything else but I need to vent as I've been sitting on this for at least a couple of weeks now.

I guess we should start at the beginning with the outbreak and the worldwide lockdown that followed. The first issue is with how WWE have handled the situation. They literally did no testing for Covid for the first 3 months or so meaning that their wrestlers and their off-camera staff were put at risk. They had changed to taping shows in an empty arena at their training facility which protected the public from infection, but that comes with its own issues which I'll get to in a moment. Despite a number of different wrestling promotions still continuing to put on weekly televised shows, I'm strongly of the opinion that all shows should have been cancelled until it was safe to continue, and I also think that taking a break like that would be beneficial to the company although my reasoning for that isn't relevant here.

Next up, we have a turn of events that was described by many as a "bloodbath" back in April. This was a mass release (a.k.a. firing) of many, many wrestlers and other back stage staff members. WWE have been known to hoard talent for quite a while now, resulting in having more wrestlers than they can feasibly make use of, and therefore a lot of them who really deserve better basically got lost in the shuffle. EC3 was a well noted example of this. He was a huge star in Impact! Wrestling before he went to WWE, but then WWE did next to nothing with him and barely gave him any screen time. Lots of these performers were cold-heartedly released from their contracts, which would normally have been a blessing for people like EC3, but it came at a time where the state of the economy itself was uncertain and lots of people worldwide were fearing for their jobs. There's also the fact that WWE really did not need to fire anybody at all. Yes, the firings free up some money for the company, but all of their financial reports show that with or without the performers and staff members that they let go of, and with or without the pandemic, they will survive as a company for years to come. After all, they are literally the biggest professional wrestling company in the world. Their hoarding of talent shows the stranglehold they've got on the industry, and although it's been known for years the firings well and truly demonstrate how much of a money-grabbing bastard Vince McMahon really is. But then, would you expect any less from one of Donald Trump's best mates?

Which leads me onto my next issue; WWE continued putting on shows because Trump classed them as an "essential business". Don't get me wrong, as a fan I'm grateful that we still got the shows as scheduled and I actually didn't mind the lack of audience to begin with, although the novelty did wear off. But the reason they got classed as an essential business -and thus allowed to continue as normal - is because Vince's wife Linda made the jump to politics a few years ago and is doing what she can to support Trump's re-election campaign. Basically, Trump allowed them to continue business as usual meaning that lives were put at risk in exchange for the McMahon family's help in getting him re-elected. Dodgy AF to say the least.

Now we go to issues that are primarily outside of WWE, but that's not to say that WWE wrestlers haven't been involved. This is the #SpeakingOut movement that saw females in the wrestling industry (wrestlers, partners, friends etc) speaking out about abuse that they had suffered at the hands of male wrestlers. The abuse that they told of apparently started in the British scene but had started to permeate its way into the US, and involved a whole range of things such as rape, manipulation, sexual harassment and the like. Lots of (mainly British) wrestlers were fired from the companies they performed for in the aftermath of these revelations and the most heartbreaking one for me was discovering that Ligero had been involved and subsequently fired from WWE's UK division. I'd long considered Ligero to be my favourite wrestler on the British scene having followed him for a number of years prior to him joining WWE, and he is (or at least was - I'm not sure if he still is after all this came about) one of the trainers at the wrestling school in Leeds that I would have loved to train at if I had the time, the money and no family commitments. I always wanted to train with him so now I feel betrayed by one of my heroes.

Then not long after #SpeakingOut took off, came the news that Impact! Wrestling had fired Tessa Blanchard - their world champion at the time. Not only is Tessa a phenomenally talented wrestler, but the fact that gave her as a woman the opportunity of holding the company's biggest championship speaks volumes about the faith they put in her... Until she went and threw it all away. The reason that I heard for her firing was that during lockdown she essentially couldn't be bothered to film any promotional/interview clips that the company kept asking for. As the company's top champion they quite rightfully expect her to keep her end of the bargain and actually do her job. This is even after they had stood by her through various allegations of racism and bullying, but she went and threw that back in their face. Just to give the magnitude of the situation some context, the last time any major wrestling company fired their world champion was way back in 1991 - almost 30 years ago -  when WWE fired Ric Flair.

You may think it's a good thing that they fired her, and I completely agree that it it is. But what pisses me off is that she's just 1 more example of this attitude in the wrestling industry that other people don't matter or are expendable, and the only thing that matters is that you get to the top of the industry. I mean fair enough, do what you can to make yourself successful and get to where you want to be, but don't do it by using other people as stepping stones, don't ruin people's lives for the sake of fame and fortune. Basically just be a decent person/promoter/company while also doing what you love.

If you follow me on social media you might have noticed that I was over the moon with my birthday presents in July, which were 2 wrestling Funko Pop figures. While I've fallen out with wrestling big time, the wrestlers who I've got figures of have done nothing wrong (at least to the best of my knowledge) so I'm still a fan of them as individuals. Plus my wife bought them both second-hand so I got 2 Pops that I really wanted without any money going to WWE. I've decided that I'm going to buy all of my wrestling merch second hand from now on. Just as a side note, one of the Pops I got for my birthday was Alexa Bliss. As an autism advocate I can sometimes dip into the mental health side of things, which leads me to look up to Alexa because of overcoming anorexia as a teenager, and because of how she's been known to encourage young people from time to time who are going through the same battles that she went through.

Sorry for the rant but I needed to get it off my chest. I was going to write this a few weeks prior to the actual time of writing but I was still too sore about it to bring myself to write it. In terms of other special interests, I love my Funko Pops and will collect more wrestling and non-wrestling ones, and I've been spending almost any and all time that I can on my PS4 - Currently playing The Last Of Us Part II if anyone's interested. please hit the Follow button in the side bar and follow me on social media. I'm on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and you can buy me a coffee at my Ko-Fi account here.

[Image description: My shelf of WWE figures, but not my WWE Funko Pops, which are on a different shelf. At the front are my Nano Metalfigs from Poundland of (left to right) Kevin Owens, AJ Styles, Demon Finn Balor, Becky Lynch and Seth Rollins. Behind them are my 3 full sized figures of Becky Lynch, John Cena, Finn Balor and Alexa Bliss. All are still in their original packaging except John Cena.]

