Consequential Loss - Notes On A Radio Play And Autistic Theatre

I recently took the plunge and joined up with a theatre group for autistic people.  It's a pretty new group and the people there are varied.  There autism is as varied as they are.  What everyone shares is enthusiasm.

The core group meet currently for one day a week, being joined for the morning by a group from a local college of ESPA (Education and Services for People with Autism).  We have fun and are supported in what we do by two paid staff members who work more or less full time for the Twisting Ducks Theatre Company which is run for people with learning difficulties and (now) autism.

I feel very fortunate to be able to go and have fun with the people of Spectrum Theatre - the autistic child of the Twisting Ducks.  It is hoped that in the future some extra funding can be obtained which would mean that the work of Spectrum could develop a lot further.  Also in the near future there's going to be an eight week creative writing course - which we're really meant to call creative storytelling in recognition that there may be people on that course who have amazing imaginations but who can't write or can't write well enough to set down their fantastic stories on paper.

I'm also very fortunate in that the current funding obtained for Spectrum means that the day that's laid on for we autistic people is free of charge.

I've met some great people in Spectrum, all autistic and all experiencing joys and trials that accompany our condition.  And it's just one more way for me to open up to my own creative possibilities and the possibilities of others.  For now it is a place I will stay.  I make no predictions for the future.

Almost the first thing the core group were asked to do was to write a radio play.  Each of us would write, with the idea being that we will record the plays and put them out on a local community radio station.

I've written quite a lot in the past year, though not as much I would have liked.  But I've never attempted a play either from scratch or from adapting one of my crazy stories.

I have now written a play.  And then it had to be edited - the censor's pen had to be used.   The broadcasts would be daytime and I accidentally wrote something with adult content and language including rather more swearing than families would appreciate.  I'd written a late night show or something to adapt into a theatre piece with a 15+ age warning.

I've been my own censor though.  The fruity language has been removed or toned down and I wonder in places whether I've lost realism.  I've adjusted quite a few lines.  Watered down sex references and some imagery that the BBC controller would have banned.  I'm glad the actual plot is unchanged.  There's still the darkness and light, the despair, the betrayals, the hope.  I'm glad I haven't been asked to make the plot insipid

There's also the matter of religion.  One of the characters is a religious homophobic bigot.  I can write religious bigots.  I know the subject first hand!  The character is quite extreme but I've known people who are equally extreme and equally nasty about it too.  I thankful I didn't get quite that bad myself in my own years of religious homophobia.  I think that the character worked as I wrote her.  She's still there too.  She's surviving the censor.  But her language and bile is a little mellowed.  I also considered the intended audience and wondered whether they would be up in arms about my attack on the Christian faith.  It's not really that of course, just an attack on a particular manifestation of the faith, the version that names people like me as abominations.  For a late night broadcast or a theatre I'd let it stand.  But not for this intended broadcast.  So I've taken pains to point out that not all Christians are like that.

Since the broadcast will be in Newcastle I've pointed to a few of the churches here in which being queer won't result in the preacher abusing you or consigning you to hell for your sexuality and gender.  Who knows?  Perhaps someone will hear it who is a Christian and is queer too but hiding the truth and fighting against themselves through guilt.  Just as I did.  Perhaps someone like that will hear and something will be planted in them that helps them seek out a place where they can live their faith in more freedom.  I can live in the hope that a radio play might do some good.

I've deliberately kept the scenes simple.  Deliberately linked them with narration from the main character.  I think, as a first attempt at writing a play, it has worked out well.  Unfortunately I now want to re-edit it to put some of the fruitier language and imagery back in and have two versions of it to play with.

Each of us in that core group has written a play.  They are as varied as we are.  I've ended up being the only one of us to include nothing from the realms of science fiction and fantasy.  Much as I love those genres - and need to get back to working on my post-apocalyptic dystopian novel - I've ended up firmly rooted in the real world.  The other plays are each filled with their own surprises and it's a good thing that they are such contrasts from each other.

My first scene was initially written at a Spectrum session.  We were all told to write a scene.  One simple idea popped into my head and it just flowed with hardly another conscious thought.  Two friends meet in a cafe.  One confesses to the other that she is having an affair.  She was having it with a man named Graham.  But as I wrote his name my pen paused, almost the only break it gave to my writing hand.  My pen considered its options.  Crossed out the word Graham.  And wrote the word Erica.

Since that day I haven't made any enormous changes to the scene - just a few, arising from details the characters gave me about themselves as they wrote the rest of the play for me.  It's always nice when people can hardly believe that I've just written something from scratch in a writing session.  That happens sometimes.  Other times I can hardly write anything at all and any words that get miserably scrawled should really only be filed in the embarrassing section.

I hope that writing the play has taught me something about the process.  Something I can put to good use later.  I hope too that it will give me a little more confidence in writing conversations.  I never used to include much in the way of conversation because I didn't think I understood the rules of conversation well enough to write one.  I hope that this play is a step on the path to being able to write realistic and engaging talk.  I don't think I'm there yet.

Sometime soon I'll probably post the whole play here.  Unless I go crazy, edit it more and try and get someone more professional to record it.  That's always a possibility.

So, onwards with Spectrum.  See where it leads.  I'm guessing it may throw me in a few surprising directions.  And I'm happy with that idea.

My Transgender Coming Out Story - A Tale of Difficulties and Deep Joy

So this is me.  Or one version of me.  A selfie taken a few days ago in a moment of deep joy and contentment at the top of a hill not too many miles from home.  I share it because it's where my story is right now, four years after coming out as a transgender woman.  There I am.  Just me.  In what is one of the stranger pictures.  You won't see many selfies of a transgender woman in a post about being transgender that look quite like this one.  Welcome to my reality.  I like it.  Especially when I'm being a little more crazy or weird than usual.

I just read an article about what one person has learned coming out as a non-binary trans person at the age of 43. After 100 days they say they did everything too fast. Their experiences are those of one person.  It is their truth.

My experiences and truth are also those of one person. They're bound to be a little different because I'm a woman, pure and simple, and about as far from non-binary as any woman gets. The article got me thinking about my own transgender life and the way I came out to the world and began to live publicly as a woman.

Here's a little of my experience. Just one woman trying to navigate her way into her truth. I've free written what follows and haven't edited at all.  Any mistakes are my own.

