Often followed up by “oh, you must be one of the high-functioning ones!” 😒

Woke up to an email from David Harling offering a slot to speak at #ldnursingsymposium 😦 time to discuss the impact of workplace culture on autistic nurses, and my personal reflections on this…

A massive thank you for giving me the platform to speak about something so important to me …. Going to get a nice hot drink to calm down now!

Experiences of discrimination at university, interviews with N=21 autistics, free journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13… "Students who were studying in helping professions such as nursing and education were told to reconsider their career aspirations upon disclosing their autistic identities"

Really excited to attend this next month as both a clinician and someone with lived experience ❤️

as autistic person, do you stare at people and scenarios? i notice i do this. i am always scanning my environment, watching interactions. watching gestures and face expressions. because i am learning and trying to understand.

For autistic people, building blueprints of situations in our minds so we can learn how to navigate them is crucial. Social situations are often complex and expectations can be confusing. Becoming an adult is having a load of new situations happen too often which is confusing.

Neurotypical (NT) communication is often brief and indirect because NTs can usually fill in the gaps and thus expect that others can too. Neurodivergent communication is often detailed and direct because we can find it hard to fill in gaps, so naturally don’t expect others to.

'People with intellectual disability die from some illnesses that could be avoided. This is a bigger problem in people with intellectual disability than in people without intellectual disability.' Read Pauline Heslop & Emily Lauer new systematic review onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bl…

As an autistic person, I didn’t realise the constant repetition of sounds, songs and phrases in my head, was echolagia (aka internalised echolalia) #ActuallyAutistic #Autism #Neurodivergent #Disability

Giving advice but not taking it yourself, the nurses’ curse! The idea of an autistic spoon drawer where the spoons move about day-to-day makes so much sense, and is something I’ll be considering closely over the coming weeks.

Autistic and Zoning Out when the Social Battery Runs Out…

Autistic masking often comes with a toll on mental health. Constantly conforming to societal expectations can lead to exhaustion, anxiety, & loss of self-esteem. With more acceptance & understanding, we can empower individuals to embrace their true selves. #Autistic

#Oliverscampaign If you know anyone aged 18 years & older who is autistic or has a learning disability & wants to get involved in delivering Olivers training the contact is in this link. Please know that this is paid work, at least a Band 5 hee.nhs.uk/our-work/learn…

FYI... Autistic people tend to think in complexities. Someone can ask us to do something seemingly straightforward, but our brains will often make it into something extremely complex and nuanced. We ask questions to untangle our thoughts.

A recent study in The Lancet ‘perceived misdiagnosis of psychiatric conditions in autism’ reveals just how often autistic people, especially women, are misdiagnosed with mental health conditions such as personality disorders before finding out they are autistic. This is linked to

Wondering if any of my #actuallyautistic comrades (or autism allies) have any thoughts about non-verbal communication adjustments that could be made for autism diagnostic assessments? I feel a literature deep dive coming on…