Love, Growth and Autism

 Another week, another super interesting interview. When I had started this series, there was a huge part of me that felt I will not be able to continue it beyond 5 interviews. I would either get bored, or wouldn't get anyone to speak to, or both, or something else. Well, this is the 5th interview, so wish me luck :p Aniket was the first adult autistic person that I spoke to, more than a year ago, in one of the whatsapp groups. Back then, I was really struggling with one of the kids scratching me. They would scratch for anything and everything. Feeling happy, scratch mumma, feeling upset scratch mumma, thirsty, hungry, sleepy, you guessed it, scratch mumma. I used to joke that I am a victim of child abuse, as in my child is abusing me! But underneath the humor, I was losing my shit, little by little, with every single scratch. I started dreading physical contact with my child, and the only time I would feel comfortable going near him was when he was asleep. I would often get so irr...

 Next up on the 50 Shades of Autism series, we have another young and brilliant mind, Rohan. I was quite excited about this interview, because this was only the second time that I was interviewing a young adult who got diagnosed as a kid. I feel early diagnoses can give the person and advantage to grow up more like themselves, rather than trying to fit in and be more like others. Rohan seems like that. I would highly recommend all the readers to check out Rohan's blog - The Fast Entertainer , especially if you are a car lover.  So without further ado, lets get into it. M: Would you like to introduce yourself in your own words? R: Hi, I am Rohan Dixit. I am a writer, blogger and photographer who documents the world of cars, especially supercars. I have my own website called The Fast Entertainer where you can see the blogs I write and a gallery of some of my best photographed cars. M: So, let's start at the very beginning. Can we tell me a bit more about your childhood? R: I had...

It is striking me now that we are on the third interview, and so far I have only interviewed autistic women. Well, I wish I could say it was by design. But, I am glad that I am getting to talk to these very interesting women. I realized it only very recently that the reason why I never asked myself if I could be autistic till about 29 years is because I had only seen autism through the male lens. Autisic boys and autistic adult men (mostly in movies and TV shows). When it came to women, the only thing that even seemed slightly relatable was bipolar. But trying to make sense of my "quirks" from the bipolar lens is sort of like trying to explain the colour orange, but the only other colour you know is red. So you say, its bright like red, but maybe not as bright. It has a bit more of something else, but what I can't put my finger on.  But now that I finally have access to adult autistic women, I don't need to explain orange. They just get it. And I too, finally, get it....

I feel like I almost don't want to introduce Rebecca, because that will take away the mystery. So, I won't. I will instead talk about how I know her. In short, I don't, really. But, as the virtual world works, I connected with someone, lets call her N, who knows Rebecca and shared her blog with me. Rebecca is a magician with words. Her poems spark something in you. They are simple and elegant. I was hooked. And it brought out the poet in me. I don't write a lot of poems, because I feel it doesn't come as naturally to me as prose, but every once in a while, a poet in me wakes up, churns out a few poems, and goes back to sleep for another half a decade. This time, Rebecca's blog was the alarm clock. And so I seized the opportunity and wrote a few myself which then found its way to Rebecca. And she really liked them. So when I connected with N to interview her for 50 Shades of Autism, she asked me if I would like to connect with Rebecca too. And, here we are. I off...

It is such a massive honour to start this series with Aditi Sowmyanarayan. Aditi is a blogger, an award winning published author and an amazing autistic voice that more people need to listen to. And all this before she even turned 18. But don't let her young age fool you. She is wiser and more eloquent than most of the adults I have known.  So, without further ado, here we go!

In my last post, I briefly breezed through the topic of the differences in support needs in autism. The thought was very new at that point. And something that I wanted to understand more deeply. But how do I do it?  Most of the easily available literature on autism is still from the medical perspective. And if there is one thing that I have learnt from binging all those medical dramas, it is that medicine is still evolving. Even doctors don’t know everything. Nobody does. Medicine is ever evolving, just like us. And no shade to the medical field, but all that literature is still very deficit based. In simpler words, it is from the neurotypical lens. It does not even try to explain things from the autistic lens. And if we keep sticking to just that lens, we will still see things as problems, instead of support needs, deficits, instead of accommodations. So, what do we do? And here is where my brilliant mind gave me the brilliant (and seemingly obvious) idea, to talk to autistic peop...

Disclaimer - This post is going to be haphazard, because I myself don’t have the clarity that I would like to offer to you.  I would be lying if I say this question has never haunted me. But over time, I had found my peace with it. Until a few days ago. Whatsapp groups were abuzz with the news of the death of an autistic teen/young adult due to negligence in an autistic living community. Though there is a lot to discuss on the topic of safety in such communities and at home, that is not what this post is about.  When I read that news, my heart went out for the person who lost his life, and also to the parents. A few people mentioned that the parents should have never sent their kid to the ashram. Yeah, maybe, in hindsight, definitely. But, being a parent myself, I started thinking, what if in future, because of whatever reason, I end up in a position where I am not able to give the best care possible to my child. Maybe I am not physically fit enough to keep up, maybe I don’t h...