I came out to myself in a way I couldn't ever deny again at the age of 43. 43 years to get to that point. From then on things moved quickly.

2 weeks on: I dressed solely in women's clothes. Except when preaching. Not publicly in skirts and dresses. Not yet. But solely in woman's clothes I'd bought for myself via the miracle of very cheap charity shops. I didn't have a clue what I was doing. Everything was a matter of experimentation and sometimes I got it very wrong and nobody told me quickly enough before I had a chance to inflict my lack of dress sense on the world.

4 weeks on: I had told pretty much everyone that I was now Clare. The church leaders panicked about how to tell everyone and that delayed legal changes and the whole process. Most people were okay about it. Some people rejected me. Some people told me at length how staggeringly wonderful they were to not totally reject me. Gee, thanks!

8 weeks on: Having sorted things out with the church and had a ten day holiday as Clare (during which time my transition was officially announced to the congregation) I got round to legally changing my name. Much paperwork. Some people change their name quite often. They must love paperwork.

I was that (appearing to the world) 40 something man in a frock. Dark shadows of stubble. No make up. No hair removal. Hair that I'd cut short a few weeks before coming out. Totally, completely obvious. I was yet to meet anyone from Tyne Trans (as was). I had asked the GP to refer me to the gender dysphoria service – 27 days after coming out to myself, half of which was waiting for the appointment! - but my first appointment wasn't until three and a half months after signing that deed poll. To all intents and purposes anyone who saw me in the street would have clocked me as a cross dressing man not as a woman determined to be herself.

And sometimes, unsurprisingly, the world made things bloody difficult. Bloody difficult. Transphobia is real. If I had phoned the police every time I experienced it I would have been phoning a lot. Every. Single. Day. At times it was horrible. Truly horrible. And I was one of the more fortunate ones. Others have suffered a hell of a lot more than me after coming out. Every one of them is amazing for getting through that hell. When people quote the suicide and attempted suicide rate for transgender people I can only wonder why it isn't higher. For the record, in the UK nearly half of all transgender people have attempted suicide.

Four years have passed since I came out and demanded to be called Clare and she. Woe to anyone who deliberately calls me he or protests that they don't see an issue with it if I get misgendered or who tells me it's too hard to remember that I'm female and so would like to be addressed as female. Fortunately that doesn't happen much now – and most people I see never knew me as he. Yes, pretty much my entire life, excepting family, is filled with people I didn't know four years ago.

I've learned a lot in those four years.

Would I do it again? Come out like that?

You bet I would. Except I'd have done it quicker.

And I wouldn't allow a religion to delay anything. I truly wish I'd come out to the church in the middle of a sermon I preached. It was very tempting indeed and I wish I'd done it. After coming out I was told that it would be "inappropriate" for me to preach or lead anything in case "anyone is ever worried." All the confusion. All the having to meet with diocesan pastoral advisors and so on. Just so I could be banned and yet find that the congregation itself was supportive. Yeah, I wish I hadn't let the panicking of the CofE delay me for one second.

If I knew now what I knew then I wouldn't have been so afraid. And to be honest I spent the entirety of those 8 weeks in a state in which my great joy at accepting myself was mixed with an immense amount of terror. Some days I didn't know whether I could do it and without my immediate family and the support of another church - Northern Lights MCC - I might have taken longer about the whole thing.

If I knew now, there would have been less fear. And I would have reached that deed poll milestone quicker.

I have regrets. I shouldn't. Because what's the point? I might as well regret not coming out when I was at college – and I was thinking only this morning of a couple of times the truth was very close to the surface in my mind and how things could have been different if I'd only chosen to speak one sentence differently. I might as well regret my A level choices or giving up the violin when I was nine or anything else that I can't change. Maybe they're not regrets. And each one led in some way to my life being as it is.

But I'd certainly change some parts of the coming out process if I had the chance. Not just the CofE thing.

I regret not telling my online world en masse rather than having to pluck up courage - through terror, always through terror - to tell people one at a time. I'm grateful my mum accidentally outed me to some people, after which I just said "To hell with it" and told the rest.

I regret that my Facebook account is not the one I had under my old name. There were many years of history on that old account and I wish I'd kept it back than and closed this one. The account is still there. With no friends. My old name isn't even friends with my new name.

I regret how defensive I've been about the whole trans thing and how much of that arose from fear and an expectation, borne of 43 years of self rejection and self hatred, that many people who reject and hate me too. I guess most people who come out can got through an over-defensive time arising from that same fear. Bear with us, we get over it – just don't expect us to ever give way to prejudice. We won't.

But these regrets and others are only little compared to the satisfaction and life-changing wonder of coming out at all, of acceptance. It's not just that I'm happier as Clare, more content, and so on. My life has been completely changed in many ways that wouldn't have been possible probably had I not done this. Or if possible, very unlikely.

I have met so many amazing people I wouldn't have met otherwise - including many of you. I've been so blessed. And I meet many more amazing people every time I uncover a little more of myself – this transgender, autistic, creative, weirdly spiritual, nature loving woman.

I've done amazing things too. In my own way. And being Clare has allowed me to start to work through other aspects of my life and being and slowly begin to heal and allow myself to be me.

Without coming out I don't think I'd have been able to accept being autistic. I don't think I'd be exploring creativity as I am. I wouldn't have encountered Broadacre House, wouldn't have completely transformed my faith and spiritual life - and I don't think I'd ever have found the freedom to leave church and start to find my own path again.

Yes. It's been bloody difficult. And there have been lots of difficult things in the past four years. Autism - yeah, that's been tougher than being transgender in very many ways. I've cried. Lots. I've been rejected by some. I've been labelled an abomination by my own church pastor (not the CofE or MCC one). My mental health, while generally much improved, continues to be a minefield just as it always has.

But it's been worth it.

Fabulously, profoundly, superbly worth it.

And I look forward to my future as Clare, as the person I'm discovering myself to be. I am excited for my future. Excited to meet more amazing people and do more amazing (for me) things. Excited because there always seems to be a new surprise when you allow the surprises and give them permission to bring change.