Autism As A Label

Autism is something that's often considered by neurotypicals as "just a label" and not something you should be putting on yourself. Despite this, the autistic community take a very different stance on it, and that includes those members of the community who are self-diagnosed. As someone with lived experience of being told "it's just a label" prior to diagnosis, and then seeing and fully appreciating the value that said diagnosis brought, I thought this would be an important topic for me to discuss here.

After my first autism assessment concluded that my only issue was a lack of confidence it left me unsupported and without the closure I was seeking as both me and my wife knew there was more to it than the assessors had decided. That's why when I moved back to York I decided to go for a second opinion. The first GP that I saw in York was of an older generation who clearly didn't believe in mental health issues, which was shown by how she dealt with other family members seeking help by pretty much rejecting them and telling them they were over reacting. Anyway, in my particular case she asked why I want to label myself with something like that, she told me I didn't need it and then gave me the details of another mental health service that wrongly sent me to a couple of months' worth of CBT sessions for social anxiety. I soon realised the CBT wasn't working and arranged an appointment with a different doctor who then set the ball rolling for me to get assessed in York (my previous assessment was in Leeds).

Fast forwarding to over 18 months later I finally got my autism diagnosis, but not before I had difficulty at work in requesting reasonable adjustments because my role had changed. I think I explained in a previous post about the issues I had at work so I won't go into it here, but the long and short of it is that I had to fight for months to get any adjustments put in place throwing all sorts of law and regulations at them before I finally got the adjustments I needed, but even then it was on a temporary basis until I got officially diagnosed. My diagnosis came just as the temporary period was about to end and it made sure that it was made permanent. So that's one way in which being "labeled" by a diagnosis would have helped me much sooner when it comes to the world of work.

On a personal level though, the uncertainty of "am I/aren't I?" was unbearable and the acknowledgment that my diagnosis brought gave me so much closure and relief. I felt like I could finally be open about being autistic and discuss it more publicly than just in the online autism community. A fellow autistic online (can't remember who it was, but if I remember I'll edit this to credit them) once said that labels in the sense of food packaging are helpful because they give so much information about the food, nutritional information, allergens and so on, and basically said that an autism diagnosis is the same in that yes it is a label, but it's one that helps others understand that you might not thrive in social situations, or that you might be sensitive to loud noises, or that you might really, really enjoy trains or wrestling or anime or psychology or literally anything else. It's a much quicker, easier and more painless way of communicating your needs and your reasoning. Imagine if someone questions what you're doing when you're flapping your hands. If you answer along the lines that you're self-stimulating to soothe yourself because you're feeling overloaded they're likely to think you're a bit of an oddball, whereas if you answer with "I'm autistic," their reaction will probably be closer to "Oh, I get it now." At least, I like to think so anyway.

Autism diagnosis or a self-diagnosis isn't JUST a label. To many of us it's validation, it's acceptance, it's acknowledgement, it's understanding, it's a weight off our shoulders, it's a word that we can give to society to explain who we are. This is why we should be congratulated when we receive a diagnosis in adulthood instead of commiserated. I like to think that the same congratulations should apply to a family whose child has been diagnosed because it means they've been given a greater understanding of what exactly they may have been struggling with (if struggling at all - each family will be different) and what they need to do to help both their autistic child and themselves as a family. But in reality a lot of parents let their lack of understanding manifest in grief, and/or taking the wrong route in an effort to support their child (such as ABA for example). I guess being late diagnosed may have saved me from something like that in my childhood, but on the other hand there are things that I really would have benefited from had I been diagnosed in childhood.

I was bullied at lot at school and I would hope that having a diagnosis would have helped with that. I think it would have been another target for the bullies to get at me for, but I really, really hope that if I had been diagnosed my school would have done a hell of a lot more about it than what they actually did, which theoretically would have counteracted the bullying.

I've never been good at making or keeping friends and I believe firmly that if I knew I was autistic I would have received much more understanding from my peers as well as possibly known my own limitations and set boundaries for social situations.

Tying into that is my eternal struggle (until I met my wife) with romantic relationships. Each of my 3 previous relationships was shorter than the last, and the first 2 ended primarily because I was a lot more interested in them than they were in me. It's only in the last couple of months that I've discovered this is a very common autistic trait and the person we're dating can become a sort of special interest. Again, I think knowing I'm autistic and being able to explain that to my partners at the time would have theoretically made them a bit more patient and understanding of how I am. Either that, or it could have put them off completely and made them not enter a relationship with me in the first place. If I'm honest I don't know which route would have been better.

And finally, I think it would have benefited me in a professional capacity as well to have known I'm autistic. I've had more jobs than I think most people have, and I left a lot of them on bad terms. I know I've said it a lot here but it all comes down to understanding as I could have explained my needs and my employers could potentially have been more accommodating of them if we knew I was autistic. Don't get me wrong, there were non-autism-related issues that came up with some jobs (like when I was 20 or 21 I would show up to work hung over more often than I should have), but overall it was mostly issues that could have been addressed and dealt with had I been diagnosed autistic earlier on in life.

So there you have it. That's my take on the "label" of autism, and how it can be an extremely helpful thing for an autistic person to have in life. This is just my personal experience though, and I'm sure that there are infinite other benefits that autistic people have/would have experienced from it depending on when they were diagnosed. Please hit the Follow button in the side bar and follow me on social media. I'm on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and you can buy me a coffee at my Ko-Fi account here.

[Image description: A red and white name badge that says "Hi, I am" in a digital font, and then "Autistic" in a font that resembles handwriting. This is on a white background with "Autism" written at the bottom in rainbow colours, and under that is "As a Label" in black.]

Working From Home Vs the Office

I've been working from home for a couple of years now, even before the pandemic hit. Previously to that I was entirely office based so I've experienced both sides as an autistic employee (although I wasn't diagnosed until I was already working from home) and just like many other autistics I much prefer working from home. With lockdown starting to ease at the time of writing I thought now would be the ideal time to evaluate and compare the two according to my own experience.

