Mental Health
Autism and mental health. There are those who will tell you that the two are separate. Autism is not a mental health problem, with the underlying implication that mental health can't be the realm of neurodiversity. However, it is not that simple; what we know as "mental
disability
Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) are the main mental health services for children and young people in the UK. The service is largely known as a branch of the NHS, although private services often have their own CAMHS service. Their remit is to address mental health issues within
Autistic Rights
In the Autistic community, a common term we hear is "Autistic advocate". The popular definition is a person using their lived experience to further the cause of Autistic rights and the wider neurodiversity movement. Despite this however, advocacy is a complicated and important role. As an independent advocate,
General Wellbeing
TW: This article talks about specifics of suicide among Autistic children and young people.
Neurodiversity
The UK Government have been aware with the issues with CAMHS for Autistic young people since at least 2014. Despite this nothing has changed. David dissects a document provided to the House of Commons on this issue.
Autism
When I first started this blog, I was writing largely about my own personal experiences. Back then, the only diagnoses I had (that would stick) were autism and a substance misuse disorder "in remission". I wrote largely about my experiences as an Autistic addict in recovery, and not
Neurodiversity
Recently i wrote about alexithymia and it's ramifications for our mental health. Since publishing that post, it has come to my attention that many people feel this is an underdiscussed area and weren't sure exactly what it means. So, what is it? Simply put, it means
Neurodiversity
Autism and alexithymia are two things you might see discussed in tandem quite regularly. In fact, Vaiouli and Panayiotou (2021) found a strong postive correlation beween Autistic experience and alexithymia with Kinnaird et al (2019) finding a prevalence rate of nearly 50% among Autistic people. Considering the very high rates
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
Society
If you are unaware of current issues with CAMHS, you can catch up by visiting my CAMHS Crisis resource page. However, the cliff noted version is this; Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) are turning away Autistic children and young people from their services. This is very unethical, but
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 have previously written about the significant intersection between autism and schizophrenia and the relationship with psychosis in a broad sense. It is a widely undiscussed area despite the fact that many people experience it. I have also discussed what it is like to be schizophrenic; recently people have been