People are commonly afraid of death, their own and that of those they love, sometimes of the concept itself. By the age of 5 I had already encountered loss, extreme life threatening events and actual death on a number of levels at a very young age. Read the rest of this entry »
Louise Hearman and the Archibald Prize fail to truly capture Barry Humphries . To capture Barry Humphries you’d have to have been the 8 year old autistic child experiencing attempted rape at a party in his Barry MacKenzie heydays. Read the rest of this entry »
The ‘I am autism’ trend is narrow, ignorant and passé. The stalkers and trolls and obsessed are frankly frightening people who feel that those who don’t identify the entirety of themselves with being ‘an autistic’ (some actually feel it is a crime against THEM if anyone publicly doesn’t identify this way or address them and ‘theirs’ solely in terms of these politics). The ‘we autistics’ is so disrespectful to the entirety of any one of us by making irrelevant the vastness of what makes each of us who we are that I hope we can all get over that ignorant and passé trend too. Read the rest of this entry »
In dissociative disorders these ‘alters’ can be friend or foe and its important to work with the foes to befriend them and help them be at peace Read the rest of this entry »
There’s a teacher in this picture, front row, fourth from the left in the red top. It’s a picture of teachers at Thornbury Primary School in 1978, and she is familiar to me. I look at the picture and I remember a hero who rescued a young autistic girl. That girl was me. Read the rest of this entry »
Donna Williams is an Australian born adult with autism who was assessed as psychotic at the age of 2 in 1965, labelled disturbed in the 1970s and diagnosed as autistic in her 20s in 1991.
She acquired functional speech in late childhood and went on to become a qualified teacher with an honors degree in Sociology and a degree in Linguistics. She is the author of two international bestselling autobiographies and has 10 published books including 4 text books widely used in autism education and two books of poetry and prose.
As a screenwriter, she wrote the screenplay to “Nobody Nowhere”, the first book in her 4 book autobiographical series. That screenplay is currently under option to become a Hollywood film. She is an professional artist, singer-songwriter and published poet as well as a world renowned public speaker on autism now living with her husband in Australia. In her presentations she draws not only on her own experiences but on international experience as a professional autism consultant since 1996.
Donna’s is a speaker in demand around the world due to her unique perspective and ability to share her feelings and experiences on a very personal level. More information about her and her life’s work can be found on her website at http://www.donnawilliams.net .