There are lots of reasons that I started working from home in 2018. One of the main reasons was that working from home meant working evenings so I could be around to look after my kids during the day while my wife is at work/uni. While getting up early with the kids and then working till 1am wasn't ideal for my wellbeing, it worked for what we needed at the time. The other main reason I started working from home was that the long drive from York to Leeds and back every day was leaving me exhausted, and I would sometimes find that I would dissociate (or at least I think that's what it was - if I'm honest I'm not sure I fully understand dissociation) and end up in a minimalist, autopilot mode while driving, which is not great for obvious reasons. So I asked to be moved to the Out Of Hours team to work from home.

In terms of within the actual job it's a lot more relaxed than in an office environment because it's in my own space where I can listen to music if I want, I could stroke my cat who would often sit next to me, I can eat where and when I want and so on. I've never had much of a sensory issue when it comes to working in the office but it's definitely better at home where I'm fully in control of my own environment.

When I was in the office I wouldn't bother asking for the blind to be closed even if the sun was in my eyes because there were loads of other people there to consider as well so it just felt easier to put up with it while the sun was rising or setting, whereas at home I can just close the curtains at any time. Hot desking isn't an issue either. Not that it was an issue for me really, I just preferred to stay at the same desk all the time because it gave me a feeling of belonging, but it can be an issue for a lot of autistics. There's no office chat in the background to deal with, and most of the background noise is my choice anyway.

One of the things I have had an issue with while working in an office is having to wear a certain dress code. For example, when I worked for a bank we had to wear a shirt and trousers. The way shirts feel on my skin can bother me unless they're quite soft, and because I'm constantly battling with my weight it's often a struggle to find shirts that fit me properly. When you work from home you don't have this issue because you can wear what you want. Even before lockdown I worked my fair share of shifts in just my Darth Vader onesie and nobody was any the wiser, nor would they have cared if they knew.

Like I said, I wasn't diagnosed autistic until I was already working from home, but freedom to stim is another big benefit of home working. In all honesty, I don't know if I would have been happy to knowingly stim in the office if I hadn't gotten my head around it while working from home first. We used to have monthly office days, and because I'd already come to understand myself and stimming more by that point I didn't mind doing it in the office. My stims are mostly quite subtle/acceptable anyway such as chewing, spinning on my chair, jigging my leg under the desk etc.

The one negative to not working in the office that I can think of is that I quite enjoyed being around people as long as I didn't have to talk to them, and it was just once a month on our office days. I think going to the office just gave me a sense of actual involvement in something bigger, whereas working from home makes it easy to get stuck in a rut. With that said, I'm sure that if/when they send us back to the office full time after Covid it'll soon turn into a different story!

That's my point of view on working from home vs the office, and it's safe to say that I'll chose working from home without question whenever given the choice. Everyone is different and everyone has their own experience so there are likely things that I've missed that can be argued for and against each one, but this is my own personal experience having been on both sides. Please hit the Follow button in the side bar and follow me on social media. I'm on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and you can buy me a coffee at my Ko-Fi account here.

[Image description: A picture of my desk that I use for work. There's a black mouse mat to the right of the computer, my headset to the left, and various items scattered around including post-it notes, pens, sweets etc as I share the desk with my wife who uses it for her uni work. There is light shining through the window above the computer, which can be seen slightly to the right of it on this image.] 

Social Hangover

Being diagnosed autistic later in life is weird in a way. There are some things that even now, 18 months after diagnosis, I'm still working out about myself and my past even though in reality they should have been clear signs that I'm autistic. The thing that dawned on my most recently was that whenever I went on a night out I would always feel hungover the next morning, even if I didn't drink. There was a period of about 6 months in my early 20's where I couldn't drink because of the medication I was on, and there were other times here and there where I chose not to drink for different reasons, but every non-drinking night out still left me with what felt like a hangover the next morning. Granted, a less intense hangover than if I had been drinking, but other than intensity it felt pretty much the same. I never knew what it was until it randomly occurred to me the other day.

Now that I'm armed with the knowledge that I'm autistic I've put it down to being worn out by social interactions. I would wake up feeling nauseous, which is known to be a common thing in neurodivergents. When you feel anxious or worried for example, you feel it in your stomach which is why a lot of autistics develop stomach issues or other digestive issues. Growing up autistic (especially if you don't know it) is a stressful experience so it makes a lot of sense that my stomach would be sensitive the following day. I also used to feel physically over-sensitive after a night out, which does happen when I'm tired. I don't think that's just due to staying out late because at the time I was largely struggling to find work so I slept in a lot due to having nothing to really get up for. So the tiredness must have been mostly from trying to be sociable and exhausting myself. I sometimes had a headache in the morning as well, although that wasn't as frequent as the other symptoms. They are all signs of tiredness and/or stress which makes a lot of sense if I'd been putting a lot of effort into masking.

Masking isn't something that I've ever been aware of doing, but looking back I must have masked in some way or another through my childhood and up to around my mid-20's for nobody to have realised I might be autistic. It's a common thing for autistics to not know where the mask ends and where they begin so it's not surprising that I've never knowingly done it.

It's just a quick one this week because I just wanted to share that sudden realisation that when I used to go out but didn't drink I got social hangovers. To be honest, I'm not even sure if "social hangover" is the right term for it, or if there's even a term for it at all so I'd be interested to hear what you call it in the comments or on social media. Also let me know if you get social hangovers whether it feels the same or different for you. Please hit the Follow button in the side bar and follow me on social media. I'm on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and you can buy me a coffee at my Ko-Fi account here.

[Image description: Black silhouette of a human holding their head with both hands and lightning bolt-like symbols near the head to show distress. Below that is "Autism" in rainbow colours, and under that is "Social hangover" in black.] 

