I’m Hannah, an autistic mother of three. Like lots of late diagnosed autistic women I realised I was autistic when two of my children were diagnosed. In a previous life I was a secondary school teacher, before deciding to retrain and enter the world of communications. I’m passionate about helping people realise that autists aren’t failed neurotypicals, that we aren’t broken and that an autism diagnosis isn’t a tragedy.
Recent posts
It’s not wrong to be different
I’ve been thinking a lot this weekend about the trauma caused when other people don’t believe the impact something is having on you. Autistic people think, process and feel things different to NTs. Although we are the ones who usually get accused of lacking in empathy, I’ve found that NTs can be quick to judge our actions based on how they view the world, rather than trying to see things from our perspective. We get told we are overreacting to situations that aren’t a big deal. We get told that sounds that hurt our ears aren’t really that loud. We…
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Autism Acceptance Week
It’s Autism Acceptance Week, and while I know some autistics are ambivalent about such awareness campaigns, it’s got me thinking about what needs to change to create a world where autistic people are fully accepted. I’d always support any attempts to raise awareness of the realities of being autistic, but actually, I think we can create a more autism-friendly environment even without people understanding all the intricacies of the autistic mind. We’ve built a world where we are quick to judge anyone we perceive as different to ourselves. We try to validate our own experiences of the world by…
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Expecting gratitude
I’m getting fed up of people expecting me to be grateful for the small, reasonable adjustments that autistic people are legally entitled to. Recently this has been in the context of a system that is failing my child, but I’m told that rather than being angry at this, I should be glad for the small positive steps that are being taken as most services don’t even do that. I’m never going to be happy that my child is getting 50% of what they are entitled to, even if most children only get 25%. We wouldn’t tolerate law breaking in other…
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Review of Your Child is not Broken by Heidi Mavir
The subtitle of the final chapter of Heidi Mavir’s book “Your Child is not Broken” is “Permission to Become ‘That’ Parent”, a phrase that to me actually sums up the whole book. If you are at the start of your journey with a SEND child, trying to navigate the system to find out what support is available, not wanting to chase people too many times as you don’t want to be seen as pushy, then this is the book for you. If you are further along, have already grown weary with the endless meetings with professionals, are fed up…
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Life, Autistically 