Mary Doherty 🏳️‍🌈

Updating CV for potential new role & realising the first time I ever said “I am autistic” to a group of medical professionals was April 2019. How many hundreds, if not thousands, since then? #NeurodiversityInMedicine 3 yrs from taboo to hot topic #AutismAcceptanceMonth

My INSAR keynote recording is now available: vimeo.com/1189802746?fl=…

Exciting update: @Autistic_SPACE adapted for adult mental health settings, new preprint available, submitted for peer review. Co-authored with @CatherineDakin Dan Davies @DrJasonLang @anna_rebowska @DrEstherSabel @mengchuanlai @Autistic_Doc among others osf.io/preprints/psya…

Please share widely with anyone who might be interested! #neurodiversity #autism #ADHD #neurodivergent

"Poor cousins at the wedding". That's how I described being #autistic at #INSAR26 last week, and it seems to resonate, reflecting the overwhelming response to my preprint on "Autistic Shame" linkedin.com/feed/update/ur…

Huge thanks to Crew Member Gillian on @AerLingus EI 832 Cork to Prague today who went way over & above expected customer support standards. This is why I fly @AerLingus where possible

Your children don't need 'protection' from labels. If your child is autistic or ADHD, they will be labelled anyway. The difference is those labels will come without the chance to access support, or to understand why some things are so much harder for them than everyone else.

@AutisticCallum_ Yes, and then buy exactly the same thing again - or mourn when it’s no longer available

Autistic people often keep and use objects for longer than is typical. While many people regularly upgrade, we frequently hang on to things for years (even if they break) because we can get a lot of comfort from familiarity, feel so attached to our things, and…

@drkeithsiau I inhabit a world where it’s axiomatic, so the reminder that it’s controversial is salutary. The overlap with neurodivergence is huge

Controversial opinion here, but Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome certainly exists and is probably grossly underdiagnosed.

I’ve published a preprint on Autistic Shame. It’s not an easy read. Shame is the hidden link between the stigma autistic people face & the mental health crisis in our community. This is my attempt to name it, trace it, & point toward how we can address it osf.io/preprints/psya…

Viruses and Joint and Tendon Pain You had a cold two weeks ago. Nothing serious. But now your knee hurts more than it has in months. Your achilles is flaring. Your easy run felt like a half-marathon. You didn't do anything wrong. Here's what's actually happening...

Sometimes, quiet people make key points with brevity and impact. @mohanbhat101 does that in this short letter to the editor in one of the world’s premier medical journals @Nature Autism in older adults: the health system must recognize its effects nature.com/articles/d4158…

There’s a mom at our school drop-off. Messy bun, always three minutes late, kids usually eating dry cereal out of a Ziploc. The "Pinterest moms" always whispered about her. I honestly felt a little bad for her. Then one day at the playground, my neurodivergent son had a massive, violent sensory meltdown. I’m sitting in the dirt, crying, totally paralyzed. The "perfect" moms just stared and pulled their kids away. Suddenly, she’s there. The messy mom. She drops her giant bag, sits right in the dirt next to us, pulls a heavy sensory toy out of her purse, and calmly shields my son from the crowd. No panic. No judgment. He regulated in three minutes. I was speechless. We had coffee after. She told me her house is a disaster and she has severe ADHD, but she knows exactly what a nervous system collapse looks like. I asked her how she deals with the judgmental stares from the other moms. She took a sip of her cold coffee and said: "Perfect moms know how to bake organic muffins. Chaotic moms know how to survive the trenches." Every time I see her running late now, I just smile. Girls, be like the messy mom. Stop apologizing for your chaos.

And psychiatrists. This is a good thing. Otherwise the profession and the science is being shaped by shame ucd.ie/medicine/news/…

"Is autism a disorder? Is it just a difference?" 🧐 Disability. The word you are almost certainly looking for is disability. Autism is a disability.

@stimimi One of the reasons is we know the cost of disorder framing. In a cohort of autistic doctors those who viewed autism as a disorder were almost 3 times as likely to have attempted suicide as those who didn’t

In autism the difference activists assert they are autistic, not people with autism. Those (including parents) who considered autism a disease/disorder campaign for better recognition, prevention, treatment and support. This disagreement has become heated. Why is this?

🗞️🗞️NEW PAPER🗞️🗞️ Congrats @auti_medic23! The experiences of autistic medical students in relation to seeking and receiving online support “It gave me a lot of courage… I felt a sense of… belonging somewhere” Read free: journals.plos.org/plosone/articl… @BSMSMedSchool #MedEd

The cover of the Lancet. It says it all.

Published today in the international journal of nursing “Perhaps the most significant omission in the clinical and academic discourse on BPD is the failure to acknowledge that the diagnosis itself generates tremendous harm.” onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/in…

In this week’s Send for Help — my SEND agony aunt column in The Times — I argue we’re not seeing overdiagnosis, but decades of underdiagnosis finally catching up. thetimes.com/life-style/par…