You Can Say “Lovely Weather We’re Having” (Unless You’re The News)

For the past couple of months, I've been hugely enjoying The Daily Tism, a satire news site by and for autistic people, bringing a much-needed lift to my social media feeds. You should go and read it. No really, now. You'll have much more fun there than here. I'll just wait for you to come …

I Went To London And All I Got Was This Lousy Meltdown

The other day, I done goofed. I wanted to blog about it partly so you can learn from my mistakes, partly so I can learn from my mistakes, and partly because "at least this will make for good content!" is proving to be a surprisingly effective coping strategy. If you're new here - heatwaves are …

Autism doesn’t “wear off” – but deficit-based thresholds can

The below started life as a Discord infodump response to someone who'd had some pretty unusual childhood diagnosis experiences, culminating in "they told me the ASD had worn off". By the time I'd caught up, the discussion had already moved on quite a bit. So in an extremely on-brand move, I smashed through the Discord …

Laughing Boy

Connor Sparrowhawk was just 18 years old when he drowned in an NHS assessment and treatment unit, under the supposed "care" of people who did anything but. His story is well-known in autism and learning disability circles thanks to the tireless campaigning of his mother, Professor Sara Ryan, who documented her family's fight for justice …

Autism waiting times are unacceptable. Those stuck waiting are not to blame

New NHS England statistics on waiting times for autism assessment in 2023 are due to be published on Thursday. This might explain why last week, The Times published an article with the headline "People self-diagnosing ADHD and autism 'overwhelm services'". The online article is paywalled, but was circulated widely on social media. It's almost entirely …

[Hysteria] Healthcare By Algorithm

Hysteria is a series of blog posts about recent adventures in menstrual healthcare that got me nowhere except finding new ways the entire system is broken. You can find out more here and view all posts here. While this post doesn't go into details, it's ultimately about healthcare and medical products and there are a …

[Hysteria] Weird Things I Blamed My Symptoms On (repost)

This was originally published on a separate Substack on 2nd December 2023. For various reasons, not least because Substack would apparently much rather host actual literal Nazis, I’ve decided to bring the Hysteria project into my primary WordPress blog instead. You can find out more about the project here, and I’ve created a Hysteria category where you can find all related …

[Hysteria] About Hysteria (repost)

This was originally published on a separate Substack on 25th November 2023. For various reasons, not least because Substack would apparently much rather host actual literal Nazis, I've decided to bring the Hysteria project into my primary WordPress blog instead. I've created a Hysteria category where you can find all related posts. This post explains …

Royal Blood: Back To The Water Below track-by-track

Royal Blood's Typhoons is a special album for me. Released at the tail end of the COVID-19 lockdowns, it was seen at the time as a significant departure for the band, mixing their tried-and-tested blues-rock with dancier sounds you'd more likely associate with Daft Punk. The album campaign marked frontman Mike Kerr speaking publicly about …

“Then why couldn’t you do it before?”: Autism and fluctuating abilities

The following events all happened within the same week: I woke up feeling low. I knew why: this time of year is a tricky one, and it wouldn't be over any time soon. I'd planned to get things done at home, and none of it was happening. Eventually, I decided to accept I wasn't being …