I honestly don’t mean it in a bitchy way though, so stay with me sec.

I see autistic people’s successes and I cheer them on from the sidelines. Sometimes I even feel proud, because I know and understand the social and sensory challenges they’…

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Without proper support in place to address the current deficits in care and support, thousands of autistic people are left facing inequalities in life expectancy, health care, education, employment and other areas of life.

It’s unacceptable and the Government needs to act immediately and provide support that removes these…

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Enjoy :P

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For years, when people in public are being dicks, generally annoying, or pissing me off in some way I personally find aggravating, I often think… Well, maybe they’re having a bad day and then I feel less annoyed.

It’s something that has kept me calm for years, even before the ‘let them’ theory was trending on social media. Imagining some frustration or i…

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Vote for me

Since my autism diagnosis, I've been committed to raising autism awareness, supporting fellow autistic people and advocating for more accessible government processes. This passion has driven me to take action in a number of ways…

• The Autism Support Group: I got sick of seeing story after story of autistic people struggling with lack of support, so I launched a support group for autistic adults. It's a space for autistic people to connect, share lived experiences, source answers and coping strategies. The feedback has been incredibly positive. This work has further highlighted the long NHS wait times that block access to assessments, the postcode lottery of support for autistic adults and the need for autism awareness in education and work. The group supports autistic adults through all these issues and is a really important space.

• Making the Autism Act Review Accessible: The Autism Act 2009 has been under review. Frustrated by the inaccessibility of the review process, I organised accessible ways for our community to participate. Subsequently hundreds of extra autistic people has their voices heard and the committee received the most written response of any government committee.

It's been an incredibly rewarding year so far and it would means so much to be recognised further for this work. If you'd like to support me, I would be truly grateful if you could vote for me in the National Diversity Awards.

Vote for me

Laura Brown has created a government petition to campaign for mandatory additional autism-specific training for all speech therapists. This training would help autistic children receive relevant and informed care and support.

Sign the petition

Finally, a new episode of my podcast AuDHD Unpacked is out and it’s all about the dreaded burnout.

Thank you for your ongoing support. Behind the scenes I’ve been writing more and those ramblings will be shared with you very soon!

People are generally aware that Autistic people exist. But being aware of us isn’t the same as really understanding us.The distinction matters because disability education is the backbone of disability rights.

When people don’t understand how Autistic brains actually work, it’s easy to accid…

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She’s dominating my instagram feed at the moment and, I’ll admit, the first few times I saw her I scrolled past because meh. I just don’t care about a doll. Probably because my Mom got rid of my Barbies when I was 12, stating I was ‘too old’ for them, despite how much joy they gave me.

The more space she takes…

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The announcement would be annoying at any time but when done less that a month after the publishing of Report of the independent ADHD Taskforce: Part 2 which details how those with ADHD are being failed and what c…

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Essentially, dysregulation is a difficulty in managing one’s own emotional and behavioral responses, which can also mean struggling to soothe or regulate emotions that become intense.

While dysregulation ca…

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There’s a horrible limbo to being the type of autistic that is generally low support needs and less visible to others. That’s not to say it’s any harder than what medium or high support needs autistic or more visibly autistic people experience, just a different form of difficult.

On the one hand, you navigate life in such a way that people assume evel of general competence (rather than assumed incompetence due to ableism.) Because of this, when you visibly struggle or vocalise the struggles you have, there’s an assumption you aren’t working hard enough to be normal, that have the ability to fix it by ‘just trying harder’, that receiving support from your partner is somehow detrimental to your relationship and must be purposefully malicious in some way.

The so-called ‘unacceptable’ behaviour can be seen here.

On the other hand, despite how hard you do actually try to ‘fix’ yourself, always be regulated and avoid shutdowns, you don’t actually have the ability to avoid the shutdowns and dysregulation all the time. You still continue to struggle and require support from your partner which, when seen or shared, goes on to be perceived as…

Is it because I have low support needs or am not as visibly autistic?

I can’t help but wonder how these people would react to autistic care and support if I was more visibly autistic.

Would they still comment negatively, because they simply hate disabled people?

Would the comments be worse - the more disabled you are the more putrid the hated?

Or would they pass the post and not comment because, of course, someone who is obviously disabled is assumed to need support and care and therefore doesn’t challenge their world view?

While I don’t know the answer for sure, I suspect all of it is true depending on the viewer. Comments could be, and are, so much worse for some autistic people receiving care and support, especially from a partner, because it’s not expected by societal norms.

At the same time, I expect that, to an extent, the fact my autism is mostly invisible erases and diminishes my struggles, even when I so obviously present them.

Erasure is ableism

The result of sharing my struggles and their distillation into being ‘bratty’ or child-like is erasure from people who have little empathy or willingness to learn about experiences outside of their own.

The infantilisation of my shutdowns reduces my relationship from an ever evolving, mutual act of care and responsibility to that of parent and child. Rather than accept that adults can, and do, struggle and deserve support for those struggles from caring partners, the reaction is hostile.

This is capitalism at play. The capitalism that wants us buying our way out of loneliness and struggle through goods and services, rather than relying on our communities. The capitalism that wants us living in misery, joy stolen, until we buy crumbs of it back.

