Category Archives: Community

#SensoryAssault at the Avalon Mall

…And we’re not talking about the holiday shopping crowd or even the people smoking in places that are specifically marked as non-smoking (though I consider that a sensory assault and a health hazard as well).

As with all malls, there are a large number of stores in the Avalon Mall, and three (or four) have been problematic, sensory-wise, until about a few months ago (when some were added, see below). Bath and Body Works – in the section between CIBC and Scotiabank, and the escalators; Saje – second floor between the cinema and Lawtons; and The Body Shop – across from Saje, all have very distinct and strong smells coming from them, that can be rather aggravating for anyone with hypersensitive smell, or a sensitivity to particular types of fragrances. As you probably know from other posts on my blog, I’m both. Sephora, as a makeup store, can also have problematic smells at times.

There have also been complaints about the new restaurant/entertainment section, The Rec Room, in terms of the light and noise, but I haven’t yet gone into that section, so can’t say anything from my own experience yet.

But now there’s a (sort of) new store, set right in the open area where the Santa Claus is, next to Laura Secord (of all things!), called Lush.

Lush has a wonderful reputation in their home country of Great Britain for being environmentally aware and focused on products that are healthy as well as beautiful – I made a new friend through doing NaNoWriMo this year who just immigrated from England, and she uses their products exclusively. There were a number of articles about their opening the store in the Avalon Mall.

Unfortunately, walking anywhere near the Lush store is a nightmare – I used the term sensory assault for good reason.

Click for Details
"You Do You": You do you,/Even if it's blue,/Even if it's green,/Go ahead & be seen./Want to wear yellow,/Awesome, my fellow!/Or maybe red, instead./Feeling BOLD? Go gold!/To make them go woah!/Embrace the Rainbow./You do you. —Patricia George-Zwicker Editor, Autistics Aloud

Blue and Red: Shaming in April #ActuallyAutistic

So, this past week I was in Ottawa, at the Canadian Autism Spectrum Disorders Alliance Leadership Summit (as those of you who follow me on Twitter probably already know!). Unlike the previous two years (though I didn’t write any blog posts for the 2017 summit), I wasn’t speaking at a panel, but I still wanted to go for the contacts and to meet new autistic advocates (there were thirty-four who expressed interest this year, as CASDA received a grant specifically to invite those with first person lived experience, and they had keynote speakers each day with lived experience).

Now, I say that up front… because this isn’t the post about the summit. (That’s coming later.) This is about something else, that got raised in a panel and in talking to one of my close friends (Patricia) the first day of the summit (which happened to be April 2nd – yes, that’s on purpose).

Every year in April, since I first started learning about Light It Up Blue and Autism Speaks, I have consciously chosen to not wear blue (unless I’m going to be at home all day). I have encouraged friends and relatives to not wear blue on April 2nd (and preferably wear red or taupe instead). And that is my personal choice.

Read on about the problems with shaming.

#CASDASummit2018: Day 2 (Pt 1)

Day 2 of the CASDA Summit (Thursday April 19) started out on an interesting note. And by “started out”, I mean 1 am.

I spent the first two hours of the 19th working on the script for my portion of the “First Voice Perspective” panel – finishing writing it out, and then reading it out loud and making edits. (I spent from 1am to 2am doing the latter.) Then I managed to crash – for a while.

The Summit Day 2 session itself also started out on an interesting note.

Read on, read on!

Let’s Talk About: Alyx, The “Robotic Emotion Teacher”

So, I’ve mentioned Neurodivergent Rebel’s Twitter sessions of #AskingAutistics before, in my post about grief and coping with it. On Saturday (the 13th), she posted about an article on Quartz Media, regarding a robot that the creators say can teach adult autistics to read emotion and facial expression nuances. According to the article, researchers at Heriot-Watt University in Scotland created Alyx. It’s generated a fair amount of irritation among autistics on Twitter, for various reasons.

I’m going to quote from the article, and then give some of my counter-points (some of which I’ve already mentioned on Twitter, but are expanded here). Because honestly, this is not going to work the way the article claims it will. Here’s why (aside from the fact that already a number of autistics are vehemently opposed to it).

Read on, my dearies, read on….

Let’s Talk About: Emotions – Feeling Left Out

It looks like I’m going to be doing a series of rambles about emotion. This one, as per the title, is about feeling left out. I was thinking about other stuff yesterday, and a few memories came up that put me in mind of this particular emotion.

It’s a difficult feeling to quantify and to express, the sense of feeling left out of something. Particularly when you already have trouble with social cues and body language, and so can’t necessarily recognize that whatever you’re feeling left out of has nothing to do with you.

It’s also a very alienating and isolating emotion. Even thinking about talking about it makes me want to cry or melt down. Not exactly a pleasant topic, I’m afraid.

But it’s an important one. Particularly when the people around you don’t mean for you to get the impression that you’re being left out of things.

Read on for my rambles and thoughts on the matter.

#BoycottToSiri: Here’s Why #ActuallyAutistic Reviews

Disclaimer

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I’ve got some links for you of excellent reviews by other autistic adults (pretty sure all of the ones I’ve got are by autistics, but there might be a couple of allistic responses in there as well) about the reasons why we need to boycott “To Siri With Love” by Judith Newman.

But first, I want to express just how disappointed I am – and why – at Ms. Newman’s recent claim that To Siri was not meant for an autistic audience. I know I mentioned this yesterday in my list of grievances about it, but I want to reiterate today as a separate thing.

