Josephine Moon's Blog, page 7

I’m speaking at the Yellow Ladybugs Conference in June

I am delighted to share that I have been invited to speak as a panelist at the Yellow Ladybugs ADHD and Autistic Minds Conference (7-9 June, 2022).

Yellow Lady Bugs was born of the desire to raise the profile of autistic girls and women, who have long been overlooked, dismissed and unassisted for the past near hundred years. (From the Lady Bugs website: “This includes cis women, transgender, non-binary, and gender diverse individuals, and anyone who was socialised, or identifies as female.”)

I am grateful for the opportunity to join this amazing organisation for this conference and hope I can bring some supportive and encouraging words to attendees.

Get your tickets here.

I’m Speaking at the National Education Summit in Brisbane

I’m very pleased to announce that I will be presenting the opening session of the ‘Diverse Learners Symposium’ at the National Education Summit in Brisbane, in August this year.

The title of my session is “Reimagining Autism: Myths, Autistic Truth, Cultivating Empathy”.

If you’re heading to the summit, I’d love to see you there. If you’re still to get tickets, you can find them here.

I’m looking forward to engaging with teachers, principals and therapists in ways that help shift the negative bias towards autism and help us to embrace our young autists, encouraging and supporting them to flourish authentically.

I’m also authentically super nervous (speaking is not my comfortable space) but I am proud to be there as a contributor to the growing number of autistic voices in public spaces, working for positive change. I will be sweaty, and shaky, and probably mix up a few words. But I will be there.

Meet and Greet… Wilbur

I recently wrote a piece for my monthly newsletter about our goat Wilbur and he got so much loving feedback I thought I’d share him here with you all too

This is Wilbur, approximately eleven years old. We bought Wilbur and his companion, Meg (who we sadly had to euthanise halfway through 2021 due to an incurable leg injury) in the same way we usually acquire our animals… which is to say with no prior thought but rather a fortuitous meeting and a spontaneous decision to take them home.

On a whim, we had decided to head out to the Kin Kin markets one day and arrived to find two large goats tied up, for sale. The seller had a number of animals there to sell (ducks, chickens, goats, a piglet), all being sold for dinner tables.

Wilbur is a BIG boy! (We recently wormed him as though he was 100kg, which the vet agreed he might well be, though of course we don’t have scales large enough to get a truly accurate picture.) He is a Boer cross. Boer goats are specifically bred as meat goats and they weigh a considerable amount, if Wilbur is anything to go by. 

He is a smoochy boy who was hand-raised inside a house and has always asserted that is exactly where he should still be! We take him out for walks on a lead and we follow him in what we are sure we could sell as a meditative practice of ‘goat led walking’. 

He isn’t nice to small children, though, and we can’t let them in the same space as him as he likes to head butt them, and if he’s on the other side of the fence he will repeatedly head butt the fence just so everyone is clear who is boss. 

He is delightfully photogenic and will happily pose for photographs, staring deeply into the camera. He also grows an enormous winter coat that takes around six months to come out and I help by pulling out long tufts that I would be able to spin into blankets if I had a spinning wheel. It’s an enticing idea that sparks all sorts of story ideas He loves having his rump scratched and wags his tail with delight. He is a big boy with an even bigger personality, equal parts cuddly, talkative, bossy and destructive! Life is never dull with Wilbur around.

Wilbur the Magnificent

What Do Autistic People Look Like?

Look, I know that sounds like an odd question but for many of us, the answer to ‘What Do Autistic People Look Like?’ is this: What we’ve seen so far in the mainstream representation is someone who is white, male, thin, heterosexual, worried/stressed/flat faced, unsmiling… and possibly a savant. 

I don’t know who created this meme but I’ve seen it many times online. This stereotype presents us with male autistics (or presumed autistic, in the case of Sheldon (top left) from The Big Bang Theory) in popular television shows. The other images are  of the character of Shaun Murphy from The Good Doctor, Spencer Reid from Criminal Minds (not named autistic on screen but the actor who plays him says he is), and Sam Gardiner from A-Typical.

What’s missing from these images? Black, Asian, female, trans, gender diverse, aged, culturally and ethnically diverse people… the full spectrum of humanity. I searched on the #actuallyautistic tag and ran through my social media feeds to take screen shots off what I could see and this is what came up.The austistic spectrum is as varied as neurotypical spectrum. I definitely see it as part of my life’s work to shift the currently held views about what autism looks like to improve inclusivity and acceptance. 

I Was Diagnosed Autistic at 45: Here’s 6 Things I Want You to Know

Read it on Mamamia here.

Three Gold Coins is in Greece!

I LOVE THIS COVER!

I was very excited to see a lovely Instagram reader post a story with the cover of my novel Three Gold Coins in Greek! Otherwise, I would have had no idea it had been published … such is the way with international translations… and it appears to be a best seller??

With the help of Google translate, I managed to track down a wonderful review by Katerina Tsemperlidou who says:

“A powerful novel full of love, family ties, agony, humor, drama, oppression and the road to freedom.

The story of the book is also an anthem for Italy, for the Italian food and, especially, for the varieties of Italian cheeses, which play their role in the upheavals that the author creates in the pages of the novel.

Very true, very human, optimistic and tender, a novel that will win your heart. Everything we need to snooze in our corner now in the fall.”

Thank you, Katerina!

If anyone has connections to Greek media, please feel free to let them know I’m happy to do some publicity!

What is the Autism Spectrum?

You may have heard people talk about ‘the spectrum’ or ‘the autism
spectrum’. You may have heard people say that “oh, everyone’s on the
spectrum somewhere” or “we’re all a little bit autistic”. The first
thing to know is that those last two statements are flat out incorrect.
You are either on the autism spectrum or you aren’t.

