End of an era

It's funny how little inconsequential things can really affect you at times.

I'm on my last trip on my current passport. When I get back I'm sending it off for renewal ahead of my NY trip in March; something I'm incredibly excited for.

And yet I'm heartbroken.

That passport has been to hell and back with me, I got it in 2006 ahead of a family holiday to Egypt, back then I was only self-diagnosed and still studying astrophysics!

That passport has gained me entry to Egypt, San Francisco, Athens, Lisbon, Malta and more. It's been through a degree change, a life validating assessment, a graduation, and numerous other important events.

When I got that passport I lived at home, my paternal grandfather was alive and well, my mum was a single divorcee and my sister was just a primary school child.

Now I'm in my own flat, my grandmother has been a widow for a number of years, my mum is happily married to my stepfather and my sister has just started her university degree to become a midwife!

It's difficult to put into words just what handing over that passport will mean to me; I know I get it back but it's very much like an end of an era. This is truly the last vestiges of childhood being lost as this new passport I will be paying for myself - the first time I have had to, and it will be the one that lasts me through my 30s.

I struggle to grasp the concept of what life may be like in 10 years time when I have to renew my passport again. Will it involve the same nostalgia and odd emotions? What stamps will this one have collected? I already know there will be a Department of Homeland Security one in there come March but where else will the next 10 years take me? Will that passport even last me the full 10 years? By that time I may have a new married surname or a new title should I have earned my PhD by then!

All I know at the moment is that you can't remain in the past and you shouldn't worry for the future excessively. What will happen will happen at its own pace and at the end of the day we may all be vaporised tomorrow by Vogons anyway!

Routine and Change

School has started back for a new academic year and the rugby season has kicked off!

I am so happy it's ridiculous.

My life can return to what stands for normal in my family. I know what I'm doing from day to day and have a regular routine again!

The thing is, for all I moan about it, I really like working in a school and having a basic timetable I can follow from day-to-day / week-to-week / term-to-term. It gives me structure in a life I deliberately try to keep very open and fluid. I've always been very fearful of having too much routine and becoming compulsive about following it. I worry that my nature is to follow automatic habits and that I would get very distressed if unable to.  For this reason I like to mix up my drive home route occasionally (although it's not very long so there's not much option for change!) and vary the days of the week I do my washing/shopping/cleaning. Even following the rugby has variety in locations, days and times so not every weekend becomes repetitive.

I like variety and change and some random chaos in life, it keeps me thinking and more importantly it stops me becoming stagnant and trapped in a mundane cycle that would send me into a spiralling depression - and yes that lesson was learnt through experience!

I feel that people are too afraid of change when it comes to Autism - sometimes it's not the #ActuallyAutistic person that is rejecting the change but the people around them who are worrying about their reaction and can't cope with the additional support we need to manage the transition process.

Change and mistakes along with tears and anxiety have made me the person I am today because I experienced them, survived them and ultimately learned from them.

Don't stifle someone because of your fear, don't 'protect' someone from the normal everyday nature of the world that throws changes and chaos around like fake snow at Christmas. The world will never stop being the way it is and while there is sense in routine and planning there must also be wisdom in recognising that some things cannot be planned for or made to be regular. It will not always be dry when you go to the doctors, the train to work/school will not always arrive at 08.34 precisely, the recipe for Fanta may not always remain the same.

We do not stay the same as human beings throughout life, we grow and change and mature and decay. Life is, by its very nature, never static and never 100% predictable. The human mind, autistic or not, needs to be able to cope with that concept and learn that there are many many things we simply cannot control and the best way to do this is to look to nature. Science teaches us that we don't know more than we know and even what we know now may not be what we know tomorrow.

So my motto for September is very much "lets get back to normal" but also a hefty dose of "embrace the chaos" - let's see what the month brings!

An inspiring week

Everyone has weeks that are tough, weeks that you wish would end already or never have happened, weeks that just make life seem so grey and rubbish.

This was not one of those weeks for me.

I am so lucky to have the opportunities I do in my life; to be able to stand in front of a crowd in Westminster and have them listen to what I have to say, to be able to see my family so often, to be able to share moments with people I love, and to get to meet some truly inspirational people.

Meeting Henry Fraser at his incredible art exhibition 'Hand to Mouth' was one of the most significant moments of recent times for me; he is someone that doesn't just inspire me but reminds me of the important things in life - to focus on "what you can do, not what you cant do". To have the opportunity to get to thank him in person for being a continual source of positivity has made me reaffirm my vow to not get caught up in the negative of life, but to continue to find ways to see the strengths in disappointment and to improve as a person with every knock-back or failure.

This week has been a phenomenal one for finding hope for the future thanks to the wealth of sport on TV; witnessing Andy Murray win Wimbledon again, watching Chris Froome's brilliant descent sprint to the Yellow jersey, seeing Yates and Cav in the White and Green jerseys, all these marvellous things give me such enjoyment and passion for British sport again - let's cheer Froomey on to victory in Paris in 14 days and then its time to bring on Rio!!

