Refelection Archives - Spectrum Women

Featured

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 […]

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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 […]

Featured

Oh! The Meaning of the Meaning of Words… by Lisa Morgan

May 8, 2018 Spectrum Women

Words have meanings! Unfortunately, they have lots of different meanings for people, making it a challenge to communicate. There are phrases such as, “Let’s go for coffee soon,” which somehow usually means “Hi, it’s good to see you; I wish we could spend time together, but it’s impossible right now”. Also, “We need to talk about goals soon” can mean “I’m really busy and this is going to have to wait”. One of my favorites over the years has been, “Text (or call) you later” meaning “goodbye”. Where is this all written down? How do other people know this language […]

Refelection

The Best Version of Me by Lisa Morgan

March 11, 2018 Spectrum Women

I am an autistic adult who lived undiagnosed through the sixties and seventies in a school environment where differences were not accepted and teachers thought quiet, bright, students could be left alone in favor of the more vocal, struggling ones. I fell through the cracks and landed in a no-man’s land of bullying, rejection, sensory assaults, and pervasive loneliness. As I think about those early years, my mind wanders back to a typical day and I visualize one of the most important conversations of my life. In my mind’s eye I see her sitting alone in a room full of […]