NeurobeautifulWhen I read advice for autistics, I notice that it’s often worded differently than the same advice for other people.
The rest of the world shares “life hacks” for “productivity.” Autistics share “coping strategies” for “executive functioning.”
Some examples:
“Tackle a big task by breaking it down into small parts” vs. “Make a checklist of …
I believe in the virtue of bravely and intentionally facing sensory discomfort – once in a while. Most of the time I try to minimize it, because for autistics, even little discomforts can add up to a lot of stress over time.
Today, while cringing at the thought of putting my cold groceries away in …
My grocery store has new shopping carts! They go smoothly and silently around corners, like a mermaid swishing and swiveling through a maze of coral.
When something gets easier on a sensory level, it gets easier on an intellectual level too. I made all my decisions much faster without the distraction of forceful turns and …
For most of my life, all I knew about autism was that it’s a disability that sometimes causes kids to rock back and forth.
I learned most of that from a bumper sticker, which said: “My autistic kid rocks – colloquially and kinesthetically!”
That was accurate, but incomplete. I wish I’d also known that:
Autistic brains are beautiful.
Not only from the outside looking in, but also from the inside looking out.
We see a world full of intense complexity.
Brimming with beauty.
It can be overwhelming sometimes, to take in the beautiful and the bothersome, the glorious and the grating, the deeply exhilarating and the downright exhausting.
All. …
Being autistic reminds me of a typical fantasy novel.
It begins with a young girl who doesn’t quite fit in with the rest of the village. There’s something special about her, and at first she can only see the trouble that it causes.
Then one day, she learns the reason. She is different, perhaps secretly …
The more we learn about autistic neurology, the more we can see how beautiful our brains are. And the more we learn what our brains need to thrive, the more beautiful our lives will become.
Seeing beauty, creating beauty – both of these get easier the more we understand ourselves.
Stories of autistic experiences are …