Tina 🇬🇧🇯🇲

Autistic people deserve to be treated with respect. Our productivity is not a measure of our value. Being autistic does not negate our gifts, talents, experience or skills. We are deserving and should not be treated like liabilities or burdens.

Epistemic Injustice: The Great Gaslighting of Autistic Lives

@JulianeWriter I'm sorry your mother said this to you. Internalised misogyny is jarring as hell.

@BLACKWithADHDUK She is very clearly a Patriarchal misogynist. My mother once told me that it was fine for me to homeschool my daughters but not my son bc, she said, "He's the one who has to go to work someday." They don't want to invest resources in women.

I'm genuinely very upset to read Uta Frith's claims about late diagnosed autistic women. It's well documented why women and girls are under diagnosed. As a Black late diagnosed autistic woman I am deeply troubled by Frith's claims (1/2)

@JulianeWriter Exactly. Would she be saying the same about late diagnosed men?

@BLACKWithADHDUK The underlying, implicit message is that girls aren't worthy of support, it's only the boys that we should invest resources into. It's more toxic Patriarchy, absolutely infuriating, condescending invalidation.!

@JulianeWriter Support for autistic adults is near nonexistent. She wants the little we have available to be stripped from us. The diagnosis provides a desperately needed permission and fundamental understanding of the Self and without it we're drowning. I can't believe this is where we're at.

@BLACKWithADHDUK It is incredibly invalidating and regressive, what Frith has done with her recent statements. "We have been helping too many. Let us help fewer!" It's honestly kind of fascist.

People Like Uta Frith and Catherine Lord have been heralded as so-called experts on autism through the evaluation and analysis of very superficial behaviours. If you want to actually understand autism, you should Listen to autistic voices and subjective experiences.

a friend of mine was the absolute top-performing employee at his job, blew everyone else away, and he was let go because he just *could not* get up in time to be in at 9am. all the early bedtimes, alarm clocks, phone calls and door knocks in the world couldn’t beat his ADHD

Of "social anxiety" + "hyper sensitivity" being a better fit. The comments that the spectrum has now "lost all meaning." I am horrified because so much progress has been made in recognising autism in women + girls and here is someone undoing it + invalidating us in the process.

I'm still here guys

i want to live in a world where women and their lived experiences are fucking believed by default

This week is sexual abuse and violence awareness week and everything we’re seeing shows how easy it is to dismiss the voices of survivors.

Hot baths and aromatherapy are still greatly appreciated.

Yesterday was such a difficult day re: emotional regulation. Morning exercise and stimulants barely touched the meltdown that eventually grabbed my ass by the early afternoon. Sometimes there's nothing you can do to stop it.

Everyone self-diagnoses; literally everyone. You notice symptoms, form an idea, then go in to get that idea confirmed or corrected. Either way, the diagnostic journey always starts with a degree of self-diagnosis. In psychology and medicine, it’s known as “presenting self-diagnosis” or “self-perceived condition.” It’s a recognised part of how people seek care. Even in clinical training, doctors are taught to start from the patient’s own perception of illness (“What do you think is going on?”) because it guides the diagnostic conversation. The only difference is accuracy and how seriously people act on it before professional input.

“ everyone has adhd now” “ everyone wanna be neurodivergent” Is it that you want people to talk about & be more open minded to mental h. conditions or not? A part of that openness is also letting it be destigmatised variously The healthcare system has failed so many Shut up!

The last writing piece I did, on film, was well received and the director loved it so that was very cool 😊

My friend I made in 2021 who was my nail tech and now a super close friend is gorgeous. She sent me a postcard when she went to Glastonbury. Told me I can call her if I'm ever "on the edge" and she sent me a lil gift in the post. She's one person I can actually be myself with.

I haven't updated/tweeted in ages. Little update: I'm 19 months in my burn out recovery. I applied for a job in an ND service and wasn't shortlisted despite experience and being informed about the job 2 weeks prior - the job market is rigged in case you didn't know