So it is very nearly 2024. I wasn’t going to do one of these but then thought that a bit of Yennski self-reflection is probably warranted on new years eve. I don’t want this to read like one of those iffy family Christmas letters which involve showcasing all the exciting things family members have done and trying to outdo people with their apparently amazing exploits…. However this year has featured a lot of very exciting accomplishments on the land of Yenn. 

Tp get it out of the way, my exciting accomplishments that would make my grandma proud if she was still with us are:

• Gave a TED talk. Actually gave my second TED talk. Go me
• Published two new books 
• Coauthored four books 
• Signed a contract for a new book which will be Yenn book #18. Wow!
• Gave a number of talks for different organisations 
• Continued paying the mortgage on Yennski Central and decorating it with artworks.

There we go. Te overachieving, impressing grandma bit is now done. We can forget that now.

This year was actually a time of significant personal growth for me. I had a few epiphanies and worked on some issues which have been around for most of my life. I got to a place with my mental health medication and therapy which has resulted in me viewing life in a very different and more positive way. After having severe anxiety pretty much continuously sick I was 12 years old I am now managing my anxiety well with a combination of medication and therapy which is amazing. 

I had some issues with my self-confidence which I still have but which I am aware of and am working to address. 

Relationships with family and friends have kept me busy. Sadly I had to excise a friend from my life after some upsetting behaviour on their part but on the positive side I have strengthened relationships with many other friends and family. I adopted a beautiful kitty called Sunflower who I love dearly. Sadly I had to bid farewell to my ginger boy Major Tom in January. I only had him for seven weeks but he was a lovely little fella and very much missed. I have him in a purple urn and I have Mr Kitty in a green urn – Mr Kitty was the best cat in history – which is my totally unbiased viewpoint! 

I got a new tattoo which I love very much. It covers self harm scars on my left arm and is very beautiful. The imagery I chose was meaningful on a number of levels and every time I look at the art it gives me a sense of empowerment and healing. The artist was a total star and I plan on getting more Yennski ink from her next year.

My paid work continues to be awesome and I am looking forward to starting back on Tuesday. 

I had three years of total misery between 2019 and 2022 with severe mental health issues and having to take huge amounts of sick leave and using my insurance. I feel like I have come out the other end of that time and into a more happy and productive time. My brain is odd as it can give me so much joy and creativity but also so much pain and misery. 

I don’t make new year resolutions per se – unless I have an epiphany on New Year’s Day I guess! I think we can do personal growth on any day of the year,. That being said I hope 2024 brings good things my way and your way. I turn 50 in July so that is a big milestone. I plan to have a big party and lots of joy and celebration. I don’t think I was supposed to live as long as that but I did. I am still going strong, writing books and cuddling my kitty – and other people’s kitties too if they don’t mind me doing so!.

Go well in 2024. Keep being awesome and change the world for the better in whatever way you can. 

I am known for my sense of style. I love clothes, shoes and accessories. I spent many years very poor and unable to express myself the way I wanted to through my style. In 2007 I got myself a wonderful job in the Australian Public Service, finally got paid well and bought business clothes and loved wearing suits and looking conservative! 

Over the past few years I have discovered a more individual Yennski style. I do find a lot of people assume I am female which really bothers me because I am not female, I am non-binary. I complained about this to a non-binary friend who was assigned female at birth and who has a beard and they said people do it to them as well! This confirms my view that a lot of people only have two boxes for gender in their mind – the girl box and the boy box. Anyone who doesn’t neatly fit into one or other of these gets shoved into one or the other. It is infuriating that’s for sure! 

I wondered (for about five seconds) whether I should consciously make my expression more masculine and then realised that my expression is my own and I shouldn’t have to change how I express myself just because some people make unhelpful assumptions!

I love style and I have quite a unique approach to how to express my identity through fashion. I love that I can afford to buy clothes and accessories that reflect how I want to present myself to the wold. When I am purchasing clothes and accessories my main concern is whether it is ‘too girly’. In fact despite that fact that people assume my expression is feminine, I prefer to be misgendered as male than female – I have no idea why that might be!

