A letter to my leading lady on autism awareness day 2023

Yiayia mou (grandmother), it’s been a hard year. It’s autism awareness month and your absence is punching us in the face. Your best friend is thriving though – I think he’s almost as strong as you. You aren’t here to get his tea cup prepared with honey and a boiled kettle for when he arrives

Let’s talk about the family Madrigal..

Our Google Nest knows my favourite playlist at the moment is Disney’s Encanto soundtrack. If you haven’t had the pleasure yet, consider this my recommendation. I pressed play on Encanto having read one sentence about the film – that it had a character with autism in the cast. Knowing only that, I started watching and

My hopes for you and me

My 20s were full of love, laughter, crying, drama, fights, loses, wins, deal breakers, trips, transitions, graduations, decisions, heartbreaks, booze, dreams and so much more. Sometimes I wonder what your 20s would have been like if you were neurotypical. I wonder if we would still be a family, how close we would be and if

21 and Atypical: More than meets the eye

Autism traits are not immediately visible all the time. It may take a while to notice the stimming, the echolalia or the sensory deprivation. For decades we have been trying to be as mainstream as possible, but the tables are turning now and our uniqueness is being celebrated. People are telling their stories and we

21 and Atypical: Popping to the shops

In 2018 Sainsbury’s launched a new trial to help enhance the shopping experience for customers with hidden disabilities. The trial enables customers with hidden disabilities to collect a lanyard which indicates to colleagues that extra support is needed. The scheme helps those with hidden disabilities, such as autism, dementia, visual or hearing impairment by alerting staff that

The beach at Christmas

We are in Sri Lanka again this year for Christmas. Christos has not joined us but we spend 90% of the time imagining he was here, talking about what he would be doing (and eating) if he was and missing him so so much. Everywhere we go we are asked about him. The people of

April 2018: 2 new facts

In 2007, the Qatar representative to the UN, Her Highness Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned,  put forward a UN General Assembly resolution, to create World Autism Awareness Day. This gave way to today, a day dedicated to raising awareness about ASD across the world. Numbers published by the World Health Organisation show that approx

When Will We Learn?

I’m not going to write about the atrocity that was the US Election – here’s what i felt a year ago #Project324 Trump, Republicans and Disabilities, oh my. I’m going to write about hope, the future. I’m going to remind you that you can change things, that you need to be strong in the face of

The end of Chapter 3

Earlier this week I found out that i have finally passed my Legal Practice Course; an LPC is the vocational stage of training to be a solicitor that must be taken after completing a law degree and before practicing. This means that after 8 years of being a law student, I am done. I was trying

School bells

Memories. I have recently become more aware of the fact that i have blocked large chunks of my childhood and school life from my memory. There are things I don’t want to remember so at some point in my adult life i decided to put all those years in a black box and bury it