‘About Me’: a downloadable template for your child’s new teacher

It is the RA team’s greatest hope that all Autistic children feel safe, understood and supported at school, so we have created this downloadable template – an ‘About Me’ you can fill in using our sample responses and give to your child’s new teachers. 

Navigating Autistic Burnout: Self-care strategies to recover and recalibrate

Burnout is sometimes referred to as ‘Autistic regression’ because the reduction in functioning across a range of areas makes it seem as though skills are ‘lost’.  As masking falls away, we may seem ‘more Autistic’ because our capacity to sustain it is reduced. But how do you recover and recalibrate when, as an Autistic person, you’re already working harder just to exist in the world? Autistic lawyer, Justine Field, provides some tips on how to muster self care when it seems out of reach.

Neurodivergent and under duress: an Autistic experience of medical consent

In this important personal account, Autistic cancer survivor Brenton Gray, highlights the problem of medical consent obtained in a healthcare system built by neurotypicals, for neurotypicals. “The fawn response is heavily programmed into a lot of Autistic people from a very early age,” he writes. “I never formed emotional boundaries, so much as a picket fence made of toothpicks. I’ve become a people-pleaser; learnt to say, “Yes” when instead I mean, “Whatever you want to hear. Now piss off!”.

The unbearable heartache of Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria

Content warning: suicide ideation. In this painfully raw and heartfelt blog, Autistic advocate, Chantell Marshall (aka Shy Little Pixie) gives a rare and illuminating account of what it is like to live with Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria and the revelation that has helped her quieten her self-sabotaging inner critic.

What makes Autistic women thrive in their career? Not quite fitting in.

In this guest blog by Autistic researcher, Annette Eriksen, she shares with us her experience growing up and entering the workforce, and tackles the greater question of what makes Autistic women, not just survive, but thrive in their career.

She writes of her hopes for her research to pave the way for more Autistic women to be able to work in a way that makes them, “thrive, contribute, and feel supported and able to be open about their Autism without fear of losing family, friends and work opportunities.”

Living with Misophonia: “I love you, but I hate the noises you make”

Do you have an extreme reaction to certain sounds? If you’re misophonic, it is, in fact, a rational reaction to the fight-or-flight response that certain noises trigger in your brain. In this fascinating blog, late-diagnosed Autistic woman Suzanne Roman reveals what it’s like to live your life with this misunderstood and sometimes debilitating and isolating condition.

Kissing the air at Aunty’s: On being an Autistic migrant woman

With society’s understanding of Autism so focussed on white, middle class Autistic boys, many Autistic people from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds miss out on getting formal identification and access to services.

In this illuminating blog, Autistic advocate and migrant, Helen Said, shares the challenges of her upbringing as an undiagnosed Autistic, migrant girl and how she is working to instigate change for CALD Autistic adults.

Please don’t ask me to be brave

In this powerful piece by one of the Reframing Autism team, she takes us behind one of her particularly damaging masks – the one called “courage”. “This mask is a warrior. It rushes headlong into battle without fear, or even better, despite fear … it lives by the mantra “act first, think later”. It is arrogant. It makes me say “yes” when inside I am screaming “no”. It says to my children “Be brave – like me!”

Nociception: Autistic experiences of pain and how to support our differences

Content warning: self-harm. Autism is a very individualised thing. Each of us is different, and how we experience sensory input – including pain – stays true to this fact. So what is nociception and why is identifying our nociceptive profile helpful? Autism consultant, Loren Snow, takes a deep dive.