Global Autism Awareness Week and the launch of a new Facebook group

It's autism awareness week this week (March 27th - April 2nd 2023) and a coincidence (or is it?!) for the launching of a new Facebook group for autisic book lovers (writers and readers). It's an idea I've had for some time as there are many autistics who have books as their special interest. I've already done some blogs on my own experience of the writing and reading process. Do we approach the writing and reading of books differently?  I didn't even know until recently that the creative arts was such a flourishing thing with us! I had imagination so I couldn't be autistic, could I?

 

https://youtu.be/RFb0xfTs72M

I'm an author and also a reader, but I'm only able to read about a dozen books a year for reasons I've outlined in earlier blogs, and slow processing means I always have a backlog of reads. Sadly even more at the moment because of sore eyes and eye strain. So writing is my priority and first passion! I know there are others where reading is their first passion. I know there are many indie authors (some of whom will be autistic) who are longing to reach more readers and would be happy to do some giveaways or provide reviews copies in exchange for a bit of love for their books and a few more reviews and shares. I know too there are many autistics whose special interest is escaping into books, who can't get enough of the written word. So why not have a group where we can marry these two together? 

So this is the subject of my blog today - the launch of the new Facebook group. I will put the link in the written blog. 'The group is called Autistic Authors and Readers - books are our special interest.' (link below) I have spread the word mainly in one women and autism group, who kindly let me do so. So we have a shortage of men at the moment. Also would be lovely to have some younger people and people of colour. But all autistic book lovers -and those with ADHD I should add - are very welcome if they're happy to keep to the spirit of the group which is to connect and engage with our shared love of books. Hopefully some readers will discover some new authors and books from people like them. 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/243261171372852/permalink/243261191372850/

Topics may change and evolve but at the moment the aim is to connect and engage with our shared love of books. Authors may wish to discuss about the writing process, their success or otherwise (!), their books and characters; readers may wish to chat about what sort of books they love. 

Authors may post their books, blogs, websites and book promos in the comments section, preferably no more than one a week but no rules set in stone yet.  Just the usual: to be kind and civil, no spam, give as much as you take, no racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism and no flashing GIFS. Hope to see you there!

Thank you! 😊 

Noise or change to routine - an autistic's nightmare dilemma

This week has been a bit fraught in anticipation of next week when we’re expecting building works next door. We autistics hate disruptions to our routines but sensory overload is another one of those things which bothers us greatly. I think it bothers most people but many autistic people just can’t switch off. Just as many of us love certain songs music, we can have extreme reaction to other sounds (and indeed other senses). Chris Packham addressed this in his recent programmes 'Inside The Autistic Mind'. He mentioned the apparent contradiction of sensory avoidance and sensory seeking eg loving certain music or sounds of nature etc.

But I'm mainly talking about sensory avoidance today. So for me, I'm hugely distressed by unexpected noise like scaffolders, impact noise - footsteps above me or sudden bangs from the floor above me or next door. It makes living with neighbours distressing and having to rely on their goodwill. If soundproofing isn't ideal that only adds to the distress. I will talk about this more in a later blog in relation to my one of my books but I don't have the spoons at the moment to put it together at the moment.

Last time during lockdown we had the balcony above us done and the hammering and crashing pounded and resounded through our small abode and we couldn’t escape during lockdown. I had a migraine on one day and ended up shouting at the builders. Our housing association hadn’t given us any warning either. So this time and armed with a diagnoses I have taken the bull by the horns and we’ve decided to escape. Autistics like to know exactly what will happen and when but the weather might be bad and so the builders might delay and that’s all another grist to our anxiety mill. 

Other things that I've always hated and had no idea they were related to autism (in me), is phones suddenly ringing. When I was a child and teenager they didn't go to answerphone either. You will see a picture of the kind of phone we had in the 1960s in my video although I didn’t have to deal with the phone as a child. One such phone features in my novel ‘Did You Whisper Back?' which I’ll discuss more another time. 

Later we had a plastic 1970s phone and it would just ring and ring until someone answered the bugger, or until it finally rang off! I always feared if it was someone for me. I didn’t realise but other autistics have said that they feel better when they do the phoning. I’ve always said this too, as I’m more in control, although I hated ever having to do this in front of other people eg at work. Then there’s the doorbell. That sudden urgent noise through the house, especially when it’s unexpected.

