Before my own diagnosis, if I thought at all about autism, it was to perceive autistic people through the eyes of narrowly defined cultural stereotypes. A large part of writing this series of blogs is my desire to help open the eyes of others to what it actually feels like to live as an autistic person. I can, of course, write in an authentic way only through my own lived experience, and this is what I do here. My experience of other autistic people assures me that although sharing many symptomatic traits, we are gloriously diverse. Our personalities, how we respond to the world, how we live, love and work can be very different. We certainly share many of the same life challenges, but our views, dreams and ideals are, I think, as diverse as any other group of individuals on our shared planet.

I hope too that by sharing my own struggles and, hopefully, breakthroughs, I might also inspire fellow autists who may be struggling in their own lives to breakthrough their own obstacles.

The photograph heading this blog entry was taken in Nevern, Pembrokeshire. From a strictly conventional point of view it is not, perhaps, a ‘good’ photograph, being neither in focus nor having an easily identifiable subject. I chose to use it here because the image is meaningful to me, it speaks to me and no doubt, of me too. I took the image whilst standing in a cemetery and looking through a hedge towards a garden. The point of interest, for me, is the vertical line of plants which are just right of centre in the foreground - these remind me of calligraphy. They lead me to feel that nature is communicating, and we have only to listen and to observe in order to enter into a dialogue with it.