I'm typing all this in my bedroom. Nearly everything in here isn't just something I didn't own before coming out. It's something I wouldn't have considered owning at all. Not just the obvious clothes. But soft toys, my books, the purple Buddha on the wall, that whisk over there that doubles as a head massager (buying it was hilarious), precious things from autism conferences, poetry books, writing books, the meditation material on the bed, precious items from Manchester, even a series of books called Skulduggery Pleasant. I wouldn't have read those if I hadn't come out.  I look at this room and know that my life is almost infinitely better for coming out.

My life is very much not as I would have expected it to be. And the changes just keep happening.  There are more on the way that I know about.  And there will be more surprises too.

I give thanks for Clare.

In ten days time I will give thanks again. For it will be the fourth anniversary of the night I looked at myself in a mirror, fully dressed as myself without guilt for the first time in my life, and greeted myself as Clare for the first time. Welcomed myself into the world.

On Gratitude And Thanking Non-Autistic People For Their Support, Autism Acceptance, And Positivity

[Note: All photos in this post are taken from the gratitude diary I kept throughout 2016.  Note too that I pretty much free wrote the following.  It's not an essay, struggled over for weeks.]


I am a great believer in gratitude.

It's no secret that I have plenty of hard days, that my mental health is sometimes shot to pieces in ways that make it hard to see the light.

Yet there is light.  There is always light somewhere.  Always awe, always wonder.  Feeling the warmth of the sun in the day - or the strength of the storm when the sun is hidden.  Watching the night sky and considering how far away each point of light is from us and from each other.  Or smiling at the closer lights of Jupiter, Mars, and Venus, the glorious face of the moon, and the chance of spotting the International Space Station.

Sunrise, viewed from Cullercoats

Today I could be miserable.  Mentally I'm finding today very tough.  I am also anxious about something I can't change.  My thought patterns run wild.  I could be telling myself I have nothing much to celebrate.  There was a time I couldn't find positives.  I would sit for an hour with a piece of paper to write a list.  Sometimes I only wrote one thing.  Sometimes I wrote nothing.

Yes the positives were there and are here now.  I sit on a comfortable sofa surrounded by soft toys and books.  Music is playing and I had the freedom to choose to play it.  In this room I have a guitar, a bubble gun, art materials, and many photograph albums covering my entire life.  I have notebooks, a giant rosary on the wall (honest!), pictures on the walls - some drawn by a friend, blankets, a clarinet, and a window letting in light.  Through that window I see a tree and the sky and I hear the singing of the birds.

Beyond this room I have family.  I have friends too.  Most of my friendships are recently formed.  Because I have chosen to go out and meet people.  Some are embryonic, some more full fledged.  I can travel into the city centre and get involved with all kinds of things run by good people.  And - as much as my health allows - I'm choosing to do that.

I refuse to not live.  And I strive to be grateful for what I have, who I am, and the opportunities around me.

I began to learn more about the power of gratitude last year.  I joined an online gratitude group.  The idea was that each day members would post words or photos expressing gratitude for something in their lives.  It didn't have to be a big thing.  Whether it was a plate of beans on toast or a massive life changing event didn't matter.  I posted in that group nearly every day - I missed ten over the course of the year.   Focusing on the positive in that way helped me, one of many things last year that helped me.  Seeing other people post their positives helped too.  And for me it changed my life.  There were plenty of days on which I would go out and seek positives and find previously unimagined things for which I could be grateful.

In short, I believe in gratitude.  I don't believe in ignoring the horrible parts of life or pretending they don't exist.  This isn't some method of positive thinking that loses sight of realism.  I believe in acc-ent-u-ating the positive.  But not e-lim-i-nating the negative.

Recently I decided I wanted to go further.  I don't just want to be thankful.  I want to act in thankfulness.  If I am thankful for a person, to say so.  If I am thankful for an organisation, to say so.  If I'm thankful for the great cake at a cafe, to say so.  Not just to myself.  Not just in an online group.  But to the person, organisation, cafe or whatever else I am grateful to and for.

As an intentional part of this process I have begun a little project.  I wouldn't have thought of it without the suggestions of a friend who pretty much came up with the idea.  Together we brainstormed - and I really hate that word! - and came up with a plan.

We, as autistic people, would seek to thank those people - especially but not exclusively the not-autistic people - who have helped us, supported us, and accepted us.  There were events leading up to this decision.  I don't need to recount them here.  Let it just be said that on a recent occasion one of us was badly hurt and mentally wounded by a group of autistic people who treated us very badly and didn't accept our autistic needs.  It was a group of not-autistic people who came to the rescue.  They understood, accepted, and gave lots of support through what was an extremely difficult situation. We looked at this situation knowing there had been betrayal by our own community and acceptance outside it.  The one of us who was hurt didn't behave badly and wasn't being mean to anyone.

Autistic Pride Wrist

As we talked together, that group of non-autistic people was the first thought of to be thanked.  They really were marvelous.

But then my friend took it further.  Why not thank other non-autistic (neurotypical, allistic) people and organisations?  The ones whose actions and attitudes can be described as examples of good practice.  The ones who believe in us and lift us up.  The ones who encourage us to be the best versions of ourselves we can be.  The ones who will sit with us in silence.  The ones who will see us through meltdowns and shutdowns.  The ones eager to learn and understand if they don't already.  The inclusive ones.  The ones for whom autism acceptance and appreciation is already a given.  Why not thank them?

I'd been getting annoyed by some things I'd seen online in autistic communities.  Particularly the way people can be treated if we perceive them not to be doing things just right.  I might agree that the things aren't right.  I'm no big fan of ABA or Autism Speaks and there are far worse things than either of those.  But I'm less of a fan of the times that people who might like ABA are made out to be evil.  They're not evil.  They're doing their best and children given ABA or restricted diets or any of the rest of it have parents who love them and want the very best for their autistic children.  While I might disagree about methods I'm not going to disagree about love.

I think there's a tendency online to find a bad particular situation and apply it broadly.  Not just with autism.  In every sphere.  Take politics - hey, the UK is leaving the EU and there are many memes telling how the people who voted to leave are majorly racist.  Some might be.  But I firmly believe most are not.  Of course they're not.  Or Muslims get called terrorists.  And all Christians get called homophobic bigots.  The particular is applied too widely.

