“Adulting is hard,” Matt sighed as we whizzed through the Wednesday evening jobs. Wednesday nights are always busy, with a daycare bag to unpack and repack as well as the usual evening jobs, but every second Wednesday we also have to tidy up for the cleaner to come on Thursday morning(1). It’s true, adulting is…
Something that surprised me about becoming a mum is that I was less concerned with routines than other, non-aspie mums. (It’s one thing when you are Aspie and people stereotype you. It is a strange, fracturing experience when you stereotype yourself.) What I mean by not being concerned with routines is this: I never followed…
Before I was pregnant, I had heard of “birth plans”. Even though I knew very little about childbirth, the concept sounded to me like an oxymoron. How can you plan something so notoriously unpredictable? I heard many stories of women who made meticulously detailed birth plans and then ended up traumatised when the childbirth experience…
Content warning: eating disorders I have been wanting to read this book since I first heard about it over a year ago. Last Tuesday I found myself at the library and managed to pick it up. I was completely drawn in from the very first chapter, almost too much so. Her writing is so visceral…
Thoughts on becoming a mother, written when our son was six days old. I think we as Australians might be a little bit negative. As soon as people know you are pregnant, people are eager to tell you how your life is about to change forever. And not in a good way. I was at…
When I was pregnant, our doula said the most lovely thing anyone has ever said to me about my Asperger’s. She said, “I think you having Asperger’s is going to be an advantage for you in this area.” I was touched, and I don’t think I will ever forget her words. Too often, discussions about…
Yesterday I made the mistake of shopping at Coles for the first time in about two months. There were just a few things I wanted to buy there. I ended up utterly depleted of energy and by the time I made it home, collapsed in a pile. Coles is not friendly to my Asperger’s Syndrome…
January Mother Zen – Jacinta Tynan, non-fiction, 3/5 This book frustrated me because it was too long and had too much unacknowledged privilege. But it stuck with me and I still think about it frequently. It is written by a woman who learns to meditate when she is pregnant, but it is all about her…
I am so tired of people telling me I’m high-functioning. It’s not a useful label. It’s problematic; like the phrase “mild autism” in the above quote, it frames an autistic/Aspie person’s experience in terms of how hard it is for other people to cope with him or her, rather than how hard it is for…
My parents are visiting me in Canberra! Muslim women wearing hijabis have been harassed on the street! These two statements are not connected, but they are in this picture. Especially since this terrorism drama has been going on, ignorant people who tar all people who call themselves Muslim with the same brush have been giving…
