Blogs by Charlie

  • Mental Health Awareness Week

    Mental Health Awareness Week is upon us. Personally, I handle this by self-advocating away any toxic positivity. I don’t plaster on a fake smile like this one. Instead, I tell people how I really am. If they don’t care, why ask? We need to tackle the causes of mental health challenges, not jolly our mental Read more

  • Unregulated neurodiversity bandit

    I am one of those unregulated neurodiversity advocates, neurotic to the bones no doubt about it.  You have been warned! Only follow me if you are interested in my lived experience of:– Autism, ADHD and C-PTSD– The double rainbow intersection of both the AuDHD and LGBTQIA+ spectrums– Surviving bullying and discrimination in education and work– Read more

  • Autism month brain dump

    Questions from Carol Jean Whittington for her Mind Your Autistic Brain website. Question 1 – What does accessibility mean to you? Reducing or eliminating barriers to inclusion or success, which requires conscious inclusion. Question 2 – What is your big “why” for advocating for autism inclusion in the workplace? Workplace inclusion is my niche because Read more

  • Livid experience of autism

    This is about livid experience of autism. Lived experience, but the things we’re really angry about. People who preach “be kind”, then bully or mock people for being weird and different. People who think we’re shifty and dishonest due to eye contact differences, whether not holding eye contact because it’s uncomfortable, or holding it too Read more

  • Another autistic blurt and more rumination

    My last anecdote made quite an impact, and I’ve been asked for more. Here’s another classic “blurt” 🤦‍♀️ The CEO in a previous job used to like to take a group of employees out for tea and cake at a fancy restaurant (Harvey Nicols) when they reached ten years of service. When it was my Read more

  • Autistic social gaffe

    Social gaffes that haunt you, this one’s a corker. When I was 22 and 23, I had a fixed term contract job in HR for an organisation going through downsizing with a “voluntary redundancy” scheme. Many of my colleagues were at risk of redundancy, and some had been there many years and were sensitive about Read more