This article was originally published in First Person Plural’s Spring edition of Rainbow’s End (Volume 23, Issue 1). Autism has been a long held interest of ours. Despite relating so much to what we read, we never felt that we were autistic ‘enough’, so it took us a long time to explore that diagnosis for … Continue reading Autism, DID and Neurodiversity – our journey so far
Category: Traumatism
Posts relating to trauma, autism, complex PTSD and DID
Good News! They’re angry!
If people are getting angry you’re probably doing something right! This occurred to us recently when we were reflecting on the anger, vitriol and toxic narratives about us that have emerged following a disclosure we made to our sister about some of our early life experiences. We couldn’t understand where it was all coming from … Continue reading Good News! They’re angry!
Exposed
We discovered Donna Williams some time ago through a video on you tube in which she speaks about her experiences of being autistic and multiple. Donna explains her experiences in greater depth in her book, Exposure Anxiety - the invisible cage. We were drawn back to this book again recently when it occurred to us … Continue reading Exposed
Walking an invisible bridge
TW: uses magic as an analogy. In the recent Disney Pixar movie Onward, brothers Ian and Barley embark on a magical quest to recover a crystal. It’s a great film, full of fun and meaning, but the reason I mention it here is because there is a scene in which Ian has to cast a … Continue reading Walking an invisible bridge
No words
There are times when there is an abundance of words streaming through our consciousness, playing around forming thoughts and ideas until suddenly there is a coherent thing that we want to communicate. This ‘thing’ that has been created in our mind is near fully formed and comes flowing through our fingertips onto the keyboard. We … Continue reading No words
Life as a hedgehog
Autistic people are often described as having a spiky profile. This refers to our neurodivergent tendency to have great strengths in some areas and deficits in others. These peeks and troughs of functioning, be they related to social skills, self care, academics or anything else, can vary over the course of the day and/or lifetime … Continue reading Life as a hedgehog
Exhausted
*Trigger warning: mentions self harm* We are exhausted! The kind of exhausted where we cannot thermoregulate, our body so hot that we think we are running a fever, later so cold that we wonder if we will ever be able to warm up. The kind of exhausted where we feel sick and dizzy, hands shaking, … Continue reading Exhausted
The trouble with time
Time can be a bit of an enigma for us, from understanding the numbers to our perception of time, knowing where we are in time and how time passes. These difficulties can be accounted for by living with DID and by our autism. Experiences associated with DID, for example, derealisation, flashbacks and loosing time, all … Continue reading The trouble with time
Trusting ourselves
We have been scammed twice in the last couple of weeks. The feelings of shame and self loathing this brings up are, naturally, huge. These feelings our compounded however because on both occasions, particularly the first one, we knew something wasn’t quite right, but we went ahead anyway. We are generally cautious with money, we … Continue reading Trusting ourselves
Why we want you to see us AND our diagnosis
When health care professionals say I see you, not your diagnosis, it suggests that somehow our responses, our way of being, who we are, can be separated from the trauma we experienced and it’s ongoing impact. We understand the sentiment, that people don’t want to view us as just a series of diagnoses, that they … Continue reading Why we want you to see us AND our diagnosis