Any books about autism, no matter who they are written by, have an effect on autistics – in a lot of cases, because they affect the way autistics are treated by the readers of the book and, in a number of cases, by society at large. We may not be the ones targetted as readers, but because of the effect those books have, our opinions, needs, and desires about them need to be taken into account.

No author of a book about autism – or anyone else discussing that book – has the right to say that it has nothing to do with autistics. No one. By definition, a book about autism involves us.

You want to read a book written by an allistic parent about their autistic child? May I recommend Iris Grace by Arabella Carter-Johnson? (Also see my post BBC Video Article: Cat Helps 6 Year Old Autistic.) The author doesn’t try to hide the challenges that can come from raising an autistic child, but neither does she shy away from the joys that can come from the same. And she is respectful of both her daughter and the autistic community, which is always good to see in a book about autism.

Now, on to the links. (Please note that they’re not in any particular order, save how they’re saved in my Evernote.)

To the links and my descriptions….

#ASNL: #AskAboutAutism 2: Everybody Grows Up

First of all, I apologize to Tess and Will – I meant to get this up Tuesday, but didn’t manage to.

So, Monday evening, the ASNL (in the person of Tess Hemeon) organized the second Ask About Autism Livestream evening. (The first was last year – see my post ASNL: Ask About Autism #1.) This time, rather than some professionals and an autistic, there were two of us, both autistics – Will and myself. The theme this year that the ASNL has been concentrating on for Canadian Autism Awareness/Acceptance Month is “Everybody Grows Up”, and that was what the first part of the livestream was about. The second part looks at sensory issues, stims, and executive function, on a very basic level (we did this in half an hour, so it had to be basic 😉 ).

(We’re hoping to do this more frequently, and Tess and I were even discussing the possibility of short daytime livestream discussions as everyone was closing up.)

To see the video, read on! 🙂

CBC Radio Interview: June 19, 2017 – Recording

So. The interview I mentioned on Thursday ran yesterday morning in two sections (the first was a teaser/intro), at 7:36 and at 7:43. I recorded it on my computer through the CBC Radio One streaming, and spent half of yesterday picking out the parts that were my interview (the recording was from 5:20 to 9:30 in the morning!), cutting them out, and putting them together to send to my friends and family.

There’s also going to be a web page version, and when I checked with them to ask when it would go up (answer is: Sometime over the next few days, they’ll try to remember to let me know, but I’ll keep checking the site anyway!), I also asked about whether I could post that recording to my blog (wasn’t sure about the legalities of it). The web guy said that there should be no problem, so here it is! The interview is about 10 minutes long or so, and I’ve included about 10 seconds of silence between the teaser and the conversation just to set them apart.

Note: Ms. Holmes accidentally calls me “Tracy” at the end of the teaser (2:11, according to my sister-in-law), but all other uses of my name are correct.

(And why is the default “not getting my name right” always Tracy? If someone’s going to get my name wrong, I’d expect them to call me “Judy”, but it’s always, always “Tracy”!)

So, here it is. Enjoy!

🙂 tagÂûght

Recommendation: Unstrange Mind – Neurodiversity: Creativity and Innovation Thrive When We Welcome Diverse Minds

I haven’t been reading many other blogs for the last little while, due to various reasons including my concentration on CAPP issues, overall fatigue (ended up with low iron anemia again this past April, and that’s taking a while to clear up), and trying to focus a bit more on my writing (which has mainly meant doing a lot more reading of fic).

However, I recently (like Thursday) noticed a tweet referring to an interesting-sounding post by Unstrange Mind, and thought that I might as well check it out. So I followed the link I had on this site, and discovered that he now has his own site (rather than one hosted by wordpress.com). So I’ve been reading his posts on that blog, in chronological order (which included updating the links to the DSM-5 Autism Spectrum Criteria Analysis), and in the midst of doing that, found the title post.

Neurodiversity: Creativity and Innovation Thrive When We Welcome Diverse Minds is the text of a talk Unstrange Mind gave at University of North Carolina’s Fourth Annual Disability is Diversity Week celebration, on Wednesday, November 9th, 2016 in Asheville, North Carolina. (CONTENT WARNING: Post contains mention of suicide and attempted suicide.)

Despite the aforementioned content warning, this is a hopeful post. Unstrange Mind explains the basics of neurodiversity – including the biological factual basis – and how that can apply to support creativity and innovation. He looks at the advantages that supporting and encouraging a neurodiverse environment can provide, and names examples. he also points out that accomodations… don’t really cost all that much.

So. Highly recommended post. And at least a few more to follow.

‘Later, all!

🙂 tagÂûght

CBC Interview: Diagnosis

So, last week I got an email from Tess Hemeon (the Public Relations/Communications person for the ASNL) asking if I was willing to be interviewed about being diagnosed as autistic as an adult. I said sure – I’m looking for new routes to go to help expand my advocacy. So Monday afternoon, I had an informal (aka not recorded) phone interview with an intern working at CBC Newfoundland and Labrador (here in St. John’s). One of the things I mentioned was that I wouldn’t mind doing a formal interview about the matter.

So, she contacted me Tuesday and asked if I was available to come in this morning for a recorded interview. My reaction was: “Yes!” ( 😉 )

Got up early this morning, and drove out to the CBC building for the taped interview.

The interview was with Krissy Holmes of the St. John’s Morning Show (which airs from 5:30 to 9:00 am, Newfoundland Time, on CBC Radio One), and it went really well. Read on for details!