However this piece isn’t just about how I dress nicely. It is about the meaning of style in the world we live in. Gender identity influences style and sadly gender identity is very political at this point in time.. Trans and gender divergent folks face hatred and bigotry and there are a lot of people who would hurt us and discriminate against us. 

I had someone online tell me that they loved my ‘sweet enby style’ (for those who don’t know, enby means non-binary). The way I present to the world – my hair colour, tattoos, pride jewellery and t-shirts  etc- are a way of me demonstrating my pride as a autistic and non-binary person. The way we choose to express ourselves can be seen as very political. To my mind it shouldn’t but we live in a world where there is a lot of bigotry and ableism in the world. 

There is an assumption that autistic people are all asexual, cis gender, white men. Along with this is the stereotype that we don’t care about style or fashion and are all maths geniuses. I actually don’t know any autistic people who fit that stereotype! I have met a lot of autistic people who have a very strong sense of style and use their style to express who they are and their autistic identity. Others aren’t hugely interested in style and that is perfectly OK. We are all different. 

I do love to express myself through things like my clothing, jewellery, hairstyle and tattoos.  People tell me they would love to look like me and I say ‘oh but you can if you want to’ but I think that may be wrong. Being Yenn is a pretty individual thing, a bit like how I decorate my home. I suspect I am the only person who could express themselves like I do because there is only one of me – just like everyone else!

I think pride – be it Queer pride or Autistic pride – is a great thing and if we can express our pride through our expression that is a wonderful thing. My gender rand my autism should not need to be political but they are and if that s the case then expressing pride and positive self-knowledge through my style is a great thing to do. 

So be loud and proud and wear your rainbow wig I say! 

I do not celebrate Christmas. I am not religious and I don’t believe in Santa Claus! In Yenn hell I think it would be Christmas every day. I just went out to get some milk and the shops were so busy it was really overwhelming and unpleasant. While I recognise that Christmas is a happy time for many it is also a big problem for others.

Some of my issues relate to the waste of resources involved. There is an expectation of giving gifts and while I am all for giving, it often results in people spending money they can’t afford on gifts people don’t need or want. Yup, Yennski the grinch!! But in all seriousness the world is in trouble due to waste and overuse of resources. I think it would be nice to replace gift giving at Christmas with doing something positive for the environment instead. 

Kids are supposed to like Christmas. In fact when I was a kid I loved it. There were shiny and sparkly things everywhere and I was given toys and other gifts. We never had Santa Claus at our house because my mum is very Christian and presumably felt it was not in keeping with the Christian origins of the day – although we always had a Christmas tree and presents which weren’t really all that Christian! People are complicated.

As an adult I went through a number of stages of thoughts on Christmas. My early adult years were spent mostly in prison and psychiatric hospitals so Christmas was an institutional affair without any family present. I remember as a prisoner being given a special call with my parents on Christmas which was nice. When I got out of all the institutional care (and I use that word very lightly), I usually did Christmas with my family. It was very stressful – not because my family were horrible but because off all the expectations. 

In 2010 I got really unwell with mental health issues. I spent some time with family and it was really stressful due to my illness. I didn’t really want to ‘do’ Christmas any more. Shortly after hat I got a cat who was a wonderful excuse for not doing Christmas as I couldn’t get boarding for him over Christmas.

The first time I didn’t spend Christmas with family I spent it with a friend as I didn’t want to be alone. I was influenced but he expectation that you HAD to spend Christmas with family or you were somehow deficient or sad. Now I am absolutely happy to just spend it at home with kitty and nobody else. It really is just another day for me. I bought some very expensive and delicious  cheese and quince paste and some wine and will have a little holiday celebration with Sunflower the cat and that will be absolutely fine. I have not purchased or received any gifts apart from my Secret Santa at work who got Sunflower a cat tunnel and who I bought a mug with books on it.

And beyond me, autistic people can have positive or negative experiences of Christmas. Sensory things can either be very positive or very negative – or both! Giving and receiving gifts can be a source of delight or a source of stress. Seeing family can be wonderful or dreadful – or both depending on the family member! The religious element of the festival can be affirming or annoying and the commercial nature of the holiday can be engaging or fraught. You don’t have to celebrate if you don’t want to – or you can go all out and spend loads of time, effort and / or money to make an amazing Christmas If you celebrate please be aware that not everyone does, often due to cultural reasons but also people like me who just don’t want to do it. 

