I was a kid who’d fall out of a tree and never cry.  Winded, bruised, I’d get up and try and keep going, puzzled that I was winded or that a bruised limb wouldn’t move well.  Emotionally, I had ’emotional fits’ several times a day when it was like a laundry basket of unprocessed, undifferentiated emotions would suddenly come to the surface, feeling I was eaten up by tidal waves.  I had no words for these and couldn’t tell what moods were in there, what situations they’d come from, so I’d just rage at myself, biting, hitting, pulling my hair or race around in circles like a tortured animal.  Read the rest of this entry »

  I was reflecting on what it takes for me to be friends.  I’m friendly to all and friends with far fewer.
Sometimes someone will ask what it takes for me to want to be friends especially because I’m very solitary and autonomous.
So, for what its worth, here’s my basics: Read the rest of this entry »

  I do not support thrusting health treatments onto any person without health conditions though I support the right of those with health disorders to treatment.  Health treatments of a person with autism should be based on relieving their health issues – gut, immune, metabolic disorders and perhaps the neurological and psychiatric fallout of these disorders.   Trying to alter an autistic personality through health treatments is ridiculous but one can have an autistic personality with or without serious health disorders and their associated challenges. Read the rest of this entry »

  So many websites have ‘captchas‘ now… those combos of jumbled letters and numbers.  What of the dyslexics who tumble them both?  3 and E, come on guys, they look the same.  A and 4 and 7.  Where’s the difference?  2 and 5 and s?  8 and B?  d and 6 and 9 and b and p and q?  W and M?  Z and N?  I and 1?  F and H?  O and 0?  u and n?  Anyone else have this alphanumerical soup?  When I was 9 I was struggling with lots of these and got through that enough to read even though visual verbal agnosia means I still read without meaning unless I use gestural signing and I still use my BPI tinted lenses for Scotopic Sensitivity so the print doesn’t swim about on the page.  But these ‘captures’, I’m sure I take 3 times longer to get one right than most people.  Ah, they don’t design the world for funky brains like mine.

Donna Williams *)

http://www.donnawilliams.net

http://www.myspace.com/donnaandtheaspinauts 

A reader from Aspergers Parallel Planet, Alyson Bradley, sent me interview questions about the fourth book in my autobiographical series, Everyday Heaven (published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers).  A brave woman indeed for she is diagnosed with Asperger’s, is Dyslexic with learning difficulties and cognitive challenges and not a big reader.  Her questions are interesting.  Here’s our interview. Read the rest of this entry »

  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS IN 3 DIFFERENT AUTISM WORLDS – By Donna Williams.

Whilst there are many political roads one can go in the autism world, I see there are at least three quite BASIC ones : Read the rest of this entry »

  Last month, with The Aspinauts, I had the honor of playing with a wonderful performer, Heidi Everett.  This is my interview with her. Read the rest of this entry »

  I was asked some questions by Elaine Meyer, a freelance journalist and student at Columbia’s journalism school, who was writing an article about autism as a metaphor in literature.  She explained that a literature professor at Cambridge named Andy Martin recently came out with an article comparing the writers Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus in which he said Sartre’s writing and personality exhibited autistic tendencies and Camus’ exhibited what he considered opposite empathetic tendencies.  She said he cited Simon Baron-Cohen’s work as an influence and asked if she could ask me a few interview questions on the topic.  Here’s our interview: Read the rest of this entry »

This month’s art work is called Coming Out.

Coming Out can mean many things and for me it is an important and valuable concept.  This painting helps me celebrate the importance of coming out and the endurance and challenges it takes for any of us to do so.  Read the rest of this entry »

   OK, so February got lost somewhere in the Victorian bushfires and their chaos and yes, my blog has been so quiet.  But, welcome to the March 2009 poetry challenge.  Who knows, any of you coming to see us at any of the upcoming gigs for Donna and The Aspinauts may actually see some of the poems performed, complete with gestural signing and characterisations.

But right now, you have 30 days to send in your poetry challenges for the March 09 poetry jam.  So off you go – feel free to send me a TITLE or THEME to write to in the comments section and in the next 30 days, you’ll find I’ve responded by posting a poem here addressing it.   Come on, give it a try. Read the rest of this entry »