Insomnia

It's common for autistic people to either have trouble sleeping or be what most people might call a night owl. This is something I relate to and there is a neurological reason for it. I've always found it hard to get up on a morning unless there was a specific reason to get up such as school or work. There were a few periods in my late teens and early 20's where I found myself struggling to find work, and in these times I always found myself staying up later and sleeping in later because there was nothing that I absolutely had to get up for. Once or twice I decided to reset my sleep schedule by not sleeping on the night, but instead waiting until the following night when I'd go to bed at a "normal" time and then it gave me a decent night's sleep feeling reasonably awake the next morning. It didn't last too long though.

The reason for this is because the autistic brain tends to produce more melatonin during the day than it does at night, as opposed to a neurotypical brain that produces melatonin at night instead of during the day. Melatonin is the hormone that regulates your sleep cycle and is produced by the pineal gland in the brain. As you've probably gathered, the presence of melatonin is what makes you go to sleep, and when your melatonin levels drop that's when you wake up. The main factor that seems to trigger the release or reduction of melatonin is how light or dark it is. Autistic brains are often wired up to get this the opposite way around to the general population.

I've always had a tendency to not properly wake up until later in the day, but this really stepped up when I had kids, especially because my son was bottle fed so I did most of the night feeds. Even nowadays I find it hard to get up when my kids get up around 6:00 or 6:30am when they want me to get up. I try to drink tea (I don't like coffee even though it'd probably work better) for a caffeine boost but whatever I do I never really feel awake until just before lunch time. Conversely, my head feels by far the most awake and the most active around midnight to 1:00am. I've spent the last couple of years working until midnight until recently, which is ironic. I always feel exhausted early in the morning, but despite waking up still tired and mostly having no more than 5 or 6 hours' sleep I can't always sleep at night because my brain is too active. It's often around 1:00am that my brain processes things that have happened that day, and that I have a lot of ideas for things like blog posts or other things that I want to do. In fact, the custom vinyl figure of Christa Holmans that I made was a midnight idea.

I tried herbal sleeping tablets not long ago to try and help me sleep on a night because it was becoming a lot more frequent for me to struggle getting to sleep, but it didn't do much. I'm not sure if that's because I'm autistic but for whatever reason it didn't work. Because of things like autistic sleep patterns I think it's great that companies are moving to longer and later opening hours as well as more remote working facilities. It makes for an accessible society in terms of both customers and employees. Granted, we've mainly moved away from the standard 9-5 quite a while ago but there's still a way to go and there should be more out of hours access than there is at the moment.

I've always been quite good at sciencey subjects so I find things like the reasons for sleep cycle differences really interesting. If it's been just as interesting for you please hit the Follow button in the side bar and follow me on social media. I'm on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and you can buy me a coffee at my Ko-Fi account here.

[Image description: Silhouette of a bed with a love heart on the headboard. Under the bed is the word "Autism" in rainbow colours and "Insomnia" under that in black.]

Self-Diagnosis

Self-diagnosis is something that I struggled with a little bit before I was formally diagnosed. Well, maybe saying I struggled isn't quite right, but I didn't feel comfortable in disclosing my autism while self-diagnosed unless I had to. I knew I was autistic before diagnosis but it felt like it might just be in my head so I didn't dare tell anyone except members of the online autism community who I'd never met. Obviously it's most likely not the case that it's just in your head so I wanted to go over some reasons why self-diagnosis is perfectly valid.

1. Autism is often overlooked in women and in minorities because it used to be seen as something that only occurred in white males. We know nowadays that literally anybody can be autistic.

2. Getting a diagnosis can be expensive in certain countries. Here in the UK it's done under the NHS for free, although there is also the option to go private.

3. The diagnostic person/team that assesses you might not be as knowledgeable or up to date as they should be. This happened to me when I was 1st assessed. They decided I wasn't autistic, so when I moved to a different area I had to ask to be referred again for a 2nd opinion where I finally got my diagnosis.

4. Even if you can afford a diagnosis the wait time for it is often ridiculously long. I can't remember how long my 1st assessment took, but I know my 2nd one was 18 months from my GP referring me to me getting my diagnosis.

5. Diagnostic assessment may not be physically accessible. I would imagine there's probably an assessment centre in most (if not all) major cities, but more rural areas might not have one meaning that you'd have to travel.

6. Your GP might refuse to refer you. This happened to me and I know it's not an isolated case. The GP I saw refused to refer me because she decided I didn't need to label myself. This is problematic for a few reasons, not least that it's not for her to decide. It's our own decision whether it's something we want or need.

7. Under the UK's Equality Act 2010 a diagnosis is irrelevant when asking for accommodations at work. As long as you meet a set of criteria your workplace are legally obliged to offer reasonable adjustments for you with or without a formal diagnosis.

8. Some autistics might feel shame or fear around getting officially diagnosed. This could be because of how they personally view themselves and/or autism, it could be due to family pressures, or any number of reasons that they might want to quietly keep their identity to themselves.

9. Some people simply might not want to chase a formal diagnosis, but be content in self-identifying as autistic. Fun fact: Tim Burton has identified as autistic for years, despite not being diagnosed.

10. Nobody knows you better than you!

There is concern within the neurotypical community that with self-diagnosis of autism people will use it as almost a fashion statement, or irrationally jump to conclusions about their own neurotype. I think these concerns are quite reasonable if you're looking from an outside perspective like neurotypicals will be, so I wanted to quickly address both sides to close this post. I want to reassure neurotypials that jumping into a self-disagnosis like that is a rare occurrence. While I'm not saying that everybody who self-diagnoses does so correctly, it's usually more about identity and isn't something that's taken lightly by most people. We take a lot of time, research and soul searching before we diagnose ourselves. And that leads me onto my point addressed to self-diagnosing autistics or those considering it. It's best to take your time and really think and research what autism is and whether you identify as autistic. There are a ton of autism resources online in the form of blogs (like this one!), YouTube channels, Facebook groups, Twitter hashtags and so on that are dedicated to helping anyone and everyone understand and accept autism. There's nothing wrong with self-diagnosing, but all I'm saying is do your research and stay informed.

If this list of reasons for self-diagnosis being valid has been helpful please click Subscribe at the top of the page and follow me on social media. I'm @DepictDave on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and you can buy me a coffee at my Ko-Fi account here.

