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Addiction
CAMHS treated me like a nuisance, I still feel it as an adult
"My pain was not the sort of pain that deserved support. That was what CAMHS had taught me. My life became a monotony of blackouts and suicide attempts. All because services wouldn't support a little Autistic boy who was trying to navigate a cruel and uncaring world."
Newsletter
Coping With The Summer Heat: By Autistics For Autistics
Autistic Community
Coping With The Summer Heat: By Autistics For Autistics
It's summer in the northern hemisphere, which can mean only one thing; we're all overheated and overstimulated. Give our changing weather. It's likely that these hot summers will continue, or even get worse. So, I felt it necessary to ask the Autistic community of
Newsletter
Autistic people and the experience of pain
Healthcare
Autistic people and the experience of pain
When it comes to Autistic people and the experience of pain, there is a lot to be said. Many of us anecdotally report having a mixed profile of hypo- and hypersensitivity to different kinds of pain. Unfortunately, the experience of pain is not one well understood by medical professionals. This
Mental Health Treatment Rights
CAMHS: Can they really help your Autistic child?
In previous articles I have spoken extensively about the myriad ways in which Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) fail Autistic people. So, can CAMHS actually help our Autistic children? The truth is that like everything, different people will have different experiences. Despite this there are some significant challenges
Neuroqueering
Reclaiming Neurofuturism: The Liminal as a space of Queer potential
Further to my response to Edgar (2024a) addressing the litigious nature of neurodivergent embodiment (Gray-Hammond, 2024), is Edgar's response considering the neuroqueering potential to be found in liminal spaces. Liminal spaces are the point where on thing becomes another. A doorway between rooms is a liminal space. Liminal
Trauma
CAMHS: Coping with parent carer burnout
The campaign against Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services failures for Autistic children highlights the impact on children, but what about parent carers? Burnout, reduced engagement with professionals, and mental health issues are common. This can lead to safeguarding concerns, blame shifting
Neurodiversity
Teaching your child Autistic pride while CAMHS fail them
"It's okay for us to admit that being Autistic is a core part of who we are. The problem is that when we are faced by services like CAMHS, we can feel reduced to our struggles, rather than the things that make us like ourselves..."
Neurodiversity
CAMHS in Crisis: Wait Times Are Harming Autistic Children
Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) have significantly long wait times, with over 400,000 children on waiting lists as of May 2023. Autistic children face worsened mental health, increased crisis risk, disrupted development, and reduced service engagement. To improve wait times, ther
Neuroqueer Theory
Reclaiming Neurofuturism: Responding to "The Double Empathy Problem is DEEP" by Edgar, 2024
Responding to Edgar (2024), David explores how the double empathy divide has been intentionally weaponised, preventing the connection and collective power of monority groups.