Hello, World!

Welcome to Accommodating Autism! The purpose of this blog is to explore ways of making life as an autistic easier - especially non-mainstream ways that we may have been taught were 'just not done', or 'only meant for people with real disabilities'.

The inspiration for this blog came from something that happened in my life a few days ago. My apartment, which I normally keep in a state of serious clutteredness, got straightened up, in the process of trying to find my missing wallet. (The clutter wasn't the problem, my couch had eaten it.) That night, when I was trying to go to sleep, I noticed that the apartment sounded different - the newly empty space had changed the acoustics in a way that I found disturbing.

When I mentioned that observation to my friend Corvi, she suggested that I hang cloth on the walls to try to make it more comfortable without having to keep it cluttered all the time. I had to laugh at the suggestion - I'd come up with the same idea over a decade ago, when designing my ideal bedroom for a school assignment, and the teacher found it so unusual that I nearly wound up getting sent to the school counselor over it. (It didn't help that I specified dark fabric (I'm light-sensitive) or that they'd already tagged me as 'weird, probably disturbed.) We talked about that a little, and I realized that I'm probably not the only one who has had experiences like that, and could use a reminder that it is okay to do that kind of thing.

I don't think I'll have enough to write about on this topic on my own, so this blog will have several authors. Corvi, who I mentioned above, will be one of them, and I expect some interesting observations from her as she moves into a new apartment in the near future. Our good friend Mark will also be contributing from time to time - he's not autistic, but he's excellent at coming up with useful ideas. If you would like to contribute, with a single article or on an ongoing basis, please leave a comment, or email me, and I'll get you set up.

Happy reading!