I hope you have an amazing festive season if you celebrate it.

 

The title of this blog post was the title of a book I was supposed to write in 2007 but didn’t. It would have been my second book but I asked the publisher to pull the contract due to me only having enough content for a chapter and not a book! However I have a lot of content in this space from a lived experience perspective rather than an academic one.

Between 1995 and 2004 I had a big problem with illicit drugs. I used mostly marijuana to self-medicate in a world which was confusing and frightening. Some people can do drugs their whole life without it affecting their mental health. Sadly I am not one of those people. In 1995 I smoked cannabis pretty much non-stop. This resulted in my first psychotic episode. I am still prone to psychosis over 25 years later which is not OK. At the time I was in complete denial about my sensitivity to mental ill health related to drug use. I also used amphetamines and LSD as well – not good for psychotic illnesses either!

It took me almost ten years and several hospital and prison stays to realise that drug use was largely the cause of my mental health issues. I am happy to say I have not used any illicit drugs since 2004 and I never will again. These days I am trying to avoid psychosis, not encourage it!

In 2003 I moved into public housing. This was a time where I had few friends and was desperate to be socially accepted. I had over 100 neighbours, most of whom were alcoholics or drug users. I made friends with the drinkers and so effectively became an alcoholic myself. I was at university at the time and lived a double life. I often went to university classes very hung over and cranky! I knew I was drinking too much but found myself at a different neighbour’s house each night drinking to excess. I didn’t want to drink so much but to be socially accepted by alcoholics it is pretty much a given that you need to drink heavily. While I was definitely a drug addict in every sense of the word I was not really an alcoholic. I drank excessively to be socially accepted. When I moved to Canberra to take up a professional role in 2007 I stopped drinking excessively. 

I know the stereotype of an autistic person is someone who follows all the rules and doesn’t get involved in drug use or alcoholism. In fact a lot of autistic people have issues with substance abuse for a number of reasons. For me the drug use was about numbing the trauma I had experienced as a child and young adult. For some it is about being socially accepted or being better able to socialise with neurotypical folks. What can happen for some autistic people is that when they are under the influence of drugs or alcohol they are better able to connect with neurotypical / allistic people who are also under the influence. Another reason is that emotions can be very confusing and uncertain. However when you are under the influence of drugs or alcohol you feel drunk or high which is a reliable feeling. When I used to smoke cannabis I knew what feeling stoned was like. It was a consistent feeling and there was no uncertainty. Some drugs and alcohol can help with anxiety as well and many autistic people have severe struggles with anxiety meaning it is tempting to take drugs or alcohol for a sense of certainty and to address anxiety.

Drugs and alcohol are not necessarily all dreadful. Many people use cannabis for pain and other medical conditions and find it helps a lot. Alcohol in moderation can be a lovely thing. I myself occasionally drink wine or my signature drink, a gin and tonic – and in moderation it is very pleasant. Situations where drugs and alcohol are a problem include if someone needs to have them constantly just to live their ordinary life, if it is getting in the way of work, parenting or relationships, if it affecting mental or physical health negatively or if someone is spending all their money on drugs and alcohol and may be stealing or committing fraud to support their habit. 

I can tell you it is possible to overcome drug and alcohol addiction because I did but it can be a difficult thing to do and can take a lot of time and effort. Accessing helpful support is essential in overcoming drug and alcohol addiction as is accepting that you have a problem and wanting to change. Autistic folks can have issues with drugs and alcohol just like anyone else does. It is not a reason for judgement or blame, more a reason for kindness and support. 

This blog post comes courtesy of my mum – probably my favourite person in the world. I was talking to her on the phone which I do most days and she said ‘you should write a blog post about epiphanies.’ And I thought yes I should!

I always say that I love a good Yenn epiphany and I do. I have had some doozies over the years. I want to share some of them with you because I think they are lovely and maybe they will inspire you to have an epiphany as well! The first one that I remember was in 1999 when I was 25 years old and a very broken and desperate prisoner. I know a lot of people don’t think it is possible for me to have been a prisoner but I was, on several occasions between 1994 and 2000. The epiphany I have in 1999, just as the millennium was about to happen was ‘new millennium new life.’ I thought that I could change my life and I did. A month later I left prison for the past time and started on my journey to the amazing place that I am in now.