A woman wants to cure her child.  That gets applied to many women until, in extreme cases, the "autism mums" are all seen as bad mothers who hate their children.  In reality of course nearly all of them deeply love their children and may be desperate to get them the best support there is.  Because they do need support - raising a severely autistic child isn't exactly easy.  Sometimes desperation may lead to unwise paths.  Sometimes.  But not to unloving paths.

Then there's Julia.  The new autistic character on Sesame Street.  One of the most autism positive things I've ever seen, as least on a TV show.  The puppeteer's son is autistic.  The designer of Julia felt very strongly about things because of all the autistic children he's known.  And the makers of the show have tried to do as good a job as they can having decided where on the spectrum Julia might be.

I have seen so many posts about how Julia is a terrible thing and how the makers of Sesame Street should be ashamed.  I don't need to give the reasons I've read.  Many of them were total rubbish.  Perhaps the makers need to continue to learn.  That's true and they say so themselves.  Perhaps Julia isn't some totally perfect autistic character, perfectly portraying every aspect of the condition.  It looks like she'll do a very good job though.

So I've been getting saddened when, especially online, the autistic community can sometimes [The word there is sometimes, not often.  That's deliberate.] spend a lot more time and energy blasting things and not much time at all congratulating people and organisations for the good they do.  We can get so stressed about whether we are autistic or have autism (and we can't agree on that ourselves) that we miss the picture of caring non-autistic people working their butts off for the sake of autistic people.

The Autistic Fringe Yurt, Edinburgh 2016

We decided we wanted to say thank you for the good.  Not ignore the bad.  But say thank you for the good.  So my friend and I planned.  I confess she was the instigator of the whole thing.  Our planning didn't take long.

April is known as Autism Acceptance Month.  It's a month in which many of us will campaign to be accepted.  And I will be glad to campaign - as long as autistic children suffer, while there aren't resources for brilliant child-centred early intervention, while adult support can be almost nonexistent, while people push for cures or in desperation use bleach solutions, while the situation elsewhere may be far worse than in the UK, and so on.  As long as there's a need I am happy to campaign.

But my friend and I want to spend the month rejoicing over the places and people where we are already accepted.  We want to rejoice over good practice.  We want to rejoice that there are lots and lots of great people out there.  Both of us know that there is much campaigning still to be done on many fronts.  Here in the UK and across the world.

So what are we doing?  My friend has bought cards and found out addresses.  She is sending personal thank you cards to people throughout the month of April.  "You've done this for me.  I appreciate it and you.  Thank you for your support/care/acceptance/creative compassion."  Or something like that.

I have started a Facebook page.  This one:  https://www.facebook.com/AutisticThanks/

I plan to publicly thank someone each day in April and to let them know that they have been thanked.  Sometimes I'll have to anonymise what I write on Facebook - but they'll know who they are because I will thank them privately.

We'll thank the people who behave like this for us.

My hope is that other autistic people will be a part of the page and thank those who have helped them, accepted them, loved them, supported them, in large ways and small.  My hope is that autistic friends might join in the game and maybe some autistic strangers too.  My hope is that the page will be a place filled with gratitude and positivity.  I also hope that others might see the page, see what kind of things autistic people appreciate and seek to act along those lines.

It's a little daunting though.  I have to find thirty people and groups to thank and I haven't made my list yet.  I've also got the first thoughts of another project in mind that will take a lot more work than posting thirty things on a Facebook page.

Beyond that I don't know what will happen.

One of my soft toys enjoying Greenbelt festival.

We hope to bring smiles to ourselves and each other as we remember all the good people in our worlds.

We both hope that we can bring smiles to people and encourage them for what they're doing and being for us.

We hope that our simple thank yous will enrich the lives of those around us.

We hope too that saying thank you will not prove controversial.  I've already been told that it is and I've had grumbles about we poor marginalised autistic people thanking privileged neurotypical people.  Enough of that.  Please.  I know we could thank autistic people - for a start we could thank each other for acceptance.  But this time, just this once, we're going to look outside the autistic community and hand out a whole load of gold stars and celebrate autism acceptance in our own possibly peculiar way.

Autism Acceptance Month begins in two days.  This year I am looking forward to it.

On Learning That I'm Part Of An Extremist Group Of Fake-Autistic People

I'm part of several online autism groups.  This post is about one of those groups.  It's run by people I respect and I know quite a few of the members, either from conversations online or from meeting them in what some people call "in real life" as if an online conversation and developed friendship can't be real.  It's not just an autism group though, not now.  Now it includes various conditions and differences and disabilities that would come under the category of "neurodivergent" or "neurodiverse."  It's a group which campaigns for acceptance of all people.  Among the members are autistic people, other neurodivergent people, and people who would be classed as "neurotypical."

This week we got trolled.  Someone joined.  Acted badly.  Left.  And then posted a thirty minute rant on Youtube insulting us all and insulting some of the members in particular.  While doing something else I left his video playing.  He made me cross because of the attacks he was making on people I know to be good people, trying their best to build something of value - something which not so long ago very nearly crashed on the rocks and got shattered into a thousand jagged pieces.

So what did I do?  I wrote some words.  They're rubbish poetry but they're heartfelt.  Now, having written them, I can let go of being cross.  I wouldn't post them here except that I'm still not that well and haven't been able to write the things I want to write.  For today, this is all I have.

Two extremists plotting world domination.  Or perhaps not.

I'm numbered among the extremists;

The radicals who in their words

Lie; hurling slander at all others.

My leaders are evil people

And we, their foolish followers

Have been lobotomised.

We hate science, we censor all debate,

We are the arrogant, deluded thousands

Who stand together in unity

And sometimes agree to stand in disunity.

We're not really autistic at all.

Because if we were autistic

We would see through the extremism

And leave. Not only that,

We wouldn't have been accepted to begin with.

Then, outside the dark citadel of that group

We would find the true Aspergians

The ones whose diagnoses are valid.

That's what I heard today.

However, I don't quite trust my source.

My source has a fixed view of his own rightness

And though many groups have given up

And, exasperated by his ways, thrown him out,

He claims it was never, ever, for trolling.

My source has something interesting to say

About feminism too. He says that people are right

To view it as a cancer.

He wants everything to be in context

Except for the video clips of feminists he posts.

Context is irrelevant. If it wouldn't serve him.

In short, he's as hypocritical as anyone

He may accuse of the same shortcoming.

My source claims that we of our group

Are not the real autistic spectrum people.