To be seen as child-like is an insult to those who play capitalism’s game.

These people, the commenters and many of the general public, want to be seen as capitalism's definition of mature, which is unyieldingly competent, tirelessly responsible, masterfully in control and above all use, enduringly independent, no matter the situation.

To be seen as child-like is to be imperfect, flawed, messy, dependent. In adulthood, maturity demands perfection from us and so that’s what we strive for, despite the impossibility of it. That ridiculous standard sucks the joy out of our lives and the miserable get angry at those who shirk perfectionism in favour of something else.

Children experience a wonder and joy adults have long forgotten. They accept care and support, from all manner of adults outside their parents, because they innately know they can not survive alone.

Adults are no different, but capitalism has tricked us into thinking otherwise. They’ve forgotten that to be a perfect human is to be in community. We weren’t built for independence. No one is supposed to be everything to themselves.

Volume 1 explore the intersection if disability and sexism and the role revarsal of care between a man and woman.

Women are demonised for having needs fulfilled by men

A woman who asks for what she wants is universally hated. This applies to a woman who not only asks for what she wants, but asks for what she needs too.

When I experience autistic shutdowns, I stop being able to move, talk or sometimes even think straight. To recover, I take myself off to bed for a period of sensory and social deprivation. This is the only thing that helps bring me back to normality.

While doing this I really struggle with the most basic of self-care and my partner will ask me what I need and in response bring me cups of tea, water and food.

I share our interactions on instagram in the hopes of destigmatising and normalising autistic shutdowns and autistic support.

In asking for needs to be fulfilled by others, a woman becomes too needy.

Or as one person so eloquently wrote… a whiny buzzkill.

In all honesty, if this comment had been hurled at me at the start of our relationship 12 years ago, a few years before we were married 9 years ago or even a few years after we were married 5 years ago, there would be a part of me inclined to believe it and I’d be in a blind panic.

We loved each other but shutdowns put immense strain on our relationship. They were happening multiple times a week and lasting whole days.

Drs repeatedly told us I was depressed but the traditional treatments, like listening to a meditation app to self-soothe, didn't work and would end with my phone being thrown across the room because the sound of someone talking was too excruciating.

We lost our weekends to dealing with me and my self worth was at rock bottom. Why the fuck couldn’t I just be normal and let us have a normal life where we could socialise with our friends without me breaking down, being unable to move and preventing my partner from leaving the apartment because he was too worried about leaving me on my own... It all felt like my fault, but we both felt the strain.

Since being diagnosed autistic, my partner and I have discovered the language to label these episodes for what they are, autistic shutdowns. We’re now armed with information and understanding about dysregulation, the importance of being regulated, autistic overwhelm and sensory sensitivities.

Everything makes sense to us and so the way we deal with shutdowns is different. Through trial and communication we’ve found a way to navigate them that works for us. It’s no longer a fucking struggle.

They feel normal and routine, like doing the laundry or hoovering. Is it fun? No, obviously not, it’s a chore, but one that needs to be done if you want things to be well kept.

Women, so often the caregivers in society, are barred from receiving, what to me seems like, the most basic care. My partner leaves a glass of water by the bed, asks if I’d like a cup of tea or works out what he should cook us for dinner and suddenly people assume he will leave because it’s all somehow… more than can be expected of a partner?

Everyday acts of relational care are too much when performed by a man for his disabled partner but are expected from wives and mothers every hour of everyday without so much as thank you.

As a society, we’re so used to seeing women as caregivers, for children, for the elderly, for the sick and disabled that we seem to stutter when that role gets flipped and men become a primary carer.

People aren’t used to seeing men provide more than bare minimum care and it ignites a weird level of rage when it is presented so unashamedly.

Patriachy, sexism and misogyny work to keep women performing unpaid care duties while delivering men from those expectations. Both men and women uphold these oppresive structures under the guise of traditional gender roles and performance. Men are far too masculine for care because that is a womans job. Meanwhile, the women who act as foot soliders to these forces act in outrage to put needy women in their place, without even realising that one day, they might also be reliant on their male partner for basic self-care.

More volumes from this series:

I’ve been sleeping more and doing less which somehow feels like failure.

I can’t con…

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The childhood you could have had, the misunderstandings that piled up, the relationships that crumbled, the opportunities you missed, the energy you spent masking. Grief is part of the process, it’ll come and go and it’ll hit you hard and soft.

You’ll have an identity crisis

You’ve just discovered a massive part of yourself that has been hi…

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I really hope YourParty.uk and its astounding growth over the last week has him sweating.

I hope he’s flying into rages and randomly breaking down in fits of anxiety.

I hope he’s experiencing spirals of shame and guilt over his lack of action on Palestine.

I hope he is ruminating constantly about how he wi…

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• my partner; the way he smells, the way he hugs, the way he is calm and patient in almost all circumstances

• loving & being loved

• friends texting you first

• living in the moment

• blowing the floaty seeds of a dandilion head

• smashing through a giant bag of prawn cocktails crisps & feeling no guilt afterwards

• crunching through autumn …

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No, my love, for me they are actually very healing.

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Suddenly our low confidence, self worth, self love and self trust all make sense.

I often wonder how many negative messages autistic children also received, compared to their peers - be…

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