Living with Autism

The walking path on Greystones Beach, looking north towards Dublin.




After a week of Doom and Gloom from our recent budget, I have decided to try and cheer myself up with a reminder of what will not change in a "recession" economy. You see, after 10 years of Celtic Tiger boom times, Ireland has joined the rest of the world in progressing from a credit crunch into 4 quarters of negative growth (shrinkage?) which I believe dumps us in a recession.






A lot of people are not working, the banks are being guaranteed by the government as people panic about their savings, and there are still a lot of "For Sale" signs around as people jump ship from mortgages that they can't afford.


And the Budget, brought forward to shore up an ailing exchequer, went after the very people civilised society is supposed to protect; The Elderly, Children, The Disabled and People with Special Needs, and they threw in a 1% levy on People on Low Incomes.


But I talked about that already in my pos…

MeetDeputy Joe Behan Independent TD for Wicklow I don't often get local in this blog as I prefer to keep at least a semblance of anonymity, but tonight I am inspired to post on the actions of a man with a conscience. Our member of parliament (or TD as we call them an gailge) for the county I live in, has resigned from the ruling coalition party this evening. He will continue to stand, but as an Independent that our coalition government has to "court" in order to secure his vote. The straw that broke Deputy Joe''s resolve was a decision this week to remove medical cards from the over 70's in our budget. Older people who would have gone to the doctor to have a cold checked out and treated, will have to think twice and perhaps then develop pneumonia, end up in hospital and then be too frail to be discharged to care for themselves at home. Thus taking up a hospital bed that an acute patient waiting on a trolley in the emergency room would need. An acute patient who ma…

Okay I edited that last bit from the AA webpage as some of us believe in a non-gender-specific deity.





This is a tricky one for a control freak like myself. And yes control freakery is definitely "in the spectrum" as we cannot tolerate anything outside of what we think is the way things should be done.


But, as I said in my post Excuse Me I think you dropped something.. trying to control everything can mean you get things wrong sometimes, but everyone is too frightened of you to tell you.



So yes, you do have to turn some of your will over to relevant experts and follow what they suggest. Not just folks in white coats with clip boards and degrees, but folks who have gone before you and tripped over; and are telling you to watch out for that pitfall as you pass by now.





However, becoming a special parent isn't like joining a cult or the marines. You should not have to be broken down to a quivering mess, and then re-built.





A lot of the good old fashioned parenting common sense tha…

Aye Curumba!

Can you tell I didn't think this through?

I decided at the beginning not to "read ahead" and discover the next steps because I suspected it might make me cop out and not do the series at all.



And as you can see by the gap in posting, I have procrastinated about approaching this one. In the end I went back to google and instead of jumping on the Wikipedia tram, I scrolled down a bit and found the irish website.You see, because this is still allegedly a catholic country, they take their religion for granted. So the Godspeak is decidedly low key. Which suits this Anglican Agnostic nicely.



Actually that reminds me of a good joke:



"Did you hear the one about the Dyslexic Agnostic Insomniac?



Stayed up all night wondering about the existence of DOG."



Boom Boom! I actually rang up and told that joke on the radio once. And fuh'ed it up saying"Oh Shite I fecked it up" live on air.

Which was actually way funnier than the joke. People were crashi…

I have been tagged by the delightful enc. of Observation Mode to tell you 11 little things about me, namely my favourite:

1.Clothes Shop:

Hmm, a toss up between the Trinity Hospice Shop in Bayswater and The UK Cancer Research Shop on The Kings Road in Chelsea.

2. Furniture Shop:

I love Ashford Antiques, Ashford County Wicklow.
Pretty things from old farmers houses mostly. I got the table I work at now because someone had fixed it, ruining it's antique value. When I need something I am a good cash buyer. When I don't need something I have to avert my eyes when I drive past....

3.Sweet:

It has become Kinder Bueno. I am afraid I fell out with Tim Tams as I did with anything I ate the day before I got my middle ear infection. INCLUDING WINE! Nothing like a big dose of nausea and dizzyness to put you off your treats.

4.City:

Sydney. Once upon a time and maybe some day again in the future. When I am a jetsetter.

5. Drink:

Green Tea or Diet Coke. That was the sound of the economy of Bourgogne …

Ahem....
This week my Guru, The Seeker has once again bestowed me with a little award. Thankyou my lady.


Yippee, not only do I feel honored, but I get a chance to tell you about 7 other blogs who deserve a little lovin' and by turn give them the chance to send out their love.
You see, despite what we may feel about world finance, established religions, the loss of community and the isolation of marginalised minorities; the blog world overcomes all that.
Instead we celebrate connectedness by accepting our awards and sending you to our nominees, where you may discover your commonality with someone you would never normally meet.
Because that is the great thing about bloggin'. At any time of the day or night there is someone out there, putting their thoughts on the keyboard, finding a pretty picture to share with us, finding a funny catalogue to give us a giggle; telling us we are beautiful and valuable and worth knowing.
It is like a big virtual beauty salon where we can sit under the d…

Noooo! I am not admitting I am powerless. But I will extract what I need from Step One in two ways.

The first, is to admit, to allow yourself to believe that nothing you did caused your child's diagnosis to happen. That you had no power to stop it.
Yes there are birth related disabilities caused by drug abuse, alcohol abuse or smoking heavily while pregnant resulting in a lower birth weight and reduced learning ability. But we are not talking about those.

The first stage of hearing of a diagnosis is the flood of guilt and fear that maybe something you did brought it about. And if you were foolish enough to read "What to expect when you're expecting" while you were pregnant, then you are going to be easily convinced that the odd glass of wine, the donuts, the cold tablet you took when you had the flu' all brought about your child's disability. Either that or all the "empty calories" you ate while trying to stuff down the reflux you experienced between w…