Empathy

Life is, at bottom, diversity

Just like a cell, a cultural organism has many critical interdependencies with the outside world; the state of environmental health is deeply entangled with the internal state of health of the cultural organism. Autistic life is incompatible within a society that lives within an Overton window. To understand why, look no further than the way in which Helen Mirra is conceptualizing autistic experience as holotropic. Holotropic people have naturally wide open sensory gates. To participate in/as the immense world without becoming overwhelmed, we holotropes have two central methods: in, by hyperfocusing our attention on one sensory or cognitive path, and as, through synthesising our experience into coherence.

Collaborative niche construction

As events beyond human control force us to pay attention to the much richer metaphors of living systems, Autistic people are rediscovering the beauty of collaborating at human scale, and co-creating beautiful works of art as an antidote against the emergence of social power dynamics and the competitive logic of hate and violence.

Co-creating ecologies of caring and sharing

Instead of the individualistic perspective, mental health can only be understood in a way that is meaningful for humans at the level of a biocultural organism at human scale. The interactions between us have a direct impact on our nervous systems, cardiovascular systems, and digestive systems.

My Neurotypical Friend Meg

In order for non-Autistic people to communicate effectively with Autistics, they have to adjust to our passion, our authenticity, and our need for room to express ourselves in our language.

Understanding autistic body language, showing a woman with outstretched hands in a "I don't know" pose

Autistic Body Language

My different sensory, social and physical experiences don’t prevent me from empathizing. In fact, I am skilled at building rapport, seeing things from different perspectives, and connecting with people.

Autism: Autistic Empathy is Different

Emma Reardon discusses the difference between her own autistic expression of empathy compared to neurotypical empathy and the role the sensory plays in how we feel and demonstrate empathy.

Expanding my comfort zone

I realize that there’s a lot going on right now that doesn’t fit anywhere in my comfort zone. It has made me outrageously uncomfortable. Through

The alexithymia & autism guide

Alexithymia is so common among autistic people that it is commonly mistaken for autism itself. In this post, I explain what alexithymia is and how it presents itself in autism.

Skip to content