We're fakes. We're obviously neurotypical.

And we're trying to replace the real people

With our extremist deception and fakery.

My source says we don't know what we're talking about

Just because we didn't respond to his single question

With the answer he wanted us to give.

But, and this is a big but,

I know people from the group.

I know them to be autistic.

I've met them. Worked with some of them.

Some of them are my friends

I've sat in cafes with them, and tents

And waved sparkling lights with them in the dark.

I've smiled with them and cried with them.

I've even spent three days in a yurt with them

At an international autism conference.

It's safe to say this:

The autistic people among them are autistic.

Actually and undoubtedly and beautifully autistic.

We're fallible, we're faulty,

We're known for our social issues and complexities.

We screw up sometimes, and can fail to see the grey.

We argue and debate and sometimes fall out

Only to make up again when peace breaks out.

And sometimes our mistakes can be whoppers.

I know. I've been as guilty as anyone.

But we're trying our best.

We're not the liability he thinks we are.

We're not a bunch of brain dead radicals

Just because we don't want to discuss

Vaccines and bloody Andrew Wakefield for the

Hundredth time this week.

My source is correct though. In part.

Extremism is dangerous.

If it ran riot then autistic acceptance

Would only be a pipe dream.

I agree, and I share his concern.

It's just, he's pointing in the wrong place.

Perhaps there's nowhere much to point to.

Perhaps that Hell serpent is just a fantasy.

And perhaps, consider this,

He should point to himself, just for a day.

Perhaps we all should, just for a day.

I know I should.

Over The Rainbow - What She Found In Another Land. Autism and Gateshead.

I had completed my photographic challenge.  Finding a rainbow flag had been a simple matter.  But a challenge is not the end of an adventure.  Not necessarily.  And I had some time to spare before having to be at a meeting that I subsequently walked out of, unable to cope.  I was presented with a choice:  Go and eat some lunch or go and see something I have never seen before.

The latter choice won.  In finding the rainbow flag I found myself close to the Redheugh Bridge.  Counting from the sea this is the seventh bridge over the Tyne and the last to cross from central Newcastle.  I realised that while I had crossed it before by car and bus I'd never crossed on foot.  That needed to be remedied.

The centre of the bridge has this plaque to commemorate its opening, 33 years ago.

The plaque says "New Redheugh" and indeed it is.  The bridge is actually the third Redheugh.  You can still see on the Gateshead side of the Tyne where the second Redheugh bridge began.  For those who like numbers, the main span of the bridge is 160 metres long and the road is 26 metres and 6 centimetres above the mean water level.

From the walkway you can look down the Tyne and see some of the other bridges.  In view here are the King Edward railway bridge, with a train to London, the excitingly named Metro Bridge, Tyne Bridge, and just about visible is the Gateshead Millennium Bridge.

Unfortunately there isn't a walkway on the other side of the bridge.  Or perhaps it's fortunate because it there had been I'd have probably walked back across it and then missed out on a walk along the river.

From Redheugh it's easy to cut down paths to get to the riverside.

Sometimes I have to feel sorry for the pictures on structures.  This poor cat!  The grime oozing down onto it from the bridge was not pleasant.

Down towards the water.  A couple of massive rivets from a previous structure, sadly uglified with graffiti.  A bit of ugly tagging.  And possibly the worst spray painting of a band's name in the history of spray painting.  I'm sure Johnny Marr would be thrilled to know someone had made such a mess of this thing by adding the name of his old band.  (sarcasm!)

I will let many of the photos speak for themselves.

I was happy to pass more rivets.  These ones not spoiled by unthinking people with spray cans.

And so the walk led under the King Edward Bridge.

In the distance, beyond Redheugh, you can see Dunston Staithes.  It was there that ships would be loaded with coal.  A railway rain along the top of the staithes for unloading goods trains straight into ships.  Today it's a bit ruinous having suffered a couple of fires but there are moves to restore the structure which is still promoted as the largest wooden structure in the world - a claim which certainly used to be true but which is doubtful now.

And so the walk led under the Metro Bridge.  A few days before I had photographed this bridge from above while out meeting a challenge to photograph a white dog.

The riverside at Gateshead includes a sculpture trail.  I was pleased to see a few of the sculptures on my walk - a walk which was more hurried than I liked due to having to be at that meeting.  I was realising again on the walk a little more of who I am.  Being out with a camera, with plants and with interesting things to discover, was filling me with life inside.  Even though it was cold.  Even though it had started to rain.  Even though I was tired from fighting off a cold for so long.  Being there was giving me life.  And I had a meeting to get to.  In an old office block.  In a room with horribly noisy strip lighting.  It was a meeting about something I think is important.

But I couldn't cope with it.  My autistic symptoms were hitting me in such a way that I couldn't focus past the lights and the noise and into following the conversation round the table and my verbal processing skills had dropped to zero.  In the hour before I walked out I had managed to take in pretty much nothing.  There must surely be a way for a meeting of autistic people to be designed (in this case by the NTs in charge) so that not everything has to be through vocalised words.  There was nothing written - or drawn.  And in that environment writing things down yourself or using some form of AAC would be impossible.  All of which means that many autistic people - including myself on that occasion -would automatically be excluded from meaningful participation in the group for autistic people.  I don't at this time have a solution to that.

In any case, I had already decided to withdraw from some things I had agreed to be involved with.  For my own sanity.  For my own well-being.  And so I can focus my limited energies on exploring and building which I need to explore and build.  It would still be nice to be a part of things.  But certainly not the part that I was walking towards.

When I am out, I notice the same thing over and over again.  I am someone who belongs outside more often than I allow myself to be.  I am someone who craves natural light and natural darkness.  Someone who needs nature.  Someone whose brain needs - desperately needs - to unwind in a place with connection to earth and sky.  I'd felt it very clearly the previous day on a cliff top.  And the feeling was even clear on a path by the river in Gateshead.

Give me the outside.  Give me nature.  Give me exploration.  Give me silly challenges!  Give me a camera on my phone.  And give me a chance to write.  There are other things that lift me of course.  But for now I need to focus myself on that exploration, taking photos, and writing.  Perhaps other creative forms too.  Maybe it will lead to big things.  Maybe it won't.  Maybe it will eventually lead to an income.  Maybe it won't.  That doesn't matter.  It really doesn't.

