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Are Co-occurring Conditions Part of Autism?

Photo © NASA Goddard Space Flight Center | Flickr / Creative Commons [image: Photo of two neutron stars ripping each other apart.] Maxfield Sparrow unstrangemind.com Sometimes when I’m talking with someone about autism it feels like we’re talking about two different things. For example, I’ve had countless conversations that go something like this: “You’re nothing like my child. My child has the serious kind of autism,” they might open with.  “Autism is serious stuff,” I respond. “It’s important to take it seriously.”  “No, I mean my child has the autism with digestive stuff and physical involvement. The severe autism.”  “I have intermittent gastroparesis that has sent me to the hospital multiple times. I have a connective tissue disorder that has caused pelvic organ prolapse. These things aren’t autism.” And it’s the truth: the co-occurring conditions we cope with are not autism; they are the “genetic hitchhikers” that love to travel…

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International Day of the Stim: The Worry Stone

Photo © the author [image: Close up of fingertips grasping a worn black pottery shard.] Hannah King mystinkybackpack.blogspot.ca September 17, 2018 is International Day of the Stim! For more articles and information, see dayofthestim.blogspot.com. I found this old piece of pottery at the beach. It’s been worn smooth from the waves, and it fits perfectly in my hand. My thumb rub it over and over and over and over—it feels great. My thumbs are major in my stimming, always have been. I think one reason my thumb stims survived the years of stim-suppression I underwent at school and home is that I could stim—surreptitiously—with my thumbs. It was easy to tuck my hand into the folds of a cardigan sweater and reach for the nubby underside of a button, or to slide my thumbs and fingers quietly along the coolness beneath a school desk. And while I loved to glide…