Long-term repercussions notwithstanding, it’s not even effective — Wait, wait! I’m not talking about medical masks or anything virus-related. I’m referring here to personality masking, or camouflaging. ADHD and Autistic Masking If you’re on Neurodivergent TikTok, you may have seen some videos where a person (tongue-in-cheek) claims they’re so good at masking, no one would ever suspect they’re Autistic.

Programs which teach compliance put children at risk — July 20, 2023 update A protection order had been served against Amber Maloney, ordering her to immediately stop providing child care. According to a recent news update, Amber-Lee Maloney has been charged with human trafficking and administering a noxious substance, among other crimes. I hope this means her centre will be shut down. Our kids deserve so much better

Many “Highly Sensitive People” are actually heavily masked Autistics — Differences are not deficits I can’t believe we’re having this discussion again. At the beginning of this year, I wrote a piece entitled The “Highly Sensitive Person” is Code for Autistic, after reading a popular psychology article which claimed to differentiate the two, but essentially described all the ways in which they are the…

We don’t need to teach them hard lessons, they’re already learning them — “There is nobody more resilient than a child who has fought hard to function in a world not built for them.” — Heidi Mavir Resilience versus compliance The definition of resiliency is, “an ability to recover from or adjust easily to adversity or change”. The definition of compliance is, “a disposition to yield…

Gender dysphoria and trans folks have existed since time immemorial — It’s not surprising that folks who take issue with comprehensive and inclusive education — and spend time petitioning to ban books from public schools and libraries — have little to no understanding of pronouns. People use pronouns every day, in nearly every sentence. We also use they/them as a singular…

It’s often a completely reasonable response to stress, distress, and trauma — When I was a kid, I tried to fake sick almost every day to avoid going to school (after a while it stopped working, but I kept trying anyway). It wasn’t because I was “lazy” or “manipulative”. It was because I was scared. I was scared because I was relentlessly…

Yes. — The answer is c, all of the above The severity and impact of our ADHD symptoms can either decrease or increase with age, depending on a number of factors. I’m sure there are many, but I will discuss three of those factors here. I’m not a neuroscientist, so this will be a lay person’s summary, however I am…

The more things change, the more they stay the same — It’s a little ridiculous It’s 2023. Nearly everyone is connected nearly all the time. Smart phones are ubiquitous. Deaf and disabled people have existed since the beginning of time. Yet we still don’t have truly accessible public spaces. Certainly things have improved since the dark ages, but nowhere near in line with other advancements…

Part three of our overly complicated journey home — A brief recap When we left off, my spouse was repressing his urge to throw his cell phone out the hotel window after his experience trying to get help from Air Canada. On top of that, we were stuck in a hotel, waiting to see if we would be able to get our…