It's not as if I would ever get an income by applying for normal jobs and attending interviews.  Who the heck would employ me on the basis of an application form?  And even if they interviewed me, who the heck would employ me on the basis of my near inability to function in an interview situation?  I won't be gainfully employed through "normal" routes.  Perhaps I won't ever receive financial recompense for my writing or my pictures.  But I won't be financially worse off by focusing my energies into these things for which I am discovering a passion and purpose.

And even if someone did magically employ me in a normal job role I am pretty sure I wouldn't last for long in it.  Because my functioning is so variable.  I wouldn't cope for long.   Such is my disability.  I just can't do these things.  It's taken me a very long time to be able to start to accept that and it's only really since receiving this autism diagnosis that I've been able to begin to come to terms with the fact that with all the good will in the world and with all the self help books and training courses available there are just some things I can't do.  And some of the things I can't do are things that most people take for granted.  I now know that I have a disability for life.  And all those things for which I felt shame and guilt on account of not being able to do?  Shame is gradually being replaced with acceptance.

That's not the end though.  Yes, there are things I will never be able to do.  There are things I will only be able to do sometimes.  But it doesn't mean that I am a useless shit - a name I used to call myself a lot.  It means I am different.  Not less.  There are things I can do.  There are passions I can have.  Even these things I might not be able to do consistently.  I haven't quite accepted that yet.  I can write - with a solid gifting if not any skill as yet.  I can point a camera at things - with a solid gifting if not any skill.  And there are other gifts then.  All part of the me who I am learning to accept, embrace, and allow to escape and thrive.

That was quite a detour from the path by the river.  I did indeed see a few of the sculptures.  They are not all the most obvious things in the world.  These animals for instance are raised up above the path and it was only by chance I spotted them.  These goats were crafted by Sally Matthews in 1992.

The arch is easier to see.  Because it's so big.

Then there's this.  It's just about visible from the path above, hidden among the trees.  Anyone passing is likely to miss it.  Even if they know that sculptures exist in the riverside park.

Climbing down the bank to it was a challenge - covered in leaf litter so it was difficult to see if the steep slope was actually safe to put a foot on.  But I was very glad to have made the effort.  This cone, by Andy Goldsworthy, is pretty lush.  I understand that this four metre pile of steel plate is on the site of a foundry.

Climbing up the bank gave an opportunity to take a picture of a fungus.  One of the joys of this time of year is fungi.  Friends have posted their fungi pictures online and some of them are absolutely gorgeous.

And so back to Newcastle.  Over the High Bridge.  In a hurry.  I had spent too long and didn't want to be late for that meeting.

Just time to snap one photo, looking back in the direction of Redheugh Bridge.

So that's what I found in Gateshead.  A distant land and one to which I would not be returning.  At least not until the next day.  My challenge had been to take a photo of a rainbow flag.  I'd done that.  Five minutes after getting off the Metro.

But that wasn't really my challenge was it?

My true challenge was to live.

My true challenge was to allow myself to live.  To truly live.

I think that, at least for a while,  I had succeeded.



[1800 words]

Photo Challenge Nine: A Rainbow Flag, Plus Pride, Prince, And The Ruining Of Art

I didn't have to ask for a challenge.  She told me.

She said "A rainbow flag."

I was quite thankful.  This would be an easy challenge.  It was so easy that I even considered making it harder for myself.  So easy that I already knew where I would find rainbow flags.  I do not possess such a thing.  Not a rainbow.  I do possess a pride flag.  But it's not the rainbow flag for gay pride but the three colour flag for transgender pride.  I am happy to possess such a thing and it was really touching when a stranger gave it to me last year at the Northern Pride vigil service organised by Northern Lights Metropolitan Community Church - the church I left, with no ill feeling, at the start of this year.

I would have to go out and photograph a flag.  But that's easy.  Newcastle has the gay triangle.  It's not a place I go.  I am not into clubbing.  I'm not into pubs.  I'm not into noise.  And in all honesty it just doesn't appeal to me.  Plus I've heard too many stories of transphobic (and biphobic) abuse in the gay triangle and understand that I'm far more likely to receive verbal abuse there than I am outside of the gay triangle.  I did once go with someone to the Pride Cafe, only to discover that it had closed down.  But that's it.  I got invited to join a gay art group once.  I'm sure it would be fun and I'm sure the people involved like it.  But I said no.  Because if I want to join an art group I'll just join an art group - unless perhaps if I could find a lovely autistic art group.  That might be a good thing.  An idea has been wandering in my head that I will one day run something similar - an autistic writing group, or possibly a neurodiversity art group.  I wonder where that idea will wander.

Back to the challenge.  Simplicity itself.  I got off the Metro and headed to the triangle.  Certain of success.  Easy.  Thankfully.  Yes, I was glad of the simplicity and that I wouldn't have to walk miles like I had when seeking a white horse the previous day.  Glad because minor illness was stalking me even though I was telling it to go away and seeking an injunction to keep it at a distance.  Glad too because I had to be at a meeting that day and so did not have much spare time.  I had a little though.  Enough for a rainbow flag.  And some to spare after that.

On the way to the triangle I passed the Dog and Parrot pub.  That's a place I've been to once before.  There was a talk and discussion there centred on philosophy and mental health.  On the upper floor.  The decoration there was interesting.  Each wall was painted the same shade of dark back.  So was the ceiling.  And the floor.  Some people must like that kind of thing.  On the wall of the pub there is this tribute to Prince:

And there is this:  Pop quiz.  What do each of these three refer to?

The route passed the Centre for Life.  I would blog about this place except it's expensive to go in.  Do you think if I asked very nicely and told them that they would receive a couple of nice blog posts they would let me in for free for the day?  Do you think they would if I told them that Blob Thing and Winefride would enjoy the place?  Probably they wouldn't.  That's a shame.  I just know Blob would enjoy learning about life.

In Times Square, outside the museum, there is this sculpture.  I rather like it.

No visiting the museum.  Not that day.  It was time to walk on to the gay triangle.  And straight away, on the very first building I see, there was a rainbow flag.  I'd thought there would be.

What could be better than a gay pride rainbow flag?  No, don't answer that question honestly from your own viewpoint!  In my view, and for the purposes of this blog, something better than a flag is a flag represented in street art.  In a back alley there is this one:

And on the main street there's this one.

