Vocal Stimming: The Sound Of Autistic Joy
“The Analogy Of the Goblin Guest!” “The Shadow Of the Demon Lord!” “Roches Stores!” So what do these phrases have in common? What analogy is this goblin fellow trying to make? Is someone trying to summon some sort of demonic entity? And what has a supermarket that was a mainstay…
Why Autism Acceptance Is Bad (For Business)
Hello, today I wanted to talk about a terrible ideology that is affecting more and more people, I have seen many of my friends and family members affected by this set of beliefs, and it is heartbreaking to see them change from the bigoted, ableist people I once knew, into…
The Return Of Dr Ravi Saavol
Note: I’m afraid this is going to be one of those posts where you need to read a previous one for context, so you should probably read this previous one first before you get going on this one: Or if you’re feeling adventurous, why not start straight into this one…
Iceland, My Favourite Place That I’ll Probably Never Visit Again
Mt Esja seen over the water from Reyjkavik In July 2009, I spent a wonderful week in Iceland, staying in the capital city of Reyjkavik but also getting out to see the amazing countryside. It wasn’t long before I was planning in my head to go on another trip there…
My Fears And Hopes For 2024
2023 was a strange beast of a year. It marks some of the best experiences of my life, but also, if not the worst experiences, at least some very bad ones. So I don’t know what this post will be like, I’m thinking it might lie somewhere between coherent and…
A Hard Cycle Back From Corrin Hill
Content Warning: Anxiety and Panic Attacks In 2019, a few weeks before I did the most difficult cycle I ever did, I talk about that here: I did a cycle to Corrin Hill that was quite difficult. (It was the cycle back from Corrin Hill that was difficult, not the…
The Devin Townsend Concert Of December 2019, It Cured All Of My Sorrows
Content Warning: This won’t just be a concert review, I’ll also be talking about issues related to anxiety and depression. “Ah, that’s a hyperbolic title,” you must be thinking. “It was a really good concert sure, but surely not enough to pull you out of feelings of sadness.” “Surely this,…
Autism and Bigotry
What inspired me to write this particular post was encountering a person I knew to be autistic who had bigoted views against trans and non-binary people (and possibly also gay people it wasn’t clear.) So, I don’t know if this post will have a definite answer to anything, it probably…
It’s 2023, Can We Have Less Shit Language Around Autism Please?
So I was reading some articles about genetics, in preparation for a future blogpost about autism and evolution, that might prove too difficult for me and I might have to scrap it, cursing my hubris at attempting to write a blogpost that was too difficult for me. But anyway, I…
How Physical Exercise Helps My Mental Health
Content Warning: Fears of health problems, disease, and death will be discussed. I’ve had some degree of health anxiety all my life. I remember reacting with fear to what turned out to be fairly trivial symptoms since at least I was a teenager. But from the latter part of 2012…
I Have Absolute Pitch. Eh, It’s Alright I Suppose
So, years before I realized I was autistic, and years before I was diagnosed with autism, I found out I was actually neurodivergent in another way. That is, I have absolute pitch. So, does this give me a massive advantage when it comes to music? No. Thanks for reading and…
The Other Side Of Stereotyping Autistic People, We Are Not the Friggin’ X-Men!
So, is autism a superpower? Is it even, the next stage of human evolution? No it isn’t. Thanks for reading. Oh alright then, I suppose I’ll have to elaborate. Autism has been pathologised for as long as it has been known to exist, often thought of to be as bad…
Why Robert Kennedy Jr Would Be A Disaster For Autistic People
So recently somebody brought to my attention that Robert Kennedy Jr, nephew of John F Kennedy, is running for president. My first thought was, “good, someone other than Trump or DeSantis might be the next president”. And I can see why at first glance he might be an appealing choice.…
Anxiety and Aging, Am I Too Old For This Shit?
There’s a quote from the Lethal Weapon films that has been in my head lately, even though I’ve never seen the films and I only know it through cultural osmosis. “I’m too old for this shit.” This phrase was said by Roger Murtaugh, played by Danny Glover, not sure of…
In Defence of “Simple Jack”, Why I Love Tropic Thunder
In 2008 a film called Tropic Thunder came out, and it is one of my favourite films. It was such a brilliant satire of so many things that are wrong with Hollywood. However, the film was very contraversial at the time, and still so today. There were many controversies with…
Two Years On the Spectrum, A Retrospective
Today is Autism Acceptance Day, and being the day that it is, I thought it might be appropriate to write a post reflecting on the fact that I have known that I am autistic for in or around two years. I was actually diagnosed with autism over a decade ago,…
Why I Believe In Labels
So, labels are bad apparently. So how does one go about describing themselves? Well, I’m tall, no, can’t use that, that’s a label. I don’t want to define myself by being tall. I’m bald. No, that’s a label, can’t say that either. I have a beard, no. Four hours later……………
Why Do Our Differences Require An Explanation?
