Let it Go! Let it Go! 😉 – people with autism are notorious for their inability to let go – and I am no exception to this. That is why I wrote the following blog post for The Art of Autism: Letting Go is Difficult But Allows Us To Grow. A Dutch version was already published at Ik Overtref Me. Hope it helps! <3
Continue reading “Letting Go is Difficult But Allows Us To Grow”
Dating is difficult, complicated, messy, and awkward for everyone, I assume. But autism adds an extra layer of turmoil to that already unstable cocktail. Especially if you’re bisexual—and those last two identities often go hand in hand. Still, relatively little has been published about these intersections. In this essay I would thus like to share something of my experiences, somewhere in the triangle of dating, bisexuality, and autism.
Continue reading “I am not your Manic Pixie Dream Girl”
In “Fan Studies Methodologies“, the 2020 special issue of Transformative Works and Cultures, I described how, as an autistic gamer, I engage with games in a different way, showcasing how (dis)abled gaming, neurotypicality, fannishness, and sociopolitical responses are never independent from one another. All the examples I named in that “autiethnography” were from my adult life, but looking back, these differences in engagement were already very noticeable when I was a kid. Therefore, in the following essay, I would like to recreate my small piece of the history of the mid ‘90s Dutch video gaming culture, which was a sort of “produser community” avant la lettre.
Continue reading “Recreating two of my 1994 homebrew games”
A personal exploration into the Toxic Ableism of Inspiration Porn, originally written for feminist magazine Lover.
Continue reading “‘You are so inspiring, I mean, for an autist!’”
A while ago, I received a postcard of a beautiful Japanese art print. On the backside, someone had written a joke about “fighting like a girl” and concluded with the words “Thank you for being a strong woman in our dojo.” I was happy and touched by this act of kindness. But I also felt a bit puzzled. Being a “strong woman” – or any person, for that matter – when you have autism… is that even possible? In this blog post for the website Art of Autism, I explore this question through the lens of neuropsychology.
Continue reading “Purpose as a Brain Hack to boost your Resilience”
In April 2020, when the Netherlands just entered into a “smart” lockdown, I wrote the following blog for the Art of Autism website. It offers an autistic perspective on staying at home, and now that we seem to be opening up again, it also serves as a reminder to myself, to create a “new normal” with all I enjoyed during the lockdown.
Continue reading “Happy with the lockdown – the last taboo?”
For The Art of Autism and Proud2Bme, I wrote this blog about the challenges around eating that persons with ASD might face. An abridged version (in Dutch) was also published in Lister magazine UP.
Continue reading “Autism & Eating”