[Image description: "World Wide Web" logo (a black globe logo with "WWW" running through the middle) on a white background with "Autism" underneath it in rainbow colours, and "Self-Diagnosis" beneath that in black text.]

Guest Post: Autism In Women

I've got another guest post for you this week. This time it's by Vicky of Actually Aspling who is a brilliant and very active autism advocate, a fellow northerner, and has a Vaporeon tattoo on her arm which I love! You'll find her own blog here, and she's ActuallyAspling on both Twitter and Instagram. I realised that one of the biggest areas I haven't discussed yet is autism in women so I asked Vicky to write a piece on it for me since I'm not really qualified to talk about it properly due to being a man. So here we go with Vicky's thoughts:

I honestly can’t remember much from my childhood, only what I’ve been told from my parents, things are quite blurry in that sense. From what I know I was quite passive as a small child, and didn’t have many friends, and to be honest that hasn’t changed much.

I’d say being a girl definitely heightened my experiences in some ways, and for that reason I went undiagnosed for many years. Our understanding of Autistic women and girls is ever-growing, its evolving, and we are learning every day, but sadly it came too late for me.
High school for me was a nightmare, everything went wrong, and I stood out for all the wrong reasons. You could say I was a typical Autie girl. I clung to all my friends, I copied their behaviours, hoping I could survive the school day. It didn’t work. As a result, I camouflaged even more, changed my interests and created a whole new persona, something which many young Autistic girls feel they have to do to pass as Neurotypical. The issue is, we shouldn’t be pressuring Autistic individuals to do so, we should be teaching them, giving them the skills to be themselves, and allowing them to unmask.

Honestly, I think one of the reasons I was undiagnosed for so long is because of this mask, I had created a person who could fit in, who could pass as neurotypical, I appeared ‘normal’ or ‘high functioning’ to some. But the thing is, every Autistic woman is different, just like every Autistic person is diverse, its not one size fits all. I also think the understanding of trait presentation was lacking, especially in medical services.

I remember the first time I went to my doctor, I told her I think I could be Autistic, and I could tell by her face that she didn’t believe me already. So, what did she do? She printed off a biased, probably outdated questionnaire from her computer and proceeded to ask me a set of questions. One of which is ‘do you have friends?’ to which I said yes, and that I did like to go out with said friends. And of course, that meant I couldn’t possibly be Autistic, because we all know Autistic people cannot possibly have friends. I came across as quite social, again like the typical autie woman.

Eventually I sought a different opinion, and I was referred straight away for an assessment. This was fantastic, the only downside? My assessment was completed using the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS), an outdated tool which lacks empirical sensitivity, it is biased and its methods do not reflect traits which are often displayed in women and girls. It’s a tool which follows stereotypical ‘male’ traits. However, I eventually did receive a diagnosis, after years of camouflaging and comments that ‘women can’t have autism’.

So many young girls are going both undiagnosed and misdiagnosed due to outdated tools, a lack of sensitivity and an absence of knowledge. Its about time that things change, we need a new perspective on Autism, but hey, I’m working on it!

[Image description: Vicky sat in her garden cross-legged holding a blue mug with both hands. She has short-ish light brown hair and is wearing a blue t-shirt, blue Christmassy trousers and white socks.]

Well Known Autistics

It's a common misconception that autism is an epidemic that's affecting more and more people as time goes on, not unlike the real pandemic that the world is in the middle of at time of writing. The truth is far from it, and autism has always been around throughout human history because it's just a natural form of diversity. People often thing of diversity as physical things like skin colour, gender and so on, but there are mental forms of diversity as well, which is the basis of the neurodiversity movement encompassing autism, ADHD, dyslexia and so many more conditions.

With that in mind, there are of course figures throughout history who were autistic even before autism was discovered or thought of as a thing. I believe that a significant number of them made some form of significant contribution such as Einstein, Darwin, and who knows how many more. I wanted to look at some of the more well known people of recent times to show what exactly we autistics are capable of in a wide variety of fields, and to help bust the myth that autism is nothing but a disability. So let's get started with undoubtedly the most influential autistic to my own life:

1. Satoshi Tajiri
For those who don't know, Satoshi Tajiri is a video game designer/director and the genius responsible for my first recognised special interest, Pokémon! It all started with his special interest in collecting bugs and how collectors would capture them in a similar way that Pokémon trainers capture Pokémon. When Nintendo's Game Boy was initially released Tajiri imagined bugs crawling backward and forward through the game link cables from one Game Boy to the next, pioneering the idea of trading between players and working together instead of just playing against each other.

2. Dan Aykroyd
The star and creator of Ghostbusters took inspiration from his fascination with parapsychology and the paranormal to create what was apparently a fantasy epic before it was toned down on the fantasy elements and became the Ghostbusters that we all know and love today. He originally wrote the role of Peter Venkman for his close personal friend John Belushi to portray, but following Belushi's death he re-wrote it for fellow autistic Bill Murray instead.

3. Tim Burton
Tim Burton has never been diagnosed as autistic, but he strongly identifies as such which makes him self-diagnosed. He's known for his heavily gothic and weird influences in his films such as Edward Scissorhands, Alice In Wonderland (2010) and of course Beetlejuice, the cartoon of which I loved as a kid. And without Beetlejuice giving Winona Ryder her breakthrough role in 1988 she might not have gone on to star in a more recent favourite of mine in Stranger Things. While I can't say I'm a huge Burton fan myself, I'm certainly grateful for Bettlejuice.

4. Susan Boyle
From what I can remember hearing at the time, the news stories painted Susan Boyle as a bit of a laughing stock in her local area when she first appeared on Britain's Got Talent in 2009. When she first stepped out on the stage there was obviously something different about her that (I would say wrongly) put the audience and the public on edge. But when she started singing in her audition she showed how brilliant she is at what she does. She came in 2nd place in her series of BGT although it's arguable that she was the real star. Ironically enough she was only beaten by Diversity. She's since gone on to release a very respectable 8 albums and winning numerous awards.