I'm quite sad about this.  It was placed there before the Winter Olympics in Russia in 2014 and represents the oppression of queer people there.  A situation that has not improved in the two years following the games.  There was such hope that by highlighting the problems in Russia the government there would be forced to act and improve their human rights record.  Hope.

I'm sad about this street art because of the people who have ruined it with tagging.  I am not a fan of tagging - although I freely admit that some of the more complex examples have merit.  Some of it is rather good and the colours and designs can add to an underpass or a plain hoarding.  Some of these tags I've even photographed and they're elsewhere on this blog.  There's a large quantity of well done tagging and street art here, all from the North East.  Yes, there is so much decent art in the North East.  But so much crap too.  Some of it is particularly grim.  [I wonder if anyone local will ever read this and understand the joke in the last sentence.]


I especially had it when it's just a bit of black spray paint. It's ugly.  It increases ugliness.  There are so many pleasing things in Newcastle - and in every city in the UK - that have been blighted by tagging.  So you can spray your name on a building?  So what.  F**k off please.  Yeah.  I love street art.  I think it can improve a place greatly.  It can have a message - such as the above art does.  [Art, but is stencilling graffiti at all?]  Or it can just be a thing of beauty, such as all those pictures I saw in Sunderland last weekend.  Street art can make me smile.  Looking at that website linked to above was a joy.  Street logos can make me smile too - and you'll often find me taking a picture of someone's logo on a lamp post or the back of a sign.

But tagging your name in a bit of black paint?  No.  I'm sure there's a whole tagging subculture.  But like I say, to anyone who would spray their name in a bit of black paint, f**k off.  And I don't care if you've climbed to a difficult spot to spray your name.  You've made something ugly.  You've helped contribute to the need for Newcastle Council to spend a quarter of a million pounds a year removing ugly tags. Congratulations.  [sarcasm]  Slow hand claps for you all.

Artists sign their paintings.  You're signing nothing and without the painting your crappy little signatures are just muck on a wall.  Muck.   And as for tagging your name on top of some art that added something to a street?  Whoever did that was acting in a very shitty manner indeed.

So.  My ninth day of photographic challenges was over.  I had succeeded.  Which was never in any doubt.  And it wasn't time for my meeting yet.  Adventure called to me.  I looked.  And behold, I was near the Redheugh Bridge.  And I realised that I had never walked across it.  Adventure beckoned.  And who was I do refuse it?

Days of Gratitude - Strudels, Singing and Ceilings. And Murder.

Back to the gratitude.

This all seems like a long time ago.  Life has not gone as planned this month.  But that's a tale for another post like this.  Many people reading this will know what's been going on.  Things could have been a lot worse.  A lot worse.  As I type this I am waiting for my wife to be discharged from hospital after nine nights.  Nine could very easily have been a lot more.  A great relief to everyone that it isn't.

I've had some good days this month but my mental health has been fluctuating to say the least.  Too many days have felt bad.  And that's without the worries and the stresses and everything else related to my wife.

But as I said in one of the Sunday Assembly gratitude group posts, life is good.

It is good.  It really is.

There's a picture below of Jesus carrying his cross.  It is one of the Stations of the Cross outside the Schoenstatt Shrine on the outskirts of Bolton.  Yes, life and my head often feel like that.  When I was a good and faithful Catholic I used to do the good and faithful Catholic thing of offering up my sufferings.  I would spiritually unite them with the sufferings of Christ and offer them, in union with his sufferings, for the sake of the world, or a person, or for the "intentions of Mary" as some kind of meritorious offering.  In that way, through the teaching of Church and Saints, I brought meaning to suffering and to everything my head has thrown at me.

Today I cannot bring meaning in this way.  It was a consolation to me because of the belief that suffering acquired meaning through union with Christ.  I don't believe that today.  I have nothing to unite my sufferings to - and nothing to which I can unite my joys either.  Yes, I used to unite my joys to Jesus too.  I don't think he just wants our crap!

Life can still feel like cross carrying.  We all have crosses to bear of course.  All of us.  Some of us find meaning.  Some of us don't.  Right now I look at my head and the wild ecstasies and excitements it gives me and the wild lows it gives me too.  And for the present, at least for the present, I am unable to ascribe meaning to it all.  It just is what it is.  Life goes on and we just have to get on with it no matter our crosses and our blessings.

And, when all is said and done, I proclaim this:  My life is good.

October 6^th

Grateful to have got through the majority of the job list.

Grateful not to have been standing underneath the lounge ceiling when it fell down this morning. Anyone know a really cheap ceiling creation person?

Grateful for being able to get to choir tonight. Photos taken before choir when I turned up early by mistake.

October 7^th

Grateful to have survived the meeting in the day with just about enough energy remaining to get out and sing in the evening.

On some days my autism and assorted little co-morbidities can feel like this.

But life is good anyway.

And I am grateful for hope, light and creative urges.

October 8^th

Grateful for the writing workshop in the morning. There is now an urge to write a full scale monologue, learn to act it, and perform it. A challenge. I already love playing with this character even though she is a murderer!

Grateful for a friend staying over. It's been too long since we saw each other.

The picture is a photo prompt from another part of the workshop, providing something else very unexpected for me to write one day. Perhaps.

October 9^th

Grateful for a friend still here and for leftover strudel.

Grateful to be able to write more as a remorseless murderer. Happy stuff!

Grateful to have allowed myself to rest.

October 10^th

Grateful to have painted a wall and moved furniture.

Also grateful that Beth has agreed I can clear out lots of our immense (at least partly inherited) plastic bag collection.

Not sure if she will ever agree that we don't actually need a suitcase containing an old bedpan and a urinal.

A Three Way Rant About Donald Trump, Religion, and Autism Service Provision

Note:  This post was meant to be about walking along a canal in Manchester, just as Blob Thing wrote about it this morning.  It turned into a three pronged rant about Donald Trump, religion, and the lack of help available for autistic people.  So it's not about the walk at all.  It just keeps mentioning the walk.  Like this:

Blob Thing blogged about this already today.  He did a good job in describing the walk although I was a bit astounded at the way he managed to complain about Donald Trump so much when describing his day.  Trump was not a participant in our day and he does not have a tower in Greater Manchester.  I didn't know that a small soft toy could have such strong views about an American politician.  John Pavlovitz this morning noted that Trump was prophetic about himself when he said that his followers would still follow him even if he was to murder someone in broad daylight.  Someone could write a fascinating psychological study into his followers and how they are similar to fundamentalist religious believers.  Many of them are such believers.