More than anything I hope that the sense of positivity coming out of British sport rights now will help to lift this country out of the funk its been in recently and start to unite and heal our people; the world is in a sorry state right now, but as some wonderful people have reminded me lately - even the hardest of adversities can be overcome with the right mental attitude and a willingness to accept what cannot be changed.

Beyond the comfort zone

I'm not sure where this recent increase in my need to self-challenge has come from but lately I'm feeling more and more desire to expand my horizons and continually push myself beyond my comfort zone.


I think it has a lot to do with my falling back in love with rugby, not that I ever really stopped liking it, I just got very 'meh' with competitive sport in general last year, no one sport or teams fault, just a slowly growing unpleasant feeling about attitudes and commitment.


I believe that to succeed in life and in sport you must be willing to commit everything to the pursuit of your goal. Don't half arse it and expect a medal, promotion, achievement on the other side.


Personal and professional growth takes work and effort, it takes a desire to become a better person and an acceptance of what the current failings are.


I have so much respect and love for the way the England Rugby team approached the recent Six Nations tournament, especially coming on the back of the World Cup. It would have been very easy for them to roll over and play dead or to come out all guns blazing like it was a wild west showdown. But they didn't.  They came out with passion, energy, and dedication. They had a game plan and they stuck to it. Get the job done and get it done well. You only had to look at the team's reaction after the skipper went down; concerned but pulling together for a quick team talk before going into running drills. No standing around chatting or hassling the medical staff, staying focused on the job in hand and make sure they were ready to go again as soon as the ref resumed play. (There will probably be a post at some point about my thoughts on rugby vs football referees!)


Taking a massive disappointment and channelling that experience into a determination to do better is something I hope I can keep doing; the next few weeks are full of a lot of challenges for me including 3 exams and a social event I'm terrified of so here's to positive thoughts and just getting on with getting it right!


And if I fail, well, some of the best people in the world have failed at things, they just kept going and didn't let it define them :)

Autism Training and Presentations

Having been sorting through my laptop and trying to organising my filing a bit better I thought it might be a good time to record the various topics I have spoken about in the past, along with the ones I have things prepared for, just in case anyone would like to learn more!


* "Education: Learning to Cope"
* "Autism in Pink - Personal Health domain"
* "Autism Training for Schools - sensory focus"
* "Females and the Autistic Spectrum"
* "Finding the balance between Reasonable Adjustment and Professional Development"
* "Pressure and Perfectionism - Coping with Society's Expectations"
* "Sensory Sensitivities"
* "What the Future can hold"
* "Autism and Sport - why doing something is important"
* "Social Interactions - how to start them and how to survive them"
* "Overload, Meltdown, Shutdown - what to do when things go wrong"


Most of these are aimed at people who want to learn more about Autism or who want guidance for how to improve things for Autistic people, please do get in touch if you want anymore information about anything above or want me to come talk about something different, I'm willing to talk about pretty much anything I have experience in!

The A Word - thoughts and feelings

Its been hard watching 'The A Word' series on BBC1 as it brings out a lot of painful memories and feelings about my own journey from ignorance to diagnosis and beyond.


I love the concept of the show and think its wonderful that the BBC commissioned a show that can help bring Autism to a wider audience, however I do worry that by nature the show is 'drama' and may end up pushing a more dramatic/extreme journey on its characters just for the shock factor.


The latest episode dealt with the concept of home schooling and the specialist vs mainstream vs alternative approach argument. Its a topic I care passionately about as someone who works within the education field; my place of work is technically a mainstream school as its not an EBD/Special school but as a PRU we do have more flexibility than standard secondary schools. (Don't get me started on academies, that's a whole separate issue!)


The main argument in all this is not necessarily about which style of education is best for the autistic child but about the social inclusion nature of childhood - if you spare the young child then pain of school/classroom due to fears of bullying, exclusions, SEND problems then unfortunately I really believe you are creating larger problems down the line.


Unless you fully intend for the child to live out their entire adult life in sheltered supported accommodation and make no form of contribution to society then you owe that child the right to learn the skills they will need for adult life. If you overly protect them as children then how do they learn the required skills to cope with post-16/18 life? There were parts of school I absolutely hated but I would not exchange those hard-earned lessons for anything now - I needed to learn that not everyone could be trusted, that not every 'friend' truly was, that I was going to fail at somethings and succeed at others and that sometimes there is no rhyme, reason, consistency or logic to life, sometimes its just not fair!


Being made to cope with the mainstream classroom allowed me to cultivate a thicker skin about Joe Public and their opinions/actions, it also allowed me to develop the coping mechanisms I use regularly now about sensory overloads - particularly in the workplace and when out at social events.


I'm not saying that mainstream is right for every child or that every autistic person is capable of living the kind of life I do, but I do feel that by restricting the child's experiences of 'normal' you are creating a stunted, unprepared adult who will not be able to cope with this crazy world we all exist in. People are more understanding now of the damage emotional neglect can do at a young age - maybe we need to be considering what long-term effects can come from not allowing children to experience the nastier sides of childhood as well as the positives.


After all, life is about balance isn't it?