There's also visual sensory overload. I hate flashing lights and don't even start me on GIFS! They can trigger all sorts of reactions and conditions in the neurological sensitive eg migraines and are a factor in other conditions such as agoraphobia, more about which another time.

So, not much about writing today. Just to say my special interests get disrupted with any upheaval. I can’t carry on with chaos or interrupted routines. I have had to choose between disruption to routine or noise for several days. Not a great choice!

As ever, I’d love to hear your own thoughts. So please do leave a comment here or on my video which I’ll be uploading to the usual places.

Authism - Helen and Cathy in 'Fruit Woman'

Today I’d like to talk about my book Fruit Woman. When I wrote it  in the 1990s, I didn’t know Helen was autistic. Just to give you a bit of a blurb – Fruit Woman takes place on a family holiday which triggers many memories of holidays of yore for Helen. I won't give any spoilers although this may be a trigger for some people as Helen's cousin was accused of the rape of a family friend, several years before while Helen was away at university.

                                                  https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B013CRLF5Q

 Fruit Woman is set in the 1980s and also refers back to the 1960s and 1970s in the form of flashbacks. In the 1980s, there was a definite profile of what autistic was - and it was usually male and usually a child, although of course there were big screen portrayals like Rain Man. However, even that hadn't been released when this book was set. Nowadays, Helen, and her younger sister Cathy, would probably be diagnosed with autism. As I am autistic myself  I recognise many of their traits. Many of them were based on me.        

People reviewing the book have commented that Helen is more like a teenager than someone of twenty-seven. I have to say there are many autistics older than Helen who are just as child-like and young for their age! Helen is naive and believing so she doesn’t always see danger. At their old Devon holiday haunt—Myrtle Cottages—Helen's best friend Bella accuses her of being 'deliberately obtuse', unable to believe she could be so clueless. But Helen tends to take people at face value. She is ultra sensitive and feels things more intensely than most of her contemporaries. She’s always been like this and didn’t always understand the social rules as a child and therefore she and her sister Cathy were susceptible to bullying. We learn how socially awkward Helen and Cathy were as children, how hard for them to fit in, especially having moved to a completely new area. This is something my own sister and I had to contend with at primary school age. 

 

Helen probably has ADHD too which often co-exists with autism. She finds it hard to concentrate on the world around her and has always lived in a bit of a fantasy world with her sister Cathy. This has been a way of coping with the pressing demands of the real world. “Oh yes, Cathy, I'll dream if you dream. Remember? Remember the birds egg which cracked open and released the feathered cat, all staggering and sticky and ugly to begin with but didn't he become a beautiful creature, that great winged cat with his stunning smokey plumage? It was all animals in those days, born from the walls of the glass knight. They knew we were different, Cathy, didn't they? But were we different because we were alone or alone because we were different?"

 

Helen also alludes to the way Cathy asks deep questions as soon as someone walks into the room and states that Cathy "wasn't made for such earthly chores as picking ripe avocados or making decent cups of tea. Dear Cathy, who can't function in the commercial world at all but thrives on a bit of voluntary work and the odd W.E.A. class." (WEA stands for Workers’ Educational Association which is basically adult education). Cathy always loved chess and, particularly as a child, failed to pick up on cues from other children.  This is common in some children  but especially autistics who often fail to read the emotions of the other, eg when another person is bored etc. 

 

'Ah, you soon frightened them off, Cathy, those school friends you brought home, sat down and forced chess upon - those patient or bright enough to learn the rules. You couldn't see that just because you were bats about chess, other little girls and boys preferred to study tadpoles in jars or play hopscotch or conkers. You were still young enough to be completely ruthless. Perhaps one or two of the children might have been a trifle more interested if you'd conceded a few moves or let them think that they'd nearly won once or twice, just to boost their confidence, but instead you thrashed them, each and every one." 

 

I remember doing this with a child myself which I may have mentioned in an earlier blog. I’d just learned to play chess and thought my only friend (at that time) must love it too! I think it took my mum to rescue the poor child! 

