Hello, everyone!
How’s everyone doing?
Since Autism Awareness Month was in April, I thought I would share some of the things I thought to be helpful. A part of awareness is being open about it, so I’ve been spending the last month essentially “coming out” as autistic and figuring out what it means to be publically unmasked. Even though I have not hidden it here, people in my everyday life outside the internet have no idea. Most people in my life don’t. To try to treat myself how I’d like to be treated means being open and aware of what that may mean. So here’s a talk I gave a year ago on practicing Stoic philosophy in my day job as a mental health clinician that aired during last year’s Stoic Cares’ first annual conference about being a neurodivergent mental health Skills Clinician.
Let me know what you think.
This is from What I Want to Talk About by Pete Wharmby.
ONE—The Great Big ABA Opposition Resource List. This month I fell down a rabbit hole that was the pernicious effect of ABA therapy on autistic kids. And it revealed a horrifying truth—I live near a center that treats kids with ABA. So, I’m starting a new project that will hopefully shed some light on the horrible effects this only form of therapy has on kids.
TWO—The autistic community is having a reckoning with ABA therapy. We should listen by Ariana Cernius. This is probably the biggest article in a major publication on the issue. Read this, and you’ll get a pretty good summary of the issue.
THREE—A friend is starting a study on policing mental health in Bloomington. If you have thoughts on it, please take this poll if you’ve ever seen anything.
FOUR—One of my favorite neurodivergent creators these days is Charlie Rewilding. Like me, she’s been struggling with autistic burnout, and while I don’t live in London and can’t quit my day job due to, well, having to work to get forgiveness for my student loans, and while I wish I had any kind of audience like hers (I’m just not that good at the whole social media thing, I realize that this is not something I have much control over, so I’m just trying a bunch of different things, and hopefully it’ll be of some use to someone. I mean, this letter goes out to under 100 people.) I like Charlie’s approach to nature and the books she reads—she introduced me to Pete Wharmby, and boy, was that a rabbit hole I’ve been loving.
FIVE—The great Brad Listi interviews Emily St. John Mandel and Jinwoo Chong on OtherPPL. I loved Sea of Tranquility and am excited for Flux, which I dove into this weekend.
From My Notes
Here is the original take on my Stoic Cares neurodiversity talk, which had a lot more on how I practice philosophy as a neurodivergent person. I hope you like it.
Cheers,
Dave