The next epiphany I had was in 2001. I was living in accommodation for young people with mental health issues. The house was a crumbling mansion in Albert Park – one of the most salubrious suburbs in Melbourne. I would see these women walking their kids in the park during the day. They were not unemployed and poor, their partners had such a good job that they could afford to pay a million dollar mortgage on one income.  I saw these women and thought I wanted to be ’ordinary.’ I didn’t want to get in a relationship with a rich man and walk my baby in the park but I wanted an education, a ‘real’ job, a mortgage and a suit. I was determined and within eight years I had all those things. In fact I have had TWO mortgages at the time of writing this as I sold Whimsy Manor in 2020 and bought Yennski Central last year,. ‘Ordinary’ was s a lovely epiphany which yielded a new life and an escape from poverty.

I also had an epiphany recently which was around taking responsibility for my life and knowing that I am in charge. I make the decisions who drive my life. I have had any number of mental health-related epiphanies over the years. My advocacy career is based on an epiphany as well. In 2012 I was in the psychiatric ward and met an autistic young man. When I told him that I had written a book and worked in the public service and that I was autistic he told me I was lying because that was impossible. This young man had been told so many negative things about being autistic and fed a bunch o deficits thinking that he genuine believed my life was impossible. I realised that I needed to make the world a better place for autistic folks and that if there was one person like that then there must be more. This sparked my current passionate interest for autistic advocacy. Since then I have given countless talks including two TEDx talks and written a further 16 books and become quite well-known as an advocate!

So epiphanies can be a really good thing. They have definitely changed my life. The other things that tie in with my epiphanies are determination, motivation and inspiration. I have all of these things in spades. The epiphanies alone probably wouldn’t make much difference without the determination, motivation and inspiration to deliver them. I know that I am unusual in this space. I have made immense changes in my life and gone from being the most desperate and miserable prisoner to being a community leader and all round awesome human being (if I do say it myself!). I love my epiphanies and the qualities which enable me to put in place the changes. So yes, have a good epiphany, change your life, change the world! 

Very few things in life are permanent. There are exceptions which I demonstrated yesterday by getting a tattoo – quite a permanent sort of thing and something requiring consideration and thought. And, in case you are interested I got flowers (peonies – because I like them – and sunflowers – because I like them too plus my cat’s name is Sunflower so I have spent the ten months that I have had her collecting sunflower things!) The design also has two blue and pink butterflies – blue and pink are the transgender pride flag colours. The butterflies have semi colons for bodies. This is very significant, quite profound and rather beautiful. If you imagine you are an author (not very hard for me to do!) and your life is the book you are writing. You could choose to end the book with a full stop or put in a semicolon and keep going. Given that the main reason for the design was to hide scars form self-harm in the 1990s I think the semi colon is a good thing! Anyway it was very painful, took six hours and the end result is amazing and now I want another one!… 

But Yennski’s new ink was not the main reason for this post. The reason for this post is to reflect on the impermanence of most things in life and to reflect on why it is not OK to have loaded language around impermanence. By this I mean the way whenever a young person – and particularly an autistic or otherwise neurodivergent young person – comes out as being of marginalised sexuality and / or gender they seem to face a barrage of ‘oh you are just confused’ or ‘you are going through a phase…’ Firstly it is actually OK to change your mind about your gender or sexuality. Many people do. I have. I identified as lesbian for many years and am now identifying as Asexual (‘Ace’) This does not render the time I spent as a lesbian as invalid. I guess it WAS a phase but so what? Also one of the main reasons people detransition (i.e. go back to the gender they were assigned at birth after affirming a different gender) is that they face bigotry, often from the same people who say transgender people are going to change their mind as use this to criticise transgender folks! The first time I discovered that statistic was a bit of an eye-opener for me to say the least! 

I want to look at phases though. Imagine if you came to me and said ‘oh Yenn I got a new job!’ And I responded with ‘Lovely. But you know it is just a phase’. Or if you introduced your new partner to me and I said ‘That’s fantastic but it’s just a phase!’ You would understandably be horrified, but employment and relationships are almost always a phase. I only know one person who has had just one partner in their life and one person who has had the same job. So what do we not confront people with new jobs or new partners with the whole ‘it’s just a phase’ thing?

