Are we autistic?

Now there’s a question that is very dependent on who you are asking internal/external, and when you are asked the question. TLDR: It is probably useful to think of at least some of us within our system in those terms. We have a developing understanding of this, and feel that it is a sub-optimal description, and that we may have just developed through environmental pressures to exhibit autistic traits. But we are open to the idea pre-assessment....

September 14, 2021 · 10 min · COTH

Approaching an actual autism assessment

How we got here Roughly 7 months ago, we were made aware of the newly formed Adult Autism Assessment team for our health board area by our GP. Now we have had a very mixed (mostly bad) experience with the GP surgery, but this was genuinely useful and much appreciated. So we ended up being given a self referral form, and the contact details of the Adult Autism team. Guess the question of why....

September 14, 2021 · 6 min · COTH

GP Communication Letter

This is a letter we sent to our GP Surgery quite some time ago This is mainly here to provide extended context to the post about the lead up to our autism assessment appointments. Reference post found here Dear Sir/Madam, It is nearly a calendar year since we last saw in person a member of the NHS, and we are struggling to understand how we will ever be able to access one in the future....

September 14, 2021 · 5 min · COTH

War On Christmas

Bizarrely, the topic of Christmas and adverts came up just now. Apparently the business class in the local academy are focussed on this at the moment. At the start of September 🤷 Which reminds of one of our favourite tracks: War on Christmas by Epic Beard Men But also what we wrote last year: Some of us do not like Christmas. It’s not to spoil it for others. It is hard for us....

September 8, 2021 · 2 min · COTH

Transition and Teaching

While we have not yet finished it in it’s entirety, we have been reading Shon Faye’s book The Transgender Issue1. We can say it’s worth a read in our opinion, However, it was the first few pages that really hit home. They articulated so well, why we have said from some time, that since we left teaching we would not return to working with young people again in the future. Teaching or any other role....

September 7, 2021 · 9 min · COTH