In both cases, evidence does not knock the belief.  They believe Donald Trump is wonderful and they want him to rule them.  No evidence seems to knock their evangelical fundamentalist Trumpist faith.  And no evidence knocks the fundamentalist religious either, of whatever variety.  Science and reason keep knocking blocks off fundamentalist religion and keep showing why it's (almost certainly) nonsense.  A rational person either gives up the religion totally or finds ways to adjust the beliefs so that their God fits in with human knowledge and slides into the cracks where we lack full knowledge.  A fundamentalist ignores the evidence or creates words and arguments that attempt to show why evidence is wrong.

So whether it's evolution, a young earth, the existence of Satan, the inerrancy of the Bible or Koran or Gita or whatever other scripture, or the glories of Donald Trump, the fundamentalist will not be budged.  They are not rational.  They cannot reason about their faith.  I don't condemn them.  It's just a sad thing when someone falls into such a system in their own heads.

I know.  Because I fell into it myself.  We are sorting part of the house at the moment and I found the sheets of paper on which I wrote brief notes before starting to write my life story.  It was to be my spiritual story and contained all the wrong turns I made and how I discovered the truth of the Catholic Church - the "best" version of Christianity and the "only" one to be truly and completely one, holy, catholic, apostolic and sacramental.  I was writing all this.  How I now KNEW the truth.  How I praised God for showing me the best way.  And how I was convinced that now I knew the truth I would remain a faithful Catholic for ever and ever and ever.  Well we all know how that plan turned out!  I read it now and I am a little embarrassed - and I am even more thankful that I moved on.  It's not that I hate the God of my past or think anyone with a similar God has lost a grip on reason.  There are some very reasonable believers out there, ones who accept doubt and accept that faith sometimes has to change in the face of evidence.

It's a hard road away from fundamentalism and the certainty of a religious system.  It might be just as hard for people to turn away from Donald Trump when they have pinned so many hopes and dreams on the man.  Especially when some of those people share many of Trump's despicable attitudes and beliefs.  As was said the other day by a Christian pastor,  "Better a pussy grabber than a pussy in the White House."  Yep.  I don't want to call a human being a little piece of shit.  But.  His views are big pieces of shit.  And they arise from an antiquated, horribly patriarchal religious system that may once have had a place but has now gone rotten and putrid and smells worse than a big piece of shit.  Plenty of churches teach it though - a woman should not have authority over a man.  They say that God said it.  In his book.  Which is infallible and God breathed.  Some churches are explicit in that.  So Trump might be a disgusting sex criminal but to have a woman?  No.  Nay!  Never!  That's banned in the Bible.  They're right too.  It IS banned in the Bible.  It's quite explicit.  A woman isn't even allowed to speak in church and if they have questions have to wait until they get home before asking their husband.  As for authority, well man is head of the woman.  The Bible says so.  To go against that is to go against God - at least according to some believers.  But even to others to go against it is just one part of noticing that the Bible is wrong about God.  And once a believer reaches that point they have a lot of soul searching to do regarding what value both their holy book and their faith have.  There are multiple answers to that soul searching.  Some lead to atheism.  Some to a form of progressive or liberal Christianity.  Some to hiding one's head in the sand and holding on to a form of faith that a believer cannot bear to allow to die.

I'm not going to talk much at all about the walk.  I've talked enough already.  It was a walk along a canal.  Simple.

In any case.  I just that moment had a phone call.  Not my favourite thing.  This was to tell me - and I had to chase people to find this out - that the NHS people I was referred to for help with my mental health problems cannot help me because I am autistic.  Basically because I have a neurological difference the NHS tells me to fuck off whenever I ask for help.  Great isn't it?  No.  It's another big piece of shit and at this moment I feel pretty bloody bad about it all.

I am autistic.

I need MORE help.  Not less.  More.  I've been fighting over and over again for the past year and yet again another service waves me away with an "Oh yes you need help for your mental health but all of us people who spent years training in mental health can't deal with you because you are autistic."

Aaaargh.  If I had severe learning difficulties - if I was "low functioning" - there would be lots of services almost falling over themselves for me.  But I am "high functioning" - which means that I function very well, in certain areas, some of the time and I have a nice high IQ  (I am officially a genius).  And that means there is no help.  None.  Fuck all.  And even the help anyone else with a nice high IQ could get is stolen away from me because of my diagnosis.

I am bloody glad to have my diagnosis.  It helps.  And self understanding helps greatly.  But right now it stinks.

Anyway.  The photos.  Nice aren't they?!  I'm not going to talk about them at all.  Not today.  My head isn't up to it now.

Oh well.  Life goes on.  I'm out tonight with some of those progressive Christians.  They're very nice but still a little too much into the old old story for me as if they still need psychologically to grasp onto a tale that they know doesn't make that much sense.  That might be unfair.  But they know the Bible is just the record of a bunch of people trying and often failing to find the divine and that much of the Old Testament contains a lot of nationalist propaganda.  They look to Jesus for their guide which is fine.  But even there they have to be very selective or interpret in a way that surely the gospel writers didn't mean or else they have to cope with all the things he said about unbelievers and Hell.  So in effect they love the nice bits of Jesus and leave the rest because those bits aren't right.  I don't know exactly what's left that is worth basing a 21st century life on.  But maybe the speaker tonight will enlighten me and leave me wanting to read all his books - of which I own five, four of them bought in the last year.

The photos.  Because life contains incredibly wonderful days with or without an autism diagnosis and with or without help from an NHS with funding and training and service provision gaps.

Maybe I will just have to sort myself out, as I would if the NHS didn't exist - and who knows, under our caring sharing Tory government its future isn't safe.  I've done a lot of self work.  It's just that a bit of help wouldn't go amiss.

You know what?  The photos can wait until the next post.  They are too good to be combined with my woes or musings about people believing beyond the point of rationality.  Just one photo.  Because life is good.  Life is a wonderful thing.