Author: Sarah Boon
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Why I identify with PDA as part of my autism
Now, I’ve talked a lot about how my masking made me become a people pleaser to extremes and how I was the shy, quiet student who always followed the rules at school. The type of child an old school behaviour focused teacher would describe as a ‘Model student.’ So if you’ve been following me on…
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Signs of my ADHD that I did not realise were my ADHD
I’ve written up my ADHD thread as a blog post. If you relate to many of these signs and it impacts your life significantly the it might be worth doing some research into ADHD (please note this is not a diagnostic tool and is purely based on my lived experience). There is info at the…
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Quiet hyperactive ADHD, seven ways I experience it.
When I received my ADHD diagnosis, I wasn’t surprised as I had related to other people’s lived experiences a lot. However, I was convinced that my ADHD was only inattentive. Still, it turned out I have combined ADHD (both inattentiveness and hyperactive). that surprised me as I was never the child bouncing around the classroom…
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Grief Post Diagnosis: How Do #ActuallyAutistic People Feel About This?
For me, receiving my autism diagnosis at age 24 was a euphoric sense of relief. I was happy and finally on the path to discovering my authentic self. I thought that my diagnosis would only be a positive thing. Although this is true for me most of the time, but I can’t help thinking what…
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Is Yale University Justifying Child Abuse?
Recently a study was published where three researchers (Dr Suzanne Macar, Dr Angelina Vernetti and Dr Katarzyna Chawarska) at Yale did an experiment where they aimed to scare both autistic and neurotypical children, trying to establish a link between distress and autism in early childhood, while suggesting it may impact ‘emerging affective and behavioural symptoms.’ …
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The Neurodivergent Tax; Beyond Just ADHD?
Some of you may be familiar with the concept of the ADHD tax. ADHDers have extra expenses due to their condition. E.g. I’m always buying new umbrellas because I can’t remember where I put it! (this happens to me every winter multiple times). However, I feel that this concept could be extended beyond just ADHD.…
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Yes My Autism Does Define Me
This is a post I’ve meant to write for a while, but now seems the right time to share it. You hear a lot of ‘Your disability doesn’t define you’ and ‘You’re more than just your autism.’ An outsider might see that as a compliment, but it doesn’t reflect my lived experience. The thing is…
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Openly Autistic, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly
To be openly autistic or not to be openly autistic, that is the question, and there is no easy answer. I decided to be opening autistic as masking regularly was slowly destroying me, and I craved to live more authentically. However, the fact that I have a choice to mask or not is a privilege…
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Why can Job interviews be so challenging for autistic people?
We may not give standard or expected answers. Usually, in job interviews, the interviewers will already have some idea of what type of answers they are looking for when asking their questions. However, an autistic person may provide an entirely valid answer, but is not appreciated or misunderstood by the interviewer. Additionally, the interviewer may…
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The worst part about being an autistic psychology student by Gemma Short
Hello everyone, please read the following post by Gemma Short. It highlights how badly autism can be respresented in academia. The other day I posted a tweet, which was pretty random and just simply venting a feeling that i’ve had for a while. It read: “Honestly one of the … The worst part about being…
Sarah Boon 