5. Hannah Gadsby
Hannah Gadsby is one that I've only recently heard of within the last year or 2 when I saw her Netflix special Nanette. The show was actually written shortly following her diagnosis of both ADHD and autism, and was also written as a response to Australia's attitude at the time on same-sex marriage. The show has been described as ground-breaking and I'm sure her work will continue to break down barriers for the rest of her career.

6. Lewis Carroll
I've seen many autistics online theorise that not only is Lewis Carroll autistic, but also that his greatest creation Alice's Adventures In Wonderland is based on his own efforts to understand the neurotypical world as an autistic person. There is a darker side to this one though because it's been debated whether Carroll's preference for the company of children over adults comes from his difficulty in communication (it's often the case that autistic children prefer the company of adults, so it makes sense to me that the opposite could also be true), or whether there's a more sinister motive behind it. It's worth me also making clear that to my knowledge there is no further evidence of whether he was or wasn't a paedophile, and that I'm only explaining that it has been debated.

7. Anthony Hopkins
The man best known for his portrayal of Hannibal Lecter has led a troubled life, which has only in recent years been explained in part by a diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome. There are lots of other factors to his troubled life such as family issues, bullying, addiction and so on, but his autism is likely as much of a contributor as anything else, especially for a person of his generation.

There are countless more autistics scattered all over the world and all over history, but these are just a few of the ones you're likely to be familiar with and how they've contributed to modern society. For more autism content please click Subscribe at the top of the page and follow me on social media. I'm @DepictDave on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and you can buy me a coffee at my Ko-Fi account here.

[Image description: A black 5-point star with a gold border on a white background. Under the start is the word "Autism" in rainbow colours, and under that is the post's title "Well Known Autistics" in black.]

Anxiety

If you're a regular reader, or if you've read some of my older posts, chances are you'll know that alexithymia is one of the autism-related conditions I've got, which basically means I have difficulty expressing my own emotions in words, and sometimes even understanding them at all. So with that in mind it's hardly surprising that I'm only now starting to realise that I suffer more with anxiety than I ever thought I did. It's funny how things like this can be there and affect you without you even realising it. I can only remember a couple of times where I've noticed the classic symptoms of anxiety such as nausea, sweating palms and so on.

I've never been the most confident of people but I think there's much more to it than that. I'm always doubting myself, wondering if I'm doing the right thing, wonder if I/what I'm doing is good enough etc. For example, most of the time when I hit the Publish button on a new post I immediately wonder to myself if I've just written a load of crap. Someone on Twitter a while ago once said something that resonated with me quite a bit. They said that perfectionism isn't good because it's often driven by anxiety. I consider myself a perfectionist and I never thought of it like that before. One of my old jobs was preparing route packs for a distribution company and my my supervisor once praised me on how immaculate they are, but said I'm making them too perfect and spending too much time on it when I should be getting each one done as quickly as possible. This is most likely driven by anxiety that I want to do the best job I can because I don't want to get in trouble so I make it as perfect as I can, but that takes more time than they like. I ended up being made redundant from that job but my perfectionism isn't something I've ever been able to change. I'm very rigid in that sense, which is a classic autism trait. When I do something I has to be perfect, and more importantly it has to be right.

As far as I can remember I've always been one to look quite negatively on myself as well as things that could happen. If there's something that I can see a potential negative outcome for I usually spend a lot of time thinking "what if" although I like to think I'm also good at balancing out the positives and negatives and looking at the probability of each outcome. Whenever I get a notification for something on my phone, if the notification shows the first few words of the message I usually have a feeling of dread as though someone is definitely going to have a go at me, or give me some bad news or something. Somehow that doesn't tend to happen if it doesn't show the start of the message in the notification, and of course my feeling of dread is always wrong. There was one time recently where I'd done something wrong that annoyed my wife, and I spent a while thinking I'm a moron and what if she hates me and all those kind of things. This is when the logical thinking kicks in - sometimes on its own, sometimes deliberately. I start thinking that she's human and that she's an emotional and anxious person herself, and she'll calm down eventually, and whatever I did definitely doesn't warrant a divorce. I know she reads my blog so I just want to quickly clarify that I've never thought she was going to divorce me, but just using that as a worst case scenario that I can rule out to reassure myself.

When I first asked my GP back in 2017 to refer me for a second opinion on an autism diagnosis she refused and gave me the details for a self-referral mental health service that I then contacted, and they concluded that I had social anxiety. While I don't deny that I'm very socially anxious the help they gave me was a waste of time mainly because autism still wasn't addressed as the underlying cause of it. You may be wondering what difference it makes as autism isn't something to be treated or cured, but to a certain extent a diagnosis of autism can make a world of difference because it can be very validating and gives a much simpler way of explaining how you are to other people: "I'm autistic." Not that it solves anxiety - social or otherwise - but it certainly helps in my experience. They booked me in for CBT therapy and after a couple of months I realised it wasn't working and stopped. Shortly after that I went back and saw a different GP who then gave me the referral that lead to my diagnosis.

At the moment I'm fine with my anxieties because they don't cause much of an issue, but who knows - after lockdown is over my situation will most likely change so I may need to revisit CBT or a similar therapy depending on how things go. At the time of writing my employer are expecting me and the rest of my home working team to return to the office after lockdown (I've worked from home for a couple of years and we were supposed to return to the office in early April until the pandemic happend). At lot of people have come and gone in the office since I started working from home, so it'll be like going into a completely new environment when we eventually do go back. With that said, my son will be starting school in September which might give me more downtime to decompress and process things, so we'll have to see how it goes.

So there you have it. It's definitely possible to have anxiety without realising it, and I think it's safe to say that goes for almost any mental health issue as well. I'm still unpacking my anxieties bit by bit, but I hope what I've unpacked so far has been insightful and interesting. Please click Subscribe at the top of the page and follow me on social media. I'm @DepictDave on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and you can buy me a coffee at my Ko-Fi account here.

