Spring Isn’t My Light At The End Of The Tunnel

Warm weather is... a major challenge. The major challenge, actually, at least until last year. It's a huge sensory trigger for me, it's pretty much inescapable, and at some point that spiralled out of control and took on a life of its own. The way I describe The Heat Thing has fluctuated a lot - …

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Songs I Looped In 2020

No, my Spotify Wrapped infodump still isn't done yet. The Obligatory Muse Section I am functioning at blog-writing-level today because of Muse's headline set at Reading Festival 2006, the healing properties of which should now progress to a full clinical trial. Honourable mention to Take A Bow, today's loop of choice. Muse didn't actually release …

Over-compensating

When I was diagnosed with autism in 2003, the story goes, my parents were left to look it up for themselves. What they found was a long list of things I'd never be able to do: I wouldn't leave home, I wouldn't build a life that they didn't have to set up for me, I …

Quick thoughts: Sia please stop digging you’re making everything worse

I understand that The Sia Discourse has escaped the autistic-Twitter bubble and made its way into the wider world, so I thought it was worth writing a (hopefully) brief explainer of what's going on, why it matters and why this isn't just Mean Trolls On The Internet. Essentially: On Thursday, Sia released the trailer for …

Things Are Bad, So I Put Every Muse Song Into Preference Revealer

Things Are Bad, So I Put Every Muse Song Into Preference Revealer The idea behind the Preference Revealer website is simple enough: You feed it a list, it presents you with different pairs from that list and asks you to choose your favourite from each pair, until eventually you have complete rankings from most to …

“Conceal, don’t feel”: The case for autistic Elsa

Everything else is unimaginably, unbearably bleak and terrifying, so here's why Elsa is neurodivergent. It's worth noting from the outset that very little of this is new - autistic Elsa fan theories were all over the internet at the time of Frozen's release - but I've wanted to revisit it for a while and I …

The feasibility of this unreasonable jerk of a brain retaining any degree of sanity: A follow-up study on meteorological changes in the context of COVID-19.

A sequel to this previous “study” blog post, further demonstrating extreme commitment to a joke. Citation Harper G (2020). The feasibility of this unreasonable jerk of a brain retaining any degree of sanity: A follow-up study on meteorological changes in the context of COVID-19. Mind The Flap. bit.ly/346hJ1i Abstract Like many autistic people, this unreasonable …

Quick thoughts: On being “more disabled”, and more aware of it

This was, somehow, meant to be a tweet. In early March, you could have had a fairly reasonable-sounding debate about whether you considered me "disabled". What, exactly, was a penchant for Doctor Who and a tendency to shove multiple apologies into every sentence stopping me from doing? What right does someone like me, who was …

The impact of meteorological changes on this unreasonable jerk of a brain in the context of COVID-19 and a changing lockdown.

In which I demonstrate extreme commitment to a joke. Citation Harper G. (2020). The impact of meteorological changes on this unreasonable jerk of a brain in the context of COVID-19 and a changing lockdown. Mind The Flap. bit.ly/3ibatWI Abstract Like many autistic people, this unreasonable jerk of a brain has struggled to cope during the …

“If she’s got my ears, don’t say anything” – The A Word Series 3, Episode 6

This is the sixth and final of a series of blog posts about every episode of Series 3 of The A Word. It contains spoilers for episode 6, broadcast on 9th June 2020. If you’re planning to watch it, do that before reading on! As much as I'm looking forward to not having to piece together another blog …