Phases are very loaded indeed. To dismiss someone’s sexuality or gender identity by saying it is ‘just a phase’ is actually a major case of invalidation. Invalidation is where you treat someone like they or their experiences or attitudes don’t matter.  It happens to autistic folks A LOT. And in fact, even if someone changes their mind or actually is confused by their gender identity or sexuality, don’t dismiss and invalidated them, support them. 

So my tattoo is not a phase. I have it for the rest of my life – so it is a good thing it is beautiful and meaningful. Lots of things in my life aren’t permanent and that is OK. Please don’t invalidate autistic and LGBTQIA+ young folks with these attitudes. And in my experience the ‘phase’ argument is almost exclusively used with young people of marginalised sexuality or gender so it is actually transphobic / homophobic / biphobic and ableist and as such not OK at Yennski Central!  

Most people take the toilet for granted. It is a necessary part of life and not really worth much thought. I imagine that most people don’t pay much attention to the toilet in terms of their identity or safety but for many transgender and other gender divergent folks a visit to the toilet can be fraught with stress and even physical danger. 

I am non-binary and I hate going to gendered bathrooms. I am not a man and I am not a woman so the little icon with the pants and the one with the skirt do not include me. I will always use the all gender option but unfortunately the all gender bathroom option in buildings is rare. The next best thing is the accessible (disability) one but if I use that I worry that people will question my right to do so given that I am not a wheelchair user – yup, people can be dicks! If I am in desperate need I will go to the gendered female one as that is less likely to result in being attacked for using the ‘wrong’ toilet but I hate doing this and it impacts on my sense of positive non-binary identity.

Toilets can be dangerous. Many people using the toilet assigned to their affirmed gender get told they are in the ‘wrong’ one by the self-proclaimed and presumably transphobic bathroom police. Nobody has the right to tell someone what toilet to use. And you can’t tell a persons’ gender just by looking at them anyway. I often look quite feminine but I am definitely NOT a woman. I am a proud non-binary person with a slightly feminine presentation. But if I wanted to go to the ‘male’ bathroom there would be nothing wrong with that. It is nobody’s business what toilet someone uses other than the person themselves. Everyone has the right to go to whatever facility they wish. People being indignant about toilet usage  sometimes even results in physical assault of trans people. See, toilets really can be a big issue and make life difficult for trans folks! This is another example of how transphobia is rife and needs to be addressed. Nobody should have to worry about something as basic a right as being able to use the toilet they choose.

Another issue is that some people simply won’t use toilets in public or at work or school for fear of being discriminated  against. They simply don’t go until they are in a safe place. This has an impact on physical health and can cause damage to kidneys not to mention being very uncomfortable.

For me if there is an all gender bathroom I am absolutely delighted but sadly it is the exception and not the rule for such facilities to be available. Building owners struggle to retrofit their premises for all gender bathrooms as they think they need to do major works which possibly they sometimes do but I think a bit of lateral thinking around the use of space might address this. I have heard people say that bathrooms shouldn’t have an assigned gender at all and the signage should just say whether it is stalls or cubicles and let people pick the one they want. I like that idea and it would also address the usage of space issue. 

So some take aways are:

• A person can use whatever toilet they like
• It is not OK to be the toilet police. Who is using which facility is none of anyone else’s business
• All gender bathrooms make Yennski happy
• Consider doing away with the whole idea of gendered toilet signage and instead say whether the facilities are stalls or cubicles and let people pick
• Have some empathy for trans folks and the trouble we so often have in this space.

…And give all of this a thought next time you go to the loo!

When I was a small child I decided that I wanted to be rich and famous. I didn’t really know what that involved but it seemed that wealth and fame were good things to attain. In my young adult years I wanted to be poor and wretched – things which were quite easy to attain! When I was 25, and very poor and not at all famous,  I decided that I wanted to be ‘ordinary.’ I wanted the things I saw people in my family as having which I didn’t – jobs, mortgages, education and social inclusion. I spent the next few years building my capacity for paid work and getting an education in order to satisfy my need to be ordinary. During that journey I did something that changed my life dramatically. I wrote a book which was published. Within a few months of this I was applying for professional jobs – and one of my applications was successful;. 

