disability
I have recently been writing about the Autistic experience of pain and the risk that it presents to Autistic people when medical professionals do not understand the way we display pain. Some of us, however, live with chronic pain and are prescribed painkillers. For a lot of people in that
Neurodiversity
It's no secret that I'm a recovering drug addict. It's certainly even less of a secret that I am also Autistic/multiply neurodivergent. When one considers the reality of meeting diagnostic criteria for autism, ADHD, and schizophrenia; It's easy to see how
Neurodiversity
I am Autistic and ADHD, some might affectionately refer to me as AuDHD. However, to think that these two diagnostic categories tell the whole story of my neurodivergence is to miss out on a significant part of my experience of our shared reality. The truth is, I don't
Neuroqueering
"Queer is a term used by those wanting to reject specific labels of romantic orientation, sexual orientation and/or gender identity. It can also be a way of rejecting the perceived norms of the LGBT community (racism, sizeism, ableism etc). Although some LGBT people view the word as a
Autistic Wellbeing
This article was co-authored by David Gray-Hammond and Tanya Adkin This article includes exerts from interviews conducted by David, all interviewee's gave their permission for quotes to be used. Tanya has demand avoided weighing in on this topic for quite some time. Not for no good reason. Tanya
Trauma
Much in the way that historical research around autism has looked at young, white boys, creating bias in the diagnostic criteria (which is responsible for an unfathomable amount of harm); we are creating diagnostic (but not) tools for PDA that exclude intellectually disabled Autistic people. No wond
Healthcare
It's no secret that diagnosis in the UK (and, in fact, the world at large) is increasingly difficult to access. I have written at length about diagnosis, such as this article on why getting a diagnosis is so difficult, and this piece considering the issues with current diagnostic
adhd
The other day, I wrote a response to this article about how such irresponsible reporting puts ADHD and otherwise neurodivergent people at risk. Since then there has been growing concern about the ethics behind the article and associated BBC Panorama documentary. The first thing to note is this article written
Neurodiversity
By now, you're probably aware that the BBC is positioning itself as a whistle-blower in a scandal regarding the misdiagnosis of ADHD by private psychiatrists. While I am reticent to say that it doesn't happen (of course it does, humans are awfully inexact creatures and psychiatry
Autistic Rights
Let me start by being candid. This is the third time in the past seven days that I have had to write an article like this. We've had an expose on the inhuman treatment of Autistic people in psychiatric inpatient units and let's not forget that
Neuroqueer Theory
In some of my recent articles, I have referred to something called neurofuturism. While neurofuturism itself is not a new word (although weirdly, I didn't know this when I first used it), I do believe that reconceptualising it may allow for a new discourse in the Neurodivergent community.
Neuroqueer Theory
It's a very poorly kept secret that many people who are given a diagnosis of autism also meet the criteria for a diagnosis of ADHD. One could be forgiven for assuming this means that people who meet the criteria for both (often termed AuDHD) have two co-occurring conditions.