There is a certain rapper who the young kids may not remember called 50 Cent. He had such songs as, eh, I don’t know, because I don’t remember his music either. In 2016, he started ridiculing an airport worker who was just doing his job, and at the revelation that…
Poor Planning, Hubris, And A Forest I Hope Never To Return To
So it was 2015, I’d been cycling for over a year, and I wanted a new adventure. I found something that peaked my interest on Google maps. About twenty miles north of where I lived, on the left hand side of the road was Glenagear wood, and on the right…
Some Changes to the Blog
Hello everyone, first off, I’d like to wish you all a happy new year. While it was hopefully an improvement for most of you over 2020 and 2021, 2022 was still a scary and uncertain time, with the war in Ukraine, an increase in energy bills, and it never being…
How I Concluded That Self Diagnosis Is Valid
Part 6 of My “What Is Autism” Series So in the autistic community there is this thing called self-diagnosis, it’s not accepted by all autistic people, but it is slowly being accepted by a lot more people than it was. Self diagnosis is simply doing research on autism, and talking…
So What About That Whole Need For Sameness Thing?
Part 5 Of My “What Is Autism” Series So it’s finally time to write my blogpost on the concept of “Need For Sameness”, an issue many autistic people have. And before I write my autism blogposts, I typically have a very, very naive notion in my head. And that notion…
A Spooky Halloween Blogpost! (About Having An Anxiety Disorder)
So given the night that it is, I have been entertaining the idea of doing a blogpost about horror films, and why I like them despite being an anxious person. But, something may have changed in that regard. Let me explain. So, usually on Halloween night I’ll do something Halloween…
Why Research On Autism Is Still In the Dark Ages
Part 4 of My “What Is Autism” Series So, given that it’s the Twenty First Century, and humanity has progressed so much technologically, why do we still have such a poor understanding of what autism is? Well, part of it is that our understanding of the human brain in general…
What if Neurotypicals (Non-Autistics) Were Stigmatized the Way Autistic People Are?
Originally Posted to Facebook On April 18th What would the world look like if being neurotypical had the same stigma attached to it that being autistic has? What if autistic people were the majority, and they had a similar negative understanding of being neurotypical that many people have towards autism…
The Spiky Skill Set, Good or Bad, But Nothing In Between
Autistic people’s skillsets tend to be different From neurotypical people’s skillsets. Here I try to explain the autistic skillset, and how the ideas and skills autistic people have brought to the table have helped humanity.
The Twentieth Cycle to the Nagle Mountains
I’ve been cycling to the Nagle Mountains since the year 2014. And I found this mountain range by sheer chance. One day I was just looking around places to the north of Cork city on Google Maps, and to my surprise there was a mountain range there, that I had…
So, What Is It Actually Like To Be Autistic?
First posted to Facebook on April 16th Hello all, this is, to the best of my ability, my attempt to describe what it is like to be autistic. I can’t say for certain that other autistic people experience these things, or even that neurotypical people don’t experience these things, but…
Why I Don’t Use the Term Asperger’s Syndrome (Even Though It Was What I Was Diagnosed With)
Originally posted to Facebook on April 10th. Why I Don’t Use the Term Asperger’s Syndrome (Even Though It Was What I Was Diagnosed With) Hello all, many autistic people were diagnosed with, for want of a better word, a specific type of autism called Asperger’s Syndrome. And this is what…
Autism Speaks, A Disgraceful Organization That Do Not Speak For Autistic People
Originally posted to Facebook on April 6th Imagine a world where everything is the exact opposite of what it was now. In this world, the sun would rise in the West and set in the East, hot snow would fall up, and gazelles would chase lions. In this imaginary world,…
The Most Moderately Difficult Cycle I Ever Did
I’ve talked about the most difficult cycle I ever did: At the risk of being anti-climatic after that, I talked about the second most difficult cycle I ever did: Now, at the risk of being even more anti-climatic again, I am going to talk about, the most moderately difficult cycle…
What I Thought Autism Was (And It’s Part of The Reason I Went Into Denial.)
Part 2 of my “What Is Autism?” Series Content Warning: Descriptions of the unfortunate opinions I used to have on autistic people while I was in denial about my autism status. I’m not proud of these opinions now but nevertheless this is what I thought at the time. I got…
What Is Autism?