I settled into being ordinary. It was wonderful. I got to wear suits and drink wine that came in bottles and not a cardboard box! My friends were other professional employees. It was amazing!

I went to a conference on the weekend hosted by My Life My Decisions. It was a great event and I really enjoyed it. Its was also the first time I have been at an event where almost everyone was a fan of my work! It is very affirming to be in a building full of people who love me and find my work helpful. My publisher has a stall and all my books with that publisher were available. They sold out of at least three of my titles and I signed a lot of books and had a lot of people ask me for selfies. I think it was the most famous I have ever been at an event. Wine I was introduced for my talk the MC said ‘you all know Yenn’ and they were right – everyone knew Yenn. As an extrovert and something  of an alpha personality this sort of thing gets me very excited! 

Fame is a weird thing though. For example I am now quite famous in the autism community and to a lesser extent the Queer community. However I am not famous in the supermarket! Sometimes a stranger will introduce themselves and say they like my blog but most of the time I am blissfully anonymous. One of the conference organisers said she had been a bit intimidated to meet ‘famous’ people and she was surprised how well she got along with us. This made me a bit sad. I don’t want anyone thinking I am intimidating or being afraid to talk to me. I want people to feel conformable. My accomplishments are significant but I don’t wander around thinking how wonderful I am! I am filled with things like self doubt and impostor syndrome. When people say I am an ‘expert’ I always feel uncomfortable with that. We are all human. And as an autistic person I am always happy to talk to my neurokin. I have a very shameful past which I think probably tempers my view of myself. I alway smile when people say ‘wow, I got to talk to Yenn for ten minutes!’ I always think ‘I talk to Yenn all the time. It really isn’t all that exciting!’ My profile has  grown gradually over a long period of time. Al lot of the time in the past I did things with a very small audience and nobody had any idea who I was.  

So that’s my thoughts on famous, what about the ‘rich’? Money is strange. It divides people and results in judgement. I have been very poor and I am now financially stable. What I hated about poverty was the lack of choice in things like housing and also the attitudes of others. Money does seem to involve a lot of judging. I am very fortunate to have escaped poverty but as a person with a very serious and unpleasant mental illness I know that one day I may be unable to work any more and I might become impoverished once more. I am so grateful to be where I am at now in relation to financial independence. I own property which is just amazing. I hope I can stay here at Yennski Central for a very long time but if I don’t? Well I will be in a similar situation to a lot of others – and to myself twenty years ago. There is no shame in poverty and when I was poor there was some joy in my life. 

So I guess I got my childhood wish to be rich and famous – although probably not in the way one would expect. And my take away messages about wealth and fame is that they are relative and that we are all valid regardless of how many people know our work or what we earn. I am grateful for what I have but if I didn’t have it? Well that would be OK too.

The image for this blog post was given to me by a stranger. I was speaking at an Autism Expo and I had a trade table with my books. When I finished speaking I went back to my table. There were loads of people at my table. A person walked up, got to the front of the queue and handed me a tiny drawing on a piece of paper ripped from a notebook. I asked ‘Is that me and Mr Kitty?’ The person replied that yes it was and then disappeared. I never saw them again and don’t have their name but their act of kindness and connection with me left a big impression. When I got home I found a frame and some red sparkly paper and framed it. It sits on my microwave and I look at it every day. 

That interaction demonstrates something magical and how people can come into your life, interact with you and make some change and leave an impression. These can be chance and brief encounters or entire relationships lasting many years. Whenever I talk about this topic I think of Polly. Polly Samuel was an autistic author and advocate who I had the privilege of knowing and also of calling a mentor and good friend. Polly remains the biggest catalyst for positive change in my life, ever. Without Polly I doubt I would be an author and advocate.