[Image description: Silhouette of a person on a chair, hunched over slightly holding their head. There are bubbles showing thoughts entering their head including "Don't," "Can't," and "What if..." Under the silhouette is the word "Autism" in rainbow colours and "Anxiety" in black under that.]

Autistic AF Lists: The Gruffalo

There are a couple of posts that I've made on Instagram that list things I looked into, probably beyond the limit of what a neurotypical person would do. Because I tagged them both with #AutisticAF (and just because I like the hashtag) I'm going with the title of Autistic AF Lists for this mini series that I'm starting here. Listing things and gathering information like this is probably one of the more stereotypical autism traits, but when it's something I find interesting I end up hyperfocusing. I find hidden links, references and easter eggs fascinating, so these are basically going to be patterns, trends or other curiosities that I've noticed in things and that I've been curious enough to look into further. This first part will look at where references to the Gruffalo pop up in the rest of Julia Donaldson/Axel Scheffler's series of children's books.

First of all, I'll quickly explain that there are no Gruffalo references in A Squash & A Squeeze because that's the only one of their books that came out before The Gruffalo, and also that I (my kids) don't have all of their books but we've got a fair few of them so we're going by the references that we've noticed from those ones. These are usually quite subtle so not always noticeable unless you go looking for them, but let me save you the time!

Tabby McTat
A child asleep in a push chair when Tabby McTat goes looking for Fred is holding a Gruffalo teddy.

[Image description: The titular tabby cat Tabby McTat looking up at a street magician's performance. Next to Tabby is a sleeping child in a red push chair holding a Gruffalo teddy which is sat upright and looking out to the front.]

The Scarcrows' Wedding
When Reginald Rake is built to replace Harry he tries to take Betty on a tractor ride. That tractor is a "Gruff-tor" branded one with a Gruffalo face logo.

[Image description: The blue tractor that Reginald Rake drives. On the side of the tractor is a short, grey stripe with a Gruffalo head on the end, and "GRUFF-TOR" written in capitals across the stripe.]

Stick Man
When Stick man rescues Santa from being stuck in the chimney there's a Christmas tree in the background with a Gruffalo face Christmas bauble. I think it's also worth noting that Stick Man as a whole is technically a Gruffalo reference because the titular character was inspired by Axel Scheffler's drawing of the Gruffalo's Child holding a stick figure in The Gruffalo's Child.

[Image description: The top image is a close-up of the green Christmas tree from Stick Man showing the Gruffalo's face as a decorative bauble. The bottom image is from The Gruffalo's Child, showing the Gruffalo's titular offspring looking confused while holding a stick figure very similar in shape to Stick Man.]

Zog
When Sir Gadabout The Great arrives to rescue Princess Pearl from the dragons you can see that his steed's saddle has a Gruffalo emblem on the side. It makes you wonder whether Gadabout had plans to/previously tried to slay the Gruffalo?

(We've actually lost our copy of Zog so can't take a picture for this one.)

Zog & The Flying Doctors
In Zog's sequel, Pearl's uncle (the king) is stricken down with orange fever. While she is tending to his bedside you can see that the Gruffalo's face is carved into the top part of his bed frame, similarly to the side of Gadabout's saddle.

[Image description: A close-up of the king's bed showing the Gruffalo's face carved into the top beam with plants framing it on either side.]

Superworm

When the bugs rescue Superworm by throwing Wizard Lizard in the rubbish dump you might notice that there's a teddy in the rubbish pile as well with its back turned, but its horns as well as its terrible claws and its purple prickles all over its back make it obvious that this is a Gruffalo teddy that's been cruelly discarded. Possibly by the same boy in the push chair? After all, Superworm was released 3 years after Tabby McTat.

[Image description: The Gruffalo teddy seen from the back in the rubbish dump. His top half and one arm is poking out of a cardboard box and he's surrounded by various other pieces of rubbish such as tins and what looks like a sugar bag.]

Tiddler: The Story Telling Fish

When Tiddler gets lost and is trying to find his way back home (very Finding Nemo-esque) he gets chased by a Gruffalo fish. I like this one because it's one of the more obvious crossovers and puts over the Gruffalo's fierceness from the original story, whereas all the other references so far have depicted him as a cuddly teddy or a status symbol in the form of an emblem.

[Image description: Tiddler is swimming in circles around a small pile of rocks with coral on the top. He is being chased by a Gruiffalo fish who has the Gruffalo's terrible tusks, his terrible teeth in his terrible jaws, his poisonous wart on the end of his nose, his orange eyes and purple prickles all over his back. The fish's body seems to be furry and brown just like the actual Gruffalo.]

The Highway Rat

At the end of the story when the Highway Rat ends up working in a cake shop it shows a couple of biscuits on the counter in the shape of the Gruffalo's face, and also a young wolf eating another one of them while his mum talks to the shop owner, who is ironically a sheep.

[Image description: Two Gruffalo biscuits on a plate on a wooden counter in front of a yellow till. There is what looks like a birthday cake on one side of the biscuits, and some sort of strawberry cake on the other.]

The only other story that we've got is Room On The Broom, but there doesn't seem to be any Gruffalo references in that and I don't understand why. If anyone's got an explanation or any other examples of Gruffalo references please let me know in the comments or on social media. On that note, please click Subscribe at the top of the page and follow me on social media. I'm @DepictDave on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and you can buy me a coffee at my Ko-Fi account here.

Explaining The Spectrum

The autism spectrum is something that's not well understood outside of the autistic community. It's confusing to the general public for 2 reasons that I want to explore here. First, the phrase "on the spectrum" which is used in an attempt to say "[x person] is autistic" in a politically correct way. The other thing is the way the spectrum itself works.