 

Well, I hope that’s given you a flavour of the book and the characters of Helen and Cathy. It was a complete revelation to me about their neurodiversity but now it seems plain to me. Just as a footnote, I have been toying with the idea of changing the title to 'By Their Fruits' mainly because some readers are missing the concept of the fruit woman which is reflected in some reviews - maybe it raises the wrong sort of expectations. I don't know. Anyway, the book is available as Fruit Woman at the moment on Amason both in digital and paperback format.

I’ve embedded the video content in this blog and, as always, please do leave a comment below.

Many thanks 

 

Imagination in autism

Today I'm looking at the differences in imagination between autistic and neurotypicals. They say people with autism have a problem with imagination but apparently what seems to be the problem is difficulties with social imagination ie imagining the world form someone else’s perspective; recognising that other people have different perspectives, thoughts and feelings from their own. Lack of social imagination also means that people with autism can be agitated by changes in routine. Apart from the anxiety about changes in routine –a big one for me – I'm still trying to grasp this! Maybe because I'm in my sixties, I take lack of social imagination for granted or maybe I have learned it along the way.

 It’s known that people with autism can actually have a vivid imagination and are often involved in the arts.  As an author I need imagination and to be able to understand different points of view of my characters in order to write my books. That sort of imagination isn’t difficult for me.          

 

That said, I do think I lack imagination in some ways which might be an odd thing for a writer to say. Certainly when I wrote any sort of thank-you letter as a child I felt it was dutiful and my mind went a complete blank as I struggled to fill up one side of a small piece of stationery. Anything shorter would have been unacceptable. It was preferable to write on the back and if you could fill up the second page all the better! I remember my father reading out thank-you letters from some of my cousins which were amusing and original, not like my own stodgy unimaginative handiwork, which felt woefully inadequate in comparison. 

 

Another time, when I was seven, I remember the teacher asking us to write a story about getting to know a neighbour. As an example she said a ball being accidentally thrown over the fence  but was looking for more unusual scenarios. However, I don’t think I could get past her suggestion and I think my story definitely involved a ball! (In fairness I wasn't the only one!) I remember the teacher reading out someone’s story where the cat had got its paw stuck in the fence. She praised it for its difference and I couldn’t beat that.                                                                                 

 

Another example comes back to me of having to write about something we did at the weekend. Maybe the subject matter didn’t float my boat. Maybe I hadn’t done a thing sufficiently interesting at the weekend but I remember one time sitting there in a frozen panic and peering over my best friend’s shoulder. She was writing away. I was near enough to copy it. I could just change a few words here and there and that’s what I did! 

 

But thinking about books and genres, I can't get on with fantasy as a genre. And to a lesser extent science fiction. There are, of course, always exceptions to the rule. At A level we studied H G Wells short stories and I did love many of them. But I think the reason I struggle with fantasy fiction is I can't cope with lots of new and unfamiliar names or fantastical places with long made-up names or whimsical creatures. Even when reading any sort of fiction, the reader is introduced to a lot of new people and unfamiliar location which is a lot to process. So it helps if it is a seamless read for the reader, preferably with names or some aspect of the environment that is familiar. It doesn't matter if it's in a foreign country as long as we're not introduced to too many new characters with unfamiliar names at once. This is a good rule of thumb anyway - regardless of familiarity of names or otherwise. It all stems back to the processing speed and retention of a lot of information which  we looked at earlier and which Autistics can struggle with.

                                                                  

In an autism group I was discussing this and explained that I didn’t get on with fantasy, sci fi or paranormal books that were too far-fetched. Someone else responded with: “This is so interesting to read. I loved books as a kid - and still do - but like you, not fantasy or sci fi. I can do fiction but it has to be believable (ish)! So as a kid I read Famous Five because although adventures with smugglers and suchlike were a bit far-fetched, they still followed the rules of what's humanly possible. I read the Narnia books but it annoyed me when magic happened!" Someone else said she liked to read fantasy like Narnia as a kid….but could “only write what feels real”.  

