Life with Aspergers

Part one of this two part series Autism & Travel, a series about traveling as an Autistic Adult, will focus on what happens before you travel. Preparation, Planning and Safety. Part two will focus on the actual trip, Group Dynamics, Self-Regulation, and Unmasking. There can be no underestimating the value of travel in shaping our minds and experiences. Just as young children benefit greatly from interacting with the world around them in the form of local shopping centers and schools, adults benefit from being taken out of their day-to-day local community and spending time in a much larger world.  Travelling gives you a unique opportunity to see the world around you from a different perspective, to experience different cultures, how different people live and communicate, what they eat, what they value and how they celebrate life. It also gives you an opportunity to delve into history and to understand your own place in the world.  Sure, the prospect of travel can be dauntin...

I really enjoy travel and I know that I'm not alone in that regard. I know many autistics who love to travel. My next two posts will cover travelling with autism, this one will focus on travelling with autistic children and the next will focus on travelling as an autistic teen or adult .  While all travel is difficult, in this series I'm particularly thinking of bigger holidays. Travelling with children is always difficult but travelling with autistic children presents its own set of problems. Autistic people struggle with change and it's often hard to describe to your children, the intense changes that travel will bring.  You have to be ready to deal with issues "on the fly" and with limited time and limited resources. After all, you can't take everything with you on your trips and stopping or slowing down midway through your holiday may not be an option. There are three key stages to travelling with autistic children. Preparing for the journey - which includ...

Masking is one of the most crucial skills that autistic people develop. We learn to mask at an early age simply by copying our peers so that we become less of a target for bullies. In our working lives, we mask to become "one of team", to keep our jobs, to avoid being singled out and to avoid becoming the subject of gossip and speculation. It's no exaggeration to say that for an autistic person, the ability to mask is a life-saver.  It is well established that very young autistics mask quite poorly and that as a general rule, our ability to mask improves as we get older, so that by the time they are adults in the workforce, many autistic people can pass undetected as "normal", most of the time.  What's less established is that as autistic people pass middle-age, they mask less. This doesn't seem to be the loss of an ability so much as a choice, or perhaps simply the result of tiredness. Masking is, after all a very exhausting activity. While masking is v...

Autistic people are an incredibly diverse group, even within the broader neurodivergent community. We are diverse because we do not share all the same strengths and weaknesses, we have vastly different talents and interests. Other factors, such as our upbringing, political factors and our economic status also play key roles in determining our ability to operate within society. This is why a “one-size-fits-all” approach to housing simply doesn't work. In this post, I want to talk about the different types of living arrangements that autistic people may find themselves in and I want to discuss why some arrangements may be better suited to various sub-groups of individuals. There are essentially three major styles of living; Independent Living Supported Living  Group or Residential Care  For many, the ideal path is to first explore independent living, as it offers the most autonomy. However, it's crucial to find the option that best fits an individual's unique needs. It’s also...

We are all targets for scams In today's interconnected world, scams are a constant and evolving threat. A single misstep can compromise personal financial security or leave valuable assets unprotected. It's no longer a matter of 'if' you'll encounter a scam, but 'when'. Everyone, regardless of their age or ability is a potential target for scams and while a lot of anti-scam support has been made available for the general population, there is less that is specifically designed for autistic people.  It's not entirely fair to suggest that autistic people are more at risk given the incredible diversity of talent, capability and perception on the autism spectrum but the spectrum is wide and the general consensus of academic research suggests an intersection of autism characteristics with common scam tactics. Autistic people are generally considered a little more vulnerable.  The aim of this post is to empower all autistic people, regardless of their technical...