In today's episode I am joined with Valerie who is Autistic and from America, she was diagnosed last year when she was 30! Valerie talks about her diagnosis and how hard it was. Valerie's son was diagnosed with Autism the age of 2 so she did know a little bit and before autism prior to her diagnosis.
Valerie has love for Music as she is musician she makes her own music and produces it her favourite genre of music is Metal music. We find being autistic that music really helps we talk about being repetitive and addiction as we both play songs/soundtracks the same ones over and over again it really helps gain concentration.
We talk about being sensory and mention the frustration of certain sounds like chewing, bashes on plates and cups, we analyse certain noises and small sound with a limited amount of people can be really hard for us to handle. This neatly links into Valerie's Misophonia too.
We also talk about autistic shows on television and how important autistic representation is important in the correct manor, we both admit how we prefer the term low high/ support needs than functioning.
We admit lots more needs to be done, but we have come on long way to get where we are now!
Good advise from Valerie: "Try not to care what be people think and do what you enjoy!"
Thank you again Valerie for a good conversation!