The spectrum essentially refers to the fact that every autistic person
is different, with different strengths and challenges. As the saying
goes, if you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met ONE autistic person.
There is as much diversity in the autistic community as the neurotypical
community.

The second thing people tend to believe is that the spectrum is linear
and every autistic person is a dot on the line, either less autistic or
more autistic, or “high functioning” or “low functioning”. These are
difficult terms and ones a lot of the autism community rejects. In old
school language, I would be called “high functioning autistic” and until
recently I would have been labelled as having “Aspergers Syndrome”
(which is another term for high functioning). It’s important to note
that the label of Aspergers Syndrome has been removed from official use
and those of us previously thought of as “aspies” are now included in
the spectrum.

The challenge with the term “high functioning” is that it makes it
difficult to get the support you need. High functioning mostly just
means we’re really good at masking our distress, or camouflaging
ourselves to “pass” as neurotypicals. This costs us a lot in terms of
our mental health and energy and high masking individuals are more
likely to experience episodes of autistic burnout, which I can certainly
attest to.

The challenge with the term “low functioning” is that it is used to deny
agency to the individual, might be confused with an intellectual
impairment, is demeaning and locks the individual into a box that might
be difficult to get out of.

An autistic’s person’s ability to “function” (whatever that truly means)
can change from day to day, hour to hour, year to year. The truth is,
though, that while I may look “high functioning” I can assure you that I
can be very “low functioning”. If the perfect storm of stressors strike,
I can be confined to bed. In other words, if the spectrum was indeed
linear, I could move up and down it depending on whatever else was
happening in my life at any given time.

Last year, I went through a prolonged autistic burnout (though I didn’t
know it at the time because I hadn’t yet received my identification) and
I cried every day for eight months and I was convinced I need to quit
writing. Now, post diagnosis, I know so much more about how to help
myself and I am excited as all get out to bring you a new book! That is
‘movement’ up and down a linear scale. The truth is simply that our
abilities are determined by our capacity at any given time.

In reality, the spectrum is like a pie chart. Every autistic person has
a ‘spiky’ profile where we’re really good at some things and struggle a
lot with others. Everyone’s pie chart will look different.

Technically, these days autistic people are given a category based on
the likelihood of how much support they need. These are “needs support”,
“needs more support”, “needs high levels of support”. These are boxed
this way so that the NDIS can decide how much funding they wish to offer
that person.

p.s. I’d love to be able to credit the owner of that image but there’s
no tag on it and I see it everywhere online so it’s been shared so many
times it’s impossible to find.

You can find my podcast here.

A New Podcast: Autistic in Residence

As my new special interest is autism, I decided to make a podcast. Here’s a little introduction:

As the world gets better at identifying what autism looks like in girls, women, trans individuals and people of colour (essentially, anyone other than a four-year-old white boy), our community is growing. This is a fantastic thing. So many people can finally pull together all the fragmented parts of themselves that never made sense and begin to flourish because they are now empowered with information.

We have a lot to talk about.

Please join me for the conversation and remember to subscribe to receive new episodes.

Available on:

Anchor

Spotify

Google Podcasts

Stitcher

(with more platforms to come).

Twelve Months of Winning

December’s gift all ready to go

In the spirit of the ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’, I’ve decided to go a step further and am introducing the ‘Twelve Months of Winning’. Each month, you’ll get the chance to win a prize pack inspired by the themes in my published novels so far.

The December prize is wrapped and ready to go! It includes things to eat, pretty things, things to grow and a book to read or gift to another. The book theme for this month is of course ‘Christmas’.

To win, you’ll need to be signed up to my love letters. The next one is heading your way on Sunday morning so sign up now and receive my tea and chocolate tasting notes just for joining.

I can’t wait to give this first prize away!

Jo x

Why I Told the World I’m Autistic

There are no tangible benefits for a late-diagnosed woman to tell the world that she is #autistic, but I did it anyway. Here’s why.

The reality is that no one comes rushing to your aid to offer the support, services and counselling you so desperately needed when you were young and struggling in school, at times being bullied, drowning in social anxiety, and barely coping under the weight of depression (as a result of trying to exist in a world not built for you). 

No one actually says, ‘Wow, congratulations!’ They are actually more likely to say something like ‘You don’t look autistic’ or ‘you must be only MILDLY autistic’ or ‘everyone’s on the spectrum’ (which is false, by the way) and so on the one hand your ENTIRE life has been validated by your identification and at the same time DISMISSED by almost everyone around you. Worse yet, even though you’ve possibly been outwardly succeeding in all sorts of professional roles for twenty years or more, suddenly, you might be deemed incompetent (instead of celebrated for the unique diversity you bring). So why on earth would you disclose this?

For me, it came down to the fact that, culturally speaking, my time has, mostly, passed. But my visible existence in the world, as a professional autistic individual, is NEEDED. There are so many young autists out there who need to see what an adult #neurodivergent might look like. They need to see the career pathways that might be open to them, the family dynamics they might like to be part of, and they need to hear our voices advocating for them. 

No one will be rushing to advocate for me and that’s due to nearly a hundred years of misdiagnosis, mismanagement and mistreatment of autistic individuals (more on that another time). The least I can do is try to untangle so many of the myths, poor stereotypes, incorrect information and barriers that keep autistic people down and let the young ones breathe. It isn’t up to them. It is up to US to do this for them. They have enough going on.

Meanwhile, my husband Alwyn Blayse bought me this cake to celebrate me finally coming home to myself. My wish is for every autistic individual to know themselves as something to be celebrated. Until then, I’ll be working away to open doors for the ones following me. They deserve that.

#actuallyautistic #autisticadults #nothingaboutuswithoutus