 

I really understood this, especially about Narnia because, as I explained in the thread, my sister and I loved the beginning of the Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe, the way the children went through the back of the wardrobe and  the magical walk in the snow but only as far as the lamppost. But beyond that but we weren’t interested. The Lion and the Snow Queen or what happened beyond the lamppost was fantastical!

 

But I am still struggling to see how lack of social imagination relates to fantasy or science fiction books - maybe it’s my lack of being able to imagine a world that isn’t equivalent to ours, being able to imagine creatures or animals or place names that are unfamiliar. Strangely, I didn’t feel the same about fairy tales or fables. I guess it’s good characters, descriptions and relatable emotions that are key for me and maybe I’m not giving fantasy writing a fair hearing. Maybe the books I have begun reading in those genres haven’t been the best ones. Or maybe the concentration and processing problems I have spoken about in earlier blogs means it’s harder work and less enjoyable if I have to wade through mythical names and places.                                                    

 

As I say I certainly think I lack some sort of imagination but this was/is usually in stressful social situations, like the situation at school and having to write a story on the spot. I'm not sure this was lack of imagination or more question of how social anxiety can impact on it. I’ve never been good with time limits or deadlines or people all around me while trying to be creative. This comes back to the need for thinking and processing time in one’s own space and presumably with all ones comforts. The article below outlines more about this:

 

https://faithmummy.wordpress.com/2017/07/20/lack-of-imagination-in-autism-is-not-what-you-may-think/

 

 

I can’t say I related to a lot of this article or it may be that I’ve just forgotten. I certainly struggled enormously when I moved schools to a new area aged 7 and spent the first few terms playing on my own. I think maybe this paragraph resonated the most: 

 

“Lack of social imagination  is also why my daughter has no concept when others are bored listening to her talk on and on about her latest fixation.  Not only can she not imagine that everyone else would love Thomas Tank Engine as much as she does but she also can not imagine that you would want to do something else if she doesn’t…”

 

 I do remember forcing chess on my only friend at the age of 7 or 8. I do remember my mum feeling for the other child and saying she probably doesn’t want to keep playing chess. But I’m sure a lot of young children are like this as they’ve not yet learned the social rules. When I was older I hated the idea of people being bored. I wouldn’t enjoy it if they weren’t. 

 

Anyway, that's all for this time. I've also uploaded this in video format and I’d be very interested to hear your thoughts in the comments below. 

 

Maladaptive Daydreaming in ADHD

Greetings!

Above is the longer-than-usual vlog content with my sister Ann (off camera!) Apologies if the quality is a bit poor but I had to condense it here. But it's also available at a higher quality on YouTube at the link below:

https://youtu.be/M2KSFIFXQvI

But it's a big topic this time and I could speak for hours about this. ADDitude did a webinar on this subject a few months ago in relation to ADHD but until then I'd never heard of Maladaptive daydreaming before. I'd heard of daydreaming obviously - something  which occupied so much of my childhood. But suddenly I was hearing the term Maladaptive Daydreaming everywhere. Dr Soffer-Dudek is the expert and - I think - coined the term. It's not a formal diagnosis, but a suggested syndrome. 

As you probably gathered, people with maladaptive daydreaming spend a large amount of time daydreaming and is defined as replacing human activity. People with the condition feel a need to daydream all the time so can't attend to work or other activity. They want to daydream all the time as it's so much fun. It's also said to be addictive and Immersive.

I'm not sure what the situation is if you do this with someone else as in make-believe play or escaping into a fantasy world with someone else. But this was me and my sister! We loved being characters. It began in childhood with our dolls and animal toys no doubt. Then in our teens it would be with real people such as our favourite pop stars or people at school or in the family.  In the webinar Soffer-Dudek said the daydreams can be characters from movies or invented characters or celebrities. So there you go! She said the fantasies have a narrative, people can become very attached to the characters and can fall in love with them. Ann and I know this - we can go one better! Our characters fell in love with each other! Some people have said it's similar to soap operas as characters can evolve over time so the characters can become parents and grandparents and they can have them for twenty years. Tick. We've watched our characters become parents and their children grow up. Tick.

With maladptive daydreaming people get totally absorbed and choose to do this over seeing friends - it can be addictive like gambling. This daydreaming can occupy hours and hours on end and is very vivid. We definitely did this but tried not to be too unsociable. Some people use music to trigger the altered consciousness.