Part 1: Introduction So this is the first post in a series of posts I am writing, called “What is Autism?”. It could be four posts, ten posts, or I may contribute to this series for years to come, it’s not clear at this point. I’m hoping to do at…
The Tenth Sunrise
I hate waking up early, getting out of a warm, comfortable bed to walk in the cold should be considered a form of madness! Madness, I tell you! But it can be worth it to see spectacular sunrises over the ocean in Woodpoint.
Attempts to Divide Autistic People Into “High Functioning” and “Low Functioning” Only Create Misconceptions About Autistic People
Labeling people and putting them into boxes presents misconceptions and stereotypes. This article was originally uploaded to Facebook, and in it I discuss the labels of “high-functioning” and “low-functioning” autism, and the challenges they present.
If My Autism Was All Cons and No Pros I Still Wouldn’t Want a Cure
So this is a follow up blogpost to my previous post “What If An Autistic Person Wants A Cure.” In it I talked about how for some autistic people, they may feel that their autism causes only disadvantages, and no advantages, so they may wish that there was a way…
What If An Autistic Person Wants A Cure?
Content Warning: Ableism, Abortion, Eugenics, Bigotry, Bigotry Against Autistic People. This is probably the heaviest post I ever wrote in terms of subject matter, so if that’s not for you it might be an idea to give this one a miss. I’ve talked before about how when most autistic people…
Autistic Special Interests And Why I Won’t Shut Up About Organs
Oh hello, would you like to have a three to four hour conversation about organs? Did you know that Laurens Hammond wasn’t even a musician and wasn’t in favour of combining the organ he invented with the iconic Leslie Speaker? What’s that, you’re busy? Oh that’s fine, we will continue…
The Toughest Cycle I Ever Did
I’ve been big into cycling since 2014. It begun when I sprained my ankle, and I was terrified to run on my ankle for a few months, afraid the injury hadn’t fully healed, I decided to get into a new method of physical exercise, and that was the bike because…
Autism Expertise Disorder, A Terrible Affliction That is Stalking Our Lands
Hello, today I think it is about time I talked about a terrible condition that is affecting a large percentage of the population. This condition is called Autism Expertise Disorder. I can’t abbreviate it to A.E.D because that is already automated external defibrillator, so, let me just check, could I…
Most Autistic People Do Not Want Or Need A Cure
Originally posted to my Facebook page on April 4th, 2022 If I was to suddenly be “cured” of my autism, most if not all of the things that make me who I am would be gone. My personality, my interests, my sense of humour, my goals in life, where else…
Ripping Up My School Jumper, And What The Devil Has This Got to Do With Covid?
Content Warning: Covid-19, Health Anxiety, Reliving Bad Memories I remember the last day of Secondary School when I was required to wear a uniform (the remaining day being a no uniform day). As I was walking home from my last day of having to wear it, I took off my…
The Tragedy of Autism
Many people will tell you that the lives of autistic people are simply unparalleled tragedy, and they should know, the people who say this are not autistic themselves, and therefore know better than autistic people! But I am here to tell you that these people who don’t speak for autistic…
Yes Coming to Play in Cork Was A Dream Come True
Picked Up This Book At The Concert, It Details the History of the Close To the Edge Album, a Nice Souvenir I am beyond overjoyed to say I got to see Yes perform in the Opera House yesterday. I am a massive prog rock fan, and to see one of…
My First Ever Autism Post
This post I initially put on Facebook on April 2nd (Autism Acceptance Day) This was my first time ever writing about my experience as an autistic person. So today is Autism Acceptance Day (more commonly known as Autism Awareness Day, but that term is terrible because who the hell isn’t…
How Embracing My Autism Helped Me To Sing
Today is June 18th, so to all my fellow autists, I’d just like to wish you a happy Autism Pride day! I admit I’ve nothing prepared for the day, this post was going out soon anyway, but given the relevance of the subject I’ll upload this today. Content Warning: Bullying…
Person First Language, Why It’s Not For Me
So, should I be referred to as an autistic person or as a person with autism? Well, as a person with Irishness and a person with masculinity I would like to give my opinion on this! My own preference is to be called an autistic person, but if somebody says…
The Term Neurotypical Isn’t All That Great, But We Need It For The Time Being
I wanted to talk about the term neurotypical. Some people who might be described as neurotypical have objected to the term, and I actually understand their reasons for feeling that way, but I’m going to argue that for now we need to use that term, but hopefully in time it…
Why Are Autistic People Always Talking About Spoons?
Autistic people tend to talk about spoons a lot. Is it because spoons are useful items that make the act of eating stuff less annoying? While spoons do serve that purpose, that’s not the reason a lot of autistic people talk about spoons. Let me explain. The term “Spoon Theory”…
Ponderings Of An Autist 