kateblackham.space

This post comes with a trigger warning for mention of suicide. I’m working my way through a postgraduate certificate in online teaching, funded by my employer. And it’s really, really eye-opening to be privy to the discussions the other students are having about their experience of online learning. Let me tell you. Neurotypicals hate it.…

I’m going to be unpacking what it means to be me for a long time. In large part because everything just about everyone else ever told me about myself was wrong. They were wrong. And now I have the language for it, they were ableist. They saw the effects of my hidden disability and assumed…

That is all. I need to decompress for about a week now.

So I had a phone call yesterday afternoon, from the psychologist who’s assessing me today. She sounded very nice, but she told me I would definitely get my yes or no to autism today at the end of the session. When my daughter was assessed (privately) they sent her away with a huge questionnaire and…

I thought I’d show you my model railway, because autism, right? So it’s what known as a shunting puzzle. It’s really short and compact with those three sidings and you can play an interesting game (well I think so) trying to rearrange wagons in as few a moves as possible – it is precisely the…

As usual this post comes with a trigger warning for talk of suicidal ideation and self-harm. I finally got my autism assessment letter. It’s scheduled for next month. My parents have booked it into their diary so they can come too and can talk about how I was a totally normal child who walked before…

Have we talked about perseveration? I feel like we haven’t talked about it enough. So perseveration is the fixation autistics feel. That’s really good when you’re trying to write up your master’s project. It’s less helpful when you’re stuck on a bad emotion and can’t let it go. It’s the whole Class 58 brain thing.…

This post comes with a trigger warning for discussion of self-harm and suicidal ideation. In case you hadn’t noticed I am incredibly good at catastrophising – most autistic people are. I think it’s connected to my cognitive rigidity, whereby while your average neurotypical (NT) brain is an off-road car, my brain is a freight train.…

Today is now a write-off. After my weekly shift at the library this morning I was going to use this afternoon to plan next week’s tutorial and a talk on supporting autistic university students I’m hoping to do next year. Instead I got an email from a client. Sometimes books refuse to die. Sometimes authors…