I met Polly at a course to enable autistic people to give presentations to schools. I actually have no idea why Polly went there as she was an accomplished and experienced speaker already, but there she was and for that I am immensely grateful. We became friends almost as soon as we met. Polly became my mentor. I learned autistic pride through knowing her. I learned to love and value myself as an autistic person and I learned that I had value and worth. It was Polly who encouraged me to write my life story and then who wrote a foreword for the book when I did write it and sent it to her publisher – now one of my publishers which carry I think 10 of my books now and have three more in production. Polly was my friend and mentor and she radically changed my world. Sadly she is no longer with us but I am eternally grateful for her gifts for me – especially the gift of self-worth and the gift of autistic pride.

There are also people who stay with you long term and make a difference. My parents have that role in my life. My parents have been there for me my whole life. You might think that is a given but I have a very fraught early adult life and many parents would have simply given up. I spent over three years in prison in the 1990s and even more in psychiatric hospitals. I used to be immensely self-destructive and sought only negative things. I imagine my parents would have really struggled with my negative path. My mum is autistic and has a fair whack of anxiety so I imagine when I was being self-defeating and self-destructive that anxiety must have been off the chart but she still stayed there with me regardless. 

I appreciate this as the support and love of my parents are probably the main reason I survived that time in my life and was able to make major changes in my life. Our relationship has been very challenging but now it is very good. I am a fan of repairing relationships when they need to be repaired and have worked with both my parents to build a strong relationship based in love, acceptance and respect. My parents and I are now extremely close which is lovely. Recently my dad told me that he called someone out on transphobia. I was so proud of him at that moment and I know that the driving force behind challenging the person was almost certainly his love for me. 

I like to think that when I come into contact with people it is a positive thing and that I can be an influence and catalyst for positive things for others. Of course that doesn’t happen all the time but I do want to make a difference. I think it is a goal we could all have to touch others (metaphorically) with love and kindness and make their world a better place for us having been in it. I like the aim to leave the world a better place when I leave it than it was when I cam in. It is an ongoing goal!  

I am autistic and ADHD. One of the experiences which I think probably relates to both of these differences is that I am by nature highly disorganised. I often find myself wondering what I am doing. I wander around my house having no idea why I am wherever I am! I always say I could get lost in my own house – and it isn’t a big house! I also say I could vague at an Olympic level – and I could! 

I think the reason for the vagueness and disorganisation is almost certainly my experience of executive functioning. Executive function skills are the mental processes that enable us to plan, focus attention, remember instructions, and juggle multiple tasks successfully.  The twelve elements of executive functioning are:

• self-restraint, 
• working memory, 
• emotion control, 
• focus, 
• task initiation, 
• planning/prioritisation, 
• organisation,  
• time management, 
• defining and achieving goals, 
• flexibility, 
• observation and 
• stress tolerance. I am actually quite good at some of these and dreadful at others! 

Challenges with executive functioning are a common experience for neurodivergent folks – we often demonstrate capability in some domains of executive function and not at others. I think I probably have issues with seven of the twelve elements!

While getting lost in my own house is quite amusing, challenges with some of these skills can be very difficult especially in the world of work. I can’t remember most things in my job. I forget what is said in meetings, I forget where tasks are up to and I have difficulties putting things together in my mind. This means that I need to practice a range of strategies to manage that. I keep a very regular, accurate and nicely colour-coded task list and update it several times a day. I can’t focus on large screeds of text – which forms part of my job – so put in place some strategies to manage that too. 

A good friend used to get annoyed with me due to these sorts of issues, especially my planning and organisation skills. Eventually she worked out that these issues were just part of what made me Yenn and so it was OK. The main challenge I find with this is that people think I am slack or incompetent and also that I have some choice in the matter! I really cannot do these things and it is not something I can learn. I find that even if it is impossible to ‘fix’ executive functioning issues that it IS possible to put in place effective strategies to address them.

I think the world at large needs to understand executive functioning and how quite a lot of people have difficulties with it. It is not a choice, I am not slack and it does not mean I am incapable of doing things like work and friendships. The more I learn about executive functioning the better I understand myself. It is not a failing and it is not a choice. It is good for neurodivergent folks to understand executive functioning issues and how it affects us as it enables us to understand ourselves and our experience better. And it is REALLY good for neurotypical and allistic folks to understand it as it helps them to understand us and avoid judgement. 

My strategies are helpful in this space and enable me to work in a fairly high level job quite effectively. It is an ongoing challenge though. Understanding  is key as is helping others to understand what it means.