Therapeutic weeding. The front bed is overrun with witch grass because I wasn’t well enough to garden last year, but reclaiming it one patch at a time. Excited about our first sea holly – it’s a variety called Hobbit.
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I really prefer British style fences, but with the wildflowers blooming I am coming around to ours.
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Have I mentioned I set up a desk in our living room? I’ve been using it since January or February. It was especially nice when the severe winter weather meant I couldn’t use the studio.
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New doctor new bloodwork. I’ll be writing about chronic illness soon so I thought I’d take a photo while I waited for the nurse.
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We found this beauty when we were weeding the mulch under the jungle gym. A fascinating science project to see how an acorn sprouts into a mighty oak.
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What is autism? (Part One)
Read more: What is autism? (Part One)The most important thing to understand about autism (and more broadly neurodivergence) is that every person is unique.
You may have heard “autism is a spectrum.” This is because there isn’t one way to be autistic. There is a spectrum of experience.
But, this isn’t a rainbow from “less autistic” to “more autistic”.
via autism_sketches on instagram † In my experience it is more like a color wheel that’s constantly in motion.
via felipe Pantone on INSTAGRAM ‡ The reason I describe the autism spectrum as in motion or flux is that my experience varies wildly based on external and internal factors (environment, clothing, health, access to supports, hunger, anxiety, etc.) This means my capacity varies from day to day and moment to moment.
I also find that my autistic traits are almost always rooted in sensory differences. So this a helpful place to start. I made this video to share my experience of overstimulation. (There’s also a shorter 30 second version here.)
That’s how it feels (for me) to experience sensory overload or overstimulation. The internal sensation can range from something like overwhelm and numbness to physical pain depending on the trigger. Remember this varies from person to person.
Why do I feel things so intensely?
Why might an autistic person experience “normal” sensory input as pain or sensory overload? Because our brains process information differently.
Take a look at this brain scan.
Image Credit: schneider lab § The scan on the left is an autistic brain processing language.
The scan on the right is someone without autism.
I love this image because you can see how much more information an autistic person is processing at any given moment. The non autistic brain is using a process called sensory modulation to focus on the speaker’s voice. The autistic brain continues taking in lots of other information simultaneously.
I believe understanding sensory modulation is essential for properly empathizing with and supporting autistic individuals of all ages.
That’s why I co-created the book How it Feels to Me a book about neurodiversity and sensory processing.
* I have been professionally diagnosed with autism, but also have traits of ADHD such as time blindness and difficulties with object constancy. Having knowledge of these traits and functional coping strategies I have no interest in pursuing an ADHD diagnosis at this time.
† Illustration by @autistic_sketches on Instagram
‡ Artwork via Felipe Pantone on Instagram
§ Brain Scan images via Schneider Lab
** Neurotype is a term used to describe your brain’s processing style: autistic, ADHD, OCD, etc. If you are not neurodivergent your neurotype is neurotypical. Being neurotypical just means that your brain is processing the world like most others. This means the dominant culture has been made to support the way your brain processes the world around you. You are surrounded by supports for your neurotype every single day.
† † Printable Cards from Sensory Diet Workbook by Harkla (Affiliate Link)
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This is the first year I’ve been well enough to really spend time weeding the wildflower area of our garden. Years past I’ve let the seeds go truly wild and only pulled a few “mean dandelions” (you know, the spiky ones) and weeds I suspected might be poisonous. This year I’m enjoying sitting among the bachelor buttons and pulling up plants that are less desirable so we have fewer weedy seedlings competing with wildflowers next year.
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“Hey, I work with college students often. Do you know what brings their attention back to the surface after years of Zoom classes, Generative AI cheating, and smart phone usage?
Zines. Freaking zines. You put a zine in an undergraduate’s hands and say “Someone like you made this. You could make this. All you need is some found images, paper, scissors/glue, and your own imagination. No chatgpt necessary.”
They light up, every single time, without fail. They start to recognize how little Generative AI serves them in the long run. They’ve called zines “Anti-AI” to my face and gleefully showed me their first zines with thought, intention, and inventiveness.
Critical thinking isn’t dead in the land of zines. It’s thriving. Academia has to pivot, as much as I loathe that corporate term.”
Abigail Schleifer via Substack Notes
See also: What Are Zines? by Abigail Schleifer
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“The work of writing a book is not the selection of suitable words,” writes John Higgs. “The work is the task of engaging another mind. It is a constant dance between understanding your subject and understanding how a future reader will react to it – a reader you can never know, but which you still have to intuit.”
via Austin Kleon (in the context of discussing AI)