But, Soffer-Dudek explained, it's not psychotic as people know they're doing it although they can forget about their environment. But people are aware of it, and conceal it in public. Ann and I did this. We would spend hours in our room being 'our people' as we called them, either having conversations or playing cards or listening to music or acting out various spontaneous scenarios. Gradually we invented our own characters, usually a few years or a decade older than us, at first, and eventually we dispensed with the real life counterparts as our own characters became more three-dimensional.

Apparently the maladaptive part is based to some extent on whether it causes a person distress or impairs functioning. Ann and I wouldn't have said so! Maybe parents or relatives might have thought it in that we weren't living in the real world as much as they thought we could or should. But we had to go to school and socialize and later to work. The characters and daydreaming was compensatory to some extent, to make our lives fun and make up for the social awkwardness in real-life. Real life could also feed the fantasies and scenarios so had a very good function there.

As well as fantasy being compensatory, and giving back power and control, playing out different roles is important too. We would also feel the emotions just as our characters would feel them. Maladaptive daydreaming can also follow trauma. It can be related to anxiety, depression, and OCD as well as ADHD. Some people lose control and it becomes a coping method, a sort of escapism when anxious and a compulsive need to immerse themselves. As well as being addictive it can be rewarding in the short term. Afterwards some people apparently feel guilt and shame, lonely and embarrassed. I have to say Ann and I never did but maybe because there were two of us and we didn't abandon real life.

According to Soffer-Dudek, some people today wouldn't get a diagnosis of ADHD but would get maladaptive daydreaming. She went on to say that 20 percent of people with ADHD probably have maladaptive daydreaming instead. 

There's a definite 'comorbidity' with autism too.

"Individually and privately, girls with autism are known to sometimes inhabit a rich fantasy world full of imaginary friends, animals and creatures." (Atwood 2007; Holliday Willie 2014). 

In Sarah Hendrickx brilliant book: Women And Girls With Autism Spectrum Disorder she states “...Overwhelmingly what we see in girls is an unusual extreme identification with the characters in fiction books, TV programmes and sometimes people they know and feeling attachment to; the girls actually ‘become’ the character. This may involve reenacting scenes from the book, film or show over and over again, mimicry and getting lost in the fantasy to the point of having difficulty in separating it from real life....”

Hendrickx found with girls who do this "it was more of an escape to a better place from a real world that was difficult and sometimes unhappy."

In a thread on daydreaming someone suggested it is only maladaptive if it impedes on your life. My feeling is it depends on how you define impeding on your life. I suppose you could say it impeded ours although we tried to live a normal life in parallel but staying in and being our characters instead of going out socially for the sake of it? I'm not sure that's maladaptive! I often used social occasions for feeding my fantasy world! That’s not to say we didn’t go out socially but sometimes couldn’t wait to get home as if going out was just going through the motions. They say music can enhance it. I'd say in our case music definitely enhanced it in the sense of reminding us of situations with our people or if our characters liked the music. But it wasn't essential.

I may have thought of it as something to hide when I was younger and something that we would grow out of but this was mainly coming from other people. I see it as creative and something to celebrate now. Relating this to the writing side: wouldn't all authors do this? All authors invent characters and have imaginary conversations and scenes with them. But maybe having someone to share it with is a gift. 

Well, I'll definitely be returning to this subject in the future but in the meantime I would love to know your thoughts. Please leave a comment on the blog or YouTube or both!

Thanks 😊

More on the ADDitude webinar can be found here:

https://maladaptivedaydreamingcenter.org/2022/06/06/live-webinar-on-july-20-maladaptive-daydreaming-vs-adhd-important-similarities-and-distinctive-differences/

Executive Function Skills and Plotting a Novel

In this blog I want to address the executive functioning part of autism and how it relates to writing, in particular plotting and structure. 

Just briefly, most people with autism and/or ADHD will have executive function problems. The kind of EF difficulties will be manifested in things like planning, timing, organising, problem-solving, communicating in an ordered sequential manner, prioritzing, picking out what's important, problems with working memory, staying on track and multitasking. 

