The Unexpected Autist

This year was my 39th Christmas as an autistic person, but the first Christmas that I have known  I’m autistic. It’s been interesting. One of the things I have found a little weird about exploring my autistic brain is that I keep getting these little moments of “Oh, that’s  why I’ve always done this...”, and this Christmas has been no different. I had a big one today. I’ve been reading lost of posts from other autistics on Twitter talking about coping with Christmas - the sensory overload, having to be social, and how they survive it all - all the while thinking that I’ve never really had issues with Christmas. I did have a little weep yesterday (Christmas Day itself), but that was because I had a stinking cold and didn’t get enough sleep... wasn’t it?? Today I had a bit of a realisation. My husband dances with the village Morris side, and Boxing Day is a big day for them. As I was driving over I had a sudden flashback to last year, sitting crying in my car waiting for Hus...

Yesterday was tricky. I was doing a new thing that I'd never done before, and which necessitated me being around lots of noisy children for a prolonged period of time. (Tap dancing in a showcase, if you're interested.) When we got home, I told my husband that he was not allowed to talk to me until I came out from under my duvet. Up until now, my duvet has been pretty much my only coping strategy, and as life is going through a difficult phase I feel like I'm using it all the time. Often I get home from work and go straight to bed. I've been eating meals in bed. I've been working in bed. It's good, because it does help me feel better, but it's quite limiting, and it's affecting my relationships with my family, particularly my children. We had planned to go out for a family walk yesterday afternoon, but for one reason and another I ended up walking quite a lot of it by myself. I was feeling stressed out and overwhelmed. My brain was going at 100 miles ...

I've chosen noise as my next topic to explore as it's one that fascinates me, and I haven't quite got my head around it fully yet. I have a very mixed relationship with noise. I'm a musician by trade, and a music teacher. I LOVE noise. When I was teaching secondary music I could quite happily sit at my desk surrounded by a class of thirty kids playing keyboard while I marked my A level essays, and still be able to pick out the ones who were hitting the demo button instead of doing their work. My classroom was noisy and chaotic, and I loved it. On the flip side, sitting in a restaurant trying to have a meal I can literally lose the ability to speak, because I can't process the level of noise around me. Or maybe it's the type of noise - people speaking, glasses clinking, plates and cutlery, waiters walking around... I remember feeling a complete failure because every time I would go out for a nice meal with my ex-husband we would sit in silence. I found it rea...