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Refelection

Featured

What Is Self-Care (Really)? A Neuroaffirming Perspective by Barb Cook

January 14, 2026 Spectrum Women

From the Spectrum Women community Self-care is often presented as universal, but for autistic, ADHD, and AuDHD people, it rarely reflects real bodies, real energy, or real nervous systems. In this piece, Barb Cook offers a neuroaffirming perspective on self-care that moves beyond productivity, pressure, and “doing more,” and instead centres lived experience, regulation, and sustainability. Read the article on Barb Cook’s website HERE.

Arts

The Artist

April 2, 2024 Spectrum Women

Poem by Elizabeth Ruben   Over the sparkling city I shall build A bridge Of prism glass   And the rainbows Of this overpass Will enchant The passers by   For the arch Over the heavens Has now been Rendered   By human hand The rainbow’s seven And now with Pride I stand   My inner beauty Once expressed Outside, that The river’s gentle tide   Shall play the Music of my heart when The harshness of this world Tears me apart.   Elizabeth Ruben is a neurodivergent writer who has always had an affinity with the written word. Her […]

General

Living My Life More Authentically Autistic by Dr Trish Leonard-Curtin

July 8, 2022 Spectrum Women

Over the last year I’ve been on a path of understanding myself and my place in the world in an entirely different way than before. Last year I received my autism diagnosis, and earlier this year, it was confirmed that I also have ADHD. Finally, in my early forties, I now have a language and understanding of experiences which have confused me my whole life. Somewhere at last to sensibly organise that bundle of personal oddities and self-enquiries I’d buried deep inside and tried to cover up. For the most part, when I was young, I got by okay enough. […]

Featured

Disability Behind The Curtain by Gabrielle Hailstone

August 9, 2021 Spectrum Women

Standing in B+ behind a draped curtain was my most anticipated experience as an autistic dancer. “5, 6, 7, 8…and pirouette! That’s great, now again.” I loved that part. The “again” part. Until I was twenty years old, ballet was my special interest. It’s what I wanted to be when I grew up: A prima ballerina. A dream that would ultimately end in failure when I couldn’t “take it” any longer. But what was “it” that I couldn’t “take” exactly? Rhetorical Question (RQ), I thought it was the “dance world”. I thought it was a number of different things other […]

Advocacy

Imposter Syndrome by Lisa Morgan M.Ed. CAS

October 12, 2020 Spectrum Women

Have you ever felt the thrill of a hard-won success – only to completely doubt your abilities soon after? Maybe you stepped out of your comfort zone, worked very hard, did an incredible job, but then started to rationalize it was all just luck?  How about feeling like a fraud, even though you have clear evidence you are not? Even irrefutable, written, positive feedback can be dismissed by the doubt and angst inflicted upon people by the Imposter Syndrome. The Imposter Syndrome is a lying thief. Just as I started moving forward, taking risks, and enjoying successes; it crashed into […]

Arts

What I like by Jenny Snyder

July 6, 2019 Spectrum Women

People make autism out to be scary and pitiable. But there are lots of things I LIKE about being autistic. Focus:  Focusing on an activity is incredibly energizing. You could say I have a one-track mind. I am good at certain kinds of things because it’s easy to totally commit myself to some drive and I am pretty much single minded.  Thoughts are like drugs to me.  A few times in my life people have commented, “You think too much,” like my focus was weird, but I love the non-stop inner deliberations.  My mind is not a bad place to […]

Featured

“What IS Wrong With People?” Struggling to comprehend injustice by Janine Kharey

December 30, 2018 Spectrum Women

I believe that altruism is at the center of how civilizations managed to be successful. I don’t think humans could have survived long in self-serving society. There must be something in us that makes us care about more than just getting our own needs met, yet tales of cruelty, injustice and man’s inhumanity to man bombard us. As an elementary teacher my life was deeply enriched by the beautiful souls that passed through my classroom. Among one of those souls was a child so full of undaunted  joy , compassion and wonder who could not understand how people could be […]

Featured

My Gratitude List by Jen Elcheson

December 17, 2018 Spectrum Women

Recently, I was talking with a friend I had not spoken to in a while. As I updated her on all the current happenings in my life, we both came to the realization that I have much to be grateful for right now and should write something about gratitude; so when things get bumpy, I will have something to fall back on. Also, as my autism diagnosis/professional identification turns 20 this year, it could not be a better time to do this! There is a lot of talk around gratitude in popular culture, social media memes, and psychology right now […]

Parenting

An open letter to ‘martyr’ parents – Yenn Purkis

July 15, 2018 Spectrum Women

I will preface this by clearly stating that I have no issue with parents of autistic kids. It would be rude — and foolish — if I did, considering that a lot of my advocacy work is with parents. I recognise the vital role parents have in supporting their kids to grow to be strong and fulfilled autistic adults. Parenting can be very difficult and parents usually do an amazing job. This letter relates to a small subset of parents within the world of autism… I was in conversation online in response to a post about a TV program featuring […]

Advocacy

If Neurodiversity Doesn’t Challenge You, You’re Not Doing It Right by Maura Campbell

June 23, 2018 Spectrum Women

“Would you like to pet the lambs?”  This story comes back to me whenever I have to check in with myself on whether I’m ‘doing neurodiversity right’. Let me explain. It was shortly after my son’s autism diagnosis, and many months before I’d cottoned on that I was also autistic. We were visiting an open farm as part of a large group of families, enjoying the opportunity to meet other parents raising kids on the spectrum.  Our lives had become very small in those early days, as we tried to process what autism meant for our beautiful boy, and even […]

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