Drage blant sauer

  Naming autistic difference is treated as threat, as it is not to be respected, merely managed. It all started with a phone call. A relative had found a group for autistic people which actually had heard of autistic burnout – success! About as rare a feat in Norway as it is to realize you're surrounded by bears in a dark forest. I was intrigued, but wary. Too many seemingly neurodivergent-friendly spaces turn out to be run with neurotypical sensibilities and measures in mind, even if they say they're not on the tin. Having burned myself too many times on such ventures, amazing I said yes to this one. To have an invisible dynamic disability or a neurological condition is sometimes a struggle. It fluctuates day by day and what seemed effortless on Monday can spell a breakdown on Thursday. I've recently come across (and in the progress of relistening to) the podcast Autistic After Hours (more specifically episodes 23, 30, 42, 74 and 75) and it has put into words some of ...

  Low-waste life ought to be a neurodivergent dream: orderly, enduring and attentive. Yet the movement too often turns ecological care into an ableist purity test. Autistic people rarely do things halfway, in my experience, so helping the planet whilst following a set of rules, regulations and routines sounds lovely. Going zero waste has changed in the last decade or so: From storing all your trash in a mason jar to simply doing the best you can to live your life eco-friendly. Whether that means reusing paper to make art, composting your scraps into arable earth, reusing what you have in your life or reducing plastic, I am of the opinion that every little thing helps the change along. Eco-influencers online (TheSimpleEnvironmentalist, GreenEarthCo, Gittemary Johansen, Shelbizleee and the EcofriendlyUnicorn) are excellent voices to listen to regarding low or zero waste and sustainable living in general. When it comes to eco-ableism within the movement, one needs only take a look...

  Neuronormative society seemingly believes solitude unhealthy and that urban living equals happiness. Not from an autistic point of view. The sereness of nature and solitude of mind and body has had a long tradition within literature, from the idyllic pastoral life of the Romantic Period to the eco-facist arguments of Blut und Boden (blood and soil) and redemtion of the soil to the trend Cottage Core during the Covid pandemic, to be brief. Nature has been seen as a balm to illness and mental instability for eons, but especially emerging as society moved from the country to the city in search of prosperity or labor. The countryside became idealized and somewhere city folk went for rest and recreation (Oscar Wilde, Charles Dickens, Johanna Spyri, Trygve Gulbranssen, Thomas Hardy) to escape urban monotony. American writer and naturalist Henry Thoreau famously embodied The Return to Nature as he built a log cabin by Walden Pond outside Boston (detailed in his 1854 book Walden ) and ...

  The mess of boxes and uncertainty of belongings are a true horror if you're autistic. Ah, moving day! You've spent your days anxiously awaiting when you can unpack all your belongings and set foot in a new place. The boxes are carried over. The anticipitation is killing you. You ascend Box Mountain, opening the first box... and task paralysis sets in! Second box — overwhelm! Third box — decision fatigue! You can't possibly do this! You put on an audiobook — a familiar world to drown out the unfamiliarity of your own. The words wash over you.  By box ??? you've found a rhythm. There are piles of stuff everywhere. You navigate through stacked books, cutlery, china, clothing, accessories, dog treats and stray handymen. Social interaction and being perceived at the same time? Marvelous...  Just what you asked for when you're staggering out of bed at 645 in the morning trying to find the one box with your clothes in it... That ever presistent fear of perceiveme...

  Too often I feel the Cassandra. What I perceive as truth and lived experience fall on deaf ears. Professional deaf ears. It's not a new senario. The sterile walls of the doctor's office, filled with diplomas or an overview of the human body, either in musclewrapped or bare bones. Perhaps a skeleton in the corner. An office chair for the doctor, a chair for the patient. Some hierarchies never truly change. One doctor's office I was at, had a couch. I clutch my little list of points I wish to bring to her attention. Things I perhaps struggle with, perhaps feel overwhelm me, perhaps are silly little things. I trace a pebble soothingly. My mask stays in place. “I'm having some trouble with melancholy.” I say at last. One of several conditions on my list, the most common, I think. One comorbidity seldom arrives unchaperoned, and the melancholy has been a consistent for years. My own dreary dark dog, to borrow a phrase. Such a thing that is a constant day in and da...