A letter to my fellow autistics

Dear Walden

To my dear fellows in the autistic communities, you may not realize but I am one of yours, albeit separated by geographical distance and ethnic differences, but I feel your pain when I hear people in the communities talked about the abusiveness of ABA treatment, I feel your anger when people speak of the hypocrisy of Autism Speaks and I feel for the injustices suffered by Black persons and People of Color in the autistic communities. I know these are topics that invoke strong emotions and controversies so I am careful about raising questions on these topics for fear of triggering negative emotions and arguments. Privately, I’ve attended ABA seminars held in my country to learn more about how ABA is said to be effective in helping people on the autism spectrum, and why is it that parents send their children to ABA. It is not that I don’t believe…

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Goodbye ‘Hello Koalas’

‘Hello Koalas’ is a public sculpture trail in Port Macquarie, NSW, Australia that is dedicated to celebrate and raise the awareness of the importance of protecting koalas and their habitat. There are a total of 68 hand painted koala sculptures scattered around the region. The pictures below were taken during my trip to Port Macquarie last year (September 2018). We weren’t able to visit all 68 sculptures because some of them are  located further away from the town centre and only accessible by private transportation. However, we still managed to cover 38 koala sculptures using public transportation and our good old feet. Note that the collection is constantly changing and moving so there is a chance that some of the sculptures featured below would have moved elsewhere or no longer on display. You can visit the Hello Koalas website to find out more.

On this note, I inform that this blog is now retired. Thank you so much for all the wonderful memories you’ve given me. I have a new blog called, um, Dear Walden. Hope to see you there!

https://dearwalden.wordpress.com/

Mental Health Monday

Sorry everyone, I’ve been busy, my new blog will be delayed for a bit.

Thanks to everyone who responded to my previous post.

I have two burning questions on mental health that I need to get it off my chest. I will  later explain in a longer post the reasons that prompted these questions.

(1) “People who die by suicide are selfish.” Do you …

(a) agree

(b) disagree

(c) neither agree nor disagree

(2) “People who die by suicide are selfish” – is this statement stigmatizing people who are suicidal?

(a) yes

(b) no

(c) not sure

Personally, I wouldn’t say that a person who suicide is selfish and I think that such a statement is very stigmatizing. What do you think? Diverse but respectful opinions are welcomed. If you have struggled with mental health problems and suicidal thoughts, I would like to hear from you too.

Children with autism do not show social attachments. True or False?

Children with autism do not show social attachments, even to parents?

I think the authors got it wrong, it is untrue that children with autism do not show social attachments or attachment to their parents.

Source:

Liu, Y., Li, J., Zheng, Q., Zaroff, C. M., Hall, B. J., Li, X., & Hao, Y. (2016). Knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions of autism spectrum disorder in a stratified sampling of preschool teachers in China. BMC psychiatry, 16, 142. doi:10.1186/s12888-016-0845-2

Mooving to a new blog

Its been a week since my return from Australia. My mum and I have been visiting Australia around this time each year since 2009. It is our summer escape. I have pictures to share but my media storage space is about to reach its capacity and instead of paying a premium to upgrade my site, I am going to start a new blog. It is a fitting time too since I’ll be entering a new phase of my life in September when I start my research study (yes, I finally received the official confirmation while I was on leave). I doubt I will be posting any new content on this blog while I’m working on my new blog, which I hope to launch next month. I will make an announcement here when it’s ready. Please stay tune and thanks for reading.