Also on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Cjv6iUYMquE

When writing a book one of the main things you need to do is plot it! You need to organising your thoughts and plan out its structure. As you can imagine, all the qualities mentioned above are necessary for this. A plot is often described as a sequence of events and as we can see many autistics have problems with this.

This maybe why I have always been drawn to writing (and reading) character-driven fiction. 

In an article by Sean Glatch at Writers.com he sums up this distinction between the two kinds of writing:

"A common distinction between different types of fiction is whether the story is “plot driven” or “character driven.” This refers to whether the plot of a story defines the characters, or whether the characters define the plot of a story. Specifically, this distinction is made to differentiate literary fiction vs. genre fiction. Generally, a piece of literary fiction will have the characters in control of the plot, as the story’s plot points are built entirely off the decisions that those characters make and the influences of those characters’ personalities. Genre fiction, by contrast, tends to have predefined plot structures and archetypes, and the characters must fit into those structures in order to tell a complete story. While this general distinction helps organize the qualities of fiction, don’t treat them as absolutes. Literary fiction borrows plot devices from genre fiction all the time, and there are many examples of genre fiction that are character driven. Your story should build a working relationship between the characters and the plot, as both are essential elements of the storyteller’s toolkit."

What is the Plot of a Story? Plot Structures & Devices | Writers.com

I think readers often come to a piece of fiction and are expecting something plot-driven and then be let down if it's character-driven. This is why it's important to categorise your book. If a reader wants genre and more plot-driven fiction then they are going to feel frustrated with something that's more descriptive, slow-moving or exploring characters internal words or that plays with, for example, form or viewpoint. 

However, I was once advised that character-driven is plot-driven and that stayed with me. If I'm drawn to a character I want to know what happens to him or her. Their flaws and foibles will drive a lot of the story as mentioned in the article above.

I always thought plotting was my weak point. When I used to send my work off to agents and I was lucky enough to get constructive feedback it was often things about the plot, structure or narrative arc that came under fire. If you Google different plots and techniques you will see a dizzying array which, if you're anything like me, won't do your ADHD any favours! Hell, some people can do their plot mathematically knowing exactly at what points to put their climaxes. There probably is a Fibonacci sequence for writing the perfect book but that's far too analytical for me. I prefer to feel my way and go with the flow.

After all, if you ever do author interviews online one of the questions you'll invariably be asked is: are you a plotter or a panster? Panster, being the opposite to plotter, is flying by the seat of your pants and seeing where the writing takes you. I do do bits of plotting which evolve as I go along but the freedom of pantsing suits my way of writing and is a perfectly legitimate approach.

Maybe I get distracted by too many subplots, with an inability to see the wood for the trees. Too many parts and not the whole. I used to approach chess in the same manner and took the circuitous route.  I did get there in the end but usually played with others who had a similar style of play!

But this is maybe why I like slice of life fiction or stream of consciousness fiction. Novels where plot is looser, that makes use of flashback and less linear sequences, where freshness of thought and observation are just as key. Luckily a lot of contemporary fiction makes use of such techniques

As a final word, I think synopses can be the hardest thing to write especially for us autistics! You have to pick out what's important in your book and as for those who want you to outline what each chapter is about - forget it!

I would love to hear from other autistic or neurodiverse authors to see how you approach novel-writing. Are you a plotter or a panster - or a plotster even! The fact that we've completed and published books at all means we must have overcome or worked around our executive dysfunction and that's to be celebrated!

In the meantime happy new year to all 😊

"You Can't Be Autistic" a poem by Kit Foxworth

Greetings and welcome to the fourth post on my authistic blog.

This time I wanted to share words from somebody else. Earlier this year I joined several Facebook Groups in relation to autism - particularly women and autism - before my diagnosis in June. This is where I learned so much about autism and found people there just like me! 

A few weeks ago someone called Kit Foxworth shared a poem in one such group which perfectly summed up the experience of many adult women with autism. It resonated with so many other group members. Kit herself said she doesn't usually write in rhyming couplets but it worked well on this occasion and was met with many enthusiastic comments.

So a big thanks to Kit Foxworth for giving permission to share her poem.