For me, one of the most puzzling aspects of autism is still the “road-to-overload”. Sometimes the day seems like a four-lane highway that you smoothly cross over, another time you feel like rope dancing over an abyss… through snow and blizzards! But quite recently, I encountered the hashtag #spoonie, that refers to people who use the so-called “spoon theory”, a metaphor that enables users to concretise their energy levels. As it helps me, in this blog post, I share it with you in the hope that it may help you too.

New year's holiday concept

“What’s your resolution?” Facebook asked me. And I thought “Umm, just 1024 x 768, why?” . Oops. But of course, I do have many wishes and dreams for the year(s) to come! And as a student of neuropsychology, I might be able to help others to achieve their goals by giving some tips. Therefore, I talked about this with journalist Robbert Minkhorst for a story in “FIT”, the health supplement of various local and regional Dutch newspapers (the Noord-Hollands Dagblad, Haarlems Dagblad, Leidsch Dagblad and de Gooi and Eemlander). And worked out an English version of my rambling for this blog. 😉

Carol S. Pearson’s bestselling book “The Hero Within” combines insights from literature, anthropology and psychology to distinguish six heroic archetypes. Taking both Hans Christian Andersen’s and Disney’s versions ‘The Little Mermaid’ as case studies, this blogpost shall identify archetypes from Pearson’s Heroic Myth Index that can be traced in the main character.

Welcome / Välkommen / Witaj / Добро пожаловать / ようこそ ! My name is Martine Mussies (pronounciation) and I am an academic researcher and autistic academic. As a PhD student at the University of Maastricht, the Netherlands, I am writing my thesis about the Cyborg Mermaid, or to be more concrete: about the way modern media empower people to create new stories based on mermaid mythology. What fascinates me most about the study of fantastic beings is that the way in which we shape them tells us so much about what it means to be human. Besides my research, I am a musician, I do martial arts and I study neuropsychology at the University of Chicago (via e-learning). Just like your typical Aspergirl, I am an eternal student …

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