Tag Archives: stims

#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! 🙂

Deep Pressure Needed!

So, it’s around midnight here, and for the last half hour I’ve had both my weighted lap pillow and my laptop on my lap. My legs feel like they’re going to jump out of my skin – not sure what the best comparison is, maybe like little jolts of electricity running down the nerves in my legs, only constant rather than intermittent? – because I desperately need deep pressure.

(I’m debating showing up at my parents’ house tomorrow with my lap pillow and grabbing Mew – who is the biggest and heaviest of the cats we have between us – and forcing him to stay on my lap for more than twenty minutes at a time.)

Read on for more about deep pressure with respect to me, and a bit in general

Nova Scotia, How I Love Thee

So, I’ve been in Nova Scotia for over a week now. I leave in just over 49 hours (from the time I posted this). And I had a wonderful day yesterday. I figured it was time to discuss.

This will be a somewhat long post, talking a bit about my family and a lot about the main/original reason I’m here, which is to do with the Canadian Autism Partnership Project. No details of our discussions – those are confidential – but just how it went, and how the group related to each other, and various bits and pieces.

Read on….

Recommendation: Hamilton FeminAuts’ Resources

So, I’ve been poking around the Autism Canada forums, and one of the members there has a link to a group called Hamilton feminauts. To quote from the About Us portion of their website:

FeminAuts was founded as a safe, inclusive, and accessible meeting space for women and female identified individuals on the Autism spectrum to meet likeminded individuals and learn valuable skills such as self esteem building, sensory self regulation, and adaptive and social skills.

http://hamiltonfeminauts.weebly.com/about-us.html

I went there to poke around as well, and I would say that their resource page definitely warrants a recommendation! So: Resources – Hamilton feminauts. They’ve got a bunch of useful free phone apps, for both executive dysfunction and communication; links to various resource sites (including the ASAN welcome packet and the Geneva Centre); online diagnostics and test resources; inventories and social stories (including ones related to sexuality); and usual open source therapies and courses links.

Yep, high on the recommended resources list!

Note that I’ve also included a link in my links page.

🙂 tagÂûght

[tagÂûght] Acceptance, Love, and Self-care: #AutismPositivity2015

It’s early morning April 30th as I’m starting to write this post, which is highly ironic, as I should be sleeping right now. Unfortunately, houses in St. John’s don’t seem to have soundproofing, and the housemate whose bedroom is next to mine is talking on the phone.

But aside from that, this topic is more than just a positive one, it’s a pertinent one for me this year. (And likely to be a long post, with many examples.)

Read on for the actual positivity!

Let’s Talk About: The Meanings of “Obsession”

So, at Social Club (at the Autism Society for NL; it’s basically a small group getting together for social activities – playing games, doing art, etc.) this past weekend, we had a new person there. And that person mentioned that xe was obsessed with one particular topic (I can no longer remember what it was, that wasn’t the important thing), “like with OCD” (obsessive-compulsive disorder).

On my post about Hyper-Focus vs. Lack of Focus, Unstrange Mind called me on using the term “special interest” for interests that we have and like to focus on – a term that I used to replace the term “obsession”, which tends to carry a negative connotation. She suggested using the term “passion”, which I thought was a very good idea, and have since cleaned up my vocabulary that way. 🙂

Anyway, getting back to the topic of the post, I was rather disturbed by the way that person was using the term “obsession” to define a particular area of interest, because at one point, my mother suggested I might be OCD, and I asked my psychologist about the matter. And what he said was something of an eye-opener.

Read on for more details….

StimTastic: First Look

So, another April post. This one also about things near and dear to our hearts – stimming. (No, it’s not the post I’ve been promising for two years now. Sorry. That one’s still going to take some time to do.) No, this one is a first look at Musings of an Aspie’s company, StimTastic.

Note that I say “first look” because I haven’t yet received any of their products. However, hopefully next month after my birthday I’ll be able to provide some specific product reviews…. 😉 (Yes, some stuff from StimTastic is first on my birthday list.)

Read on!

Recommendation: Relaxation / Time Out Bottles

My sister (the one with the three kids ;)) mentioned in a chat with Mom today that she’d made these neat “time out bottles” to deal with arguments between her two oldest, and she’s also making one for the autistic son of a friend of hers. She showed them to us over the chat, and they look like they’d work very well for dealing with overstimulation and needing to relax, so when she told me how to find them, I grabbed the website and checked it out.

I think I’m going to make some for me. *nods firmly*

http://mycrazyblessedlife.com/2011/10/03/relax-bottletime-out-timer/

Check it out!

😉 tagAught