Addressing the first point, I want to make it clear that although people usually use "on the spectrum" with the best of intentions, autism isn't a dirty word. Nor is being autistic a bad thing. Autistic and autism are perfectly acceptable words to use to describe somebody who genuinely is autistic. Similarly, I wanted to give my point of view on when people say "We're all a bit autistic" or "We're all on the spectrum." These two statements at first glance appear to mean the same thing, but they really don't. The way I see it, everybody is somewhere on the spectrum, such is the nature of diversity. But with that said, it doesn't mean everybody is autistic - whether that's supposedly a little bit or a lot. Neurotypicality (I hope that's the right word!) in relation to the autism spectrum just means that the person's traits sit within the "normal" range and that they have a round profile (more on that later). It doesn't mean that their traits are nowhere to be seen on the spectrum. A lot of people may have a couple of traits commonly associated with autism such as a lack of social skills, or sensory issues, but what makes somebody autistic is their different brain structure causing a high number of these traits and a high intensity of them. So if somebody says to me that we're all on the spectrum I don't have an issue with that - in fact I completely agree. But if someone tells me that we're all a little bit autistic, that's not true. You're either autistic or you're not, there's no "little bit autistic" or "very autistic" and just having a couple of quirks doesn't mean you're autistic.

Moving onto the spectrum itself, a lot of people think that the spectrum is linear (a straight line from one extreme to the other). I know I did when I first realised the possibility that I might be autistic. In actual fact the spectrum is best represented visually as a circular graph. When you plot a person's traits on the graph you'll usually find that autistic people's traits make the graph spiky which represents their heighten skills, their deficits, their heightened/lowered senses, and any number of other factors that often vary wildly. Whereas neurotypicals will tend to show a more consistent and rounded graph as their traits and abilities are a lot more rounded. To demonstrate what I mean, below are screen shots of the results from an autism quiz that me and my wife both took a few years ago just to compare. The first one is mine, the second one is my wife's. You can see that hers is much more rounded and balanced whereas mine is more spiky showing my atypical tendencies.

[Image description: There are 2 images here. The first one is a graph showing my results of the quiz and shows that I have a spiky profile which I've always thought looks like a whale's tail. The second picture is the same graph but showing my wife's results instead. Hers is more round and consistent than mine.]

Although this test is in no way diagnostic, the graph that it gives of the results is very useful for explaining the spectrum and showing how spiky a neurodiverse profile is compared to a neurotypical one. While I admittedly don't know too much about other neurodiversities such as ADHD, dyslexia and so on, I think that their profiles would most likely be similarly spiky in comparison to neurotypical ones. Hopefully these graphs also help explain how although we're not all autistic we are all on the spectrum. I once posted on Instagram to demonstrate the spectrum using PlayDoh but it didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped. Even so, feel free to search back through my Instagram to find it if you're intetrested.

I hope this has clarified something that is often confusing and busted a couple of myths in the process. Please click Subscribe at the top of the page and follow me on social media. I'm @DepictDave on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and you can buy me a coffee at my Ko-Fi account here.

Racism In Autism

I had originally scheduled a post on insomnia for this week, but with everything going on with Black Lives Matter and all the protests I thought it was important to address it now, as well as how racism had manifested in autism.

Obviously there are individual autistics who are racist just like there are individuals of every kind who are racist, and just like there are good and bad people in a more general sense, but what I'll be discussing here is the racism (whether intended or not) within the autism diagnostic process.

The diagnosis of people with autism has always been heavily biased in favour of white boys and men. I think the earliest we can look back to find the root of this is to the 1930's and 40's with Leo Kanner and Hans Asperger. I explained in a previous posts about how Hans Asperger worked closely with the Nazis who were a heavily racist German political party aiming to establish the German population as a superior race by eradicating others, famously including Jews. I remember someone saying to me years ago that their aim was to create a race of purely white skinned, blonde haired, blue eyed humans but now true that is I'm not sure.

With Asperger's heavy influence at the beginning of our understanding of autism, and the much more racially biased nature of the mid 20th century in general, it's little wonder that racism stuck around in the diagnostic system for such a long time. If I'm honest I do sometimes wonder how nowadays we're only just starting to properly understand autism, but I guess any progress is good progress, even if it's slow.

So how are people of colour affected in the modern day in terms of getting an autism diagnosis? First of all there's medical bias that could stop them from getting a diagnosis. This could mean for example that a doctor (especially an older one whose knowledge might be more outdated) may be may not refer a black person to an assessment service because they don't believe that they are - or even can be - autistic. Just to give an insight into how real medical bias is, my wife is a student midwife and highlighted this article to me which explains that women of colour are 5 times more likely to die in childbirth than white women. Obviously this is a huge difference and is clearly unacceptable.

Another factor that affects the diagnosis of people of colour is their location. One of the many things I learned from watching Netflix documentary 13th is that the "war on drugs" in the US was designed to target black people who were predominantly poor. So in relation to autism, especially in countries like the US where medical and health services are expensive, the autistic person is less likely to be able to afford assessment for a diagnosis.

The final point I want to make (although the points I'm making here are by no means exhaustive) is that other people's reactions and attitudes might be more likely to put them off seeking diagnosis. This ties in a bit with what I mentioned earlier about the attitudes from the 30's and 40's lingering for a long time. Their peers, family, colleagues and so on might have outdated views which can cause disheartening, or even worse it can cause argument and fall outs with the people they confide in.

All of these issues that I've discussed are reasons that we need to educate and inform the whole of society, which is absolutely what I aim to do with this blog, as do lots and lots of other autistic advocates through their blogs, YouTube videos, social media accounts, books etc. I feel like now more than ever education is needed around how autism presents and affects all races, genders, ages... everyone! As a final note I think it's important to share some links to black autistic advocates' pages. The best ones I can think of are AutisticTyla and Aspienelle. These links are to their Instagram accounts. Let me know about any more black autism advocates in the comments or on social media!

I really, really hope I've helped with this post. I know I say that about every post, but this one in particular is such an important topic as we're essentially missing out on a whole section of the autistic populaton. Please click Subscribe at the top of the page and follow me on social media. I'm @DepictDave on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and you can buy me a coffee at my Ko-Fi account here.

[Image description: The Black Lives Matter logo (a black fist raised upward) with the infinity loop in white on the wrist to symbolise that black lives really do matter whether disabled, autistic, otherwise neurodiverse, or anything. This is on a white background and underneath it is the post's title with "Racism In" in black, and "Autism" in rainbow colours.]