My autism event and an interesting question

Yesterday as part of World Autism Awareness Week #WAAW2017 I did an event at my local community library to raise awareness of the condition. I was helped by my friend John Caritas. My author friend, Amanda Lilywhite (Hi, Amanda) came with her autistic daughter and her father as she said she would. We got talking about autism and other things.

Amanda's daughter asked me an interesting question, which I replied, I don't know. She asked me, Why do I have a different autism than her (she has normal autism). I then said it could be genetics as I believe that it is in the genes of our families. (I think I got mine from my dad). I did try to explain using an image of the rainbow, that at one end there is me with Asperger's who can do things for myself which she probably can't, going along to the far end where people can't do things for themselves and have what is called classic autism. This got me thinking about it. I wonder if people are born with different levels of autism in relation to how much autism there can be along their family lines. So, if a child was born with both parents being autistic; one with Asperger's and the other with autism, the child would be more autistic, than say a child born with just one autistic parent.
What would your answer have been? Why do you think people are born with different levels of autism?

Anyway, Amanda bought a copy of Billy from me for her daughter, which I signed. They had to go after a while because of her daughter being autistic. Later on John walked round the library and found a couple of other parents to meet me so I could tell them what I am doing about raising awareness. They had heard of autism, but didn't know about it being Awareness Week. I gave them my handouts about ASD and what it involves for children then adults, and meltdowns and shutdowns. I also gave out cards promoting Billy.

At noon I packed up to go home. I gave the librarian copies of my cards and handouts, because she wanted them as she had told me that people do want to know about it. I might speak to her about this when I see her again in a couple of weeks time.

After this, I decided that my passion is to raise awareness of autism more not by giving talks but by writing guides on various topics to do with ASD such as anxiety and bullying, and maybe sell this together. Yesterday made me realise that people do know about autism but aren't aware of what it all involves, so I want to work on that in all ways I can with my writing.

Why people stim

As a neurotypical child/adult (you don't have Autism Spectrum Disorder), you might wonder why a child would rock to and fro, or flap and wave their hands about. This is called stimming and isn't harmful. They might do this if there is a lot of sensory things going on around them, or they are anxious about something. Stimming calms them down and lets them take control of their emotions again. So, don't try to stop them.

As a child, I never did either of them (not that I know about, anyway). But one thing I know I did, up until just before my 21^st, was bite my fingernails. This was down to anxiety I know now. Whenever I was at home, I'd be OK and my nails would start growing. But as soon as I went back to school or work in later years, I bit them again. This went on until just before I turned 21. I had been working for a couple of years. I think I had got used to the people there and the jobs I had to do, and had been so busy that I didn't have time to bite my nails. They began to grow. So I decided then to let them. I started wearing nail varnish to help me. Once they grew, I stopped, seeing how nice they looked. Now I cringe when I think about what I did, and when I see other people, usually men, bite their nails. I don't know how I let my fingers be like that, they must have been so sore and red.

When my dad used to live with us (he's in a care home now), I used to see him twiddle his thumbs. It annoyed me because I could see it happen out the corner of my eye when I read or watched TV. I now think that this was him stimming because I believe he has Asperger's too.

So, if you see a child either rock or flap, think about what's going on around them. Is there too much noise? Too many people? Being bullied?

Inspiration behind 'A friend in need'.

I have just published on Amazon my latest adult romance ebook in the Geraldine's Gems series. It is book 6 called 'A Friend in Need'. There are two inspirations behind the idea of the book and why I put bullying and counselling in the book.

The idea of the story was for Faith, who is bullied and suffers abuse from her boyfriend, to find someone else who was the opposite and she falls for him. The idea for a bullying boyfriend came from both agony aunt letters in newspapers and an article in a girl's magazine about someone being bullied by her partner and how she got out of it. Faith has a bit of help from her late Aunt Geraldine, and a colleague, Jenny. In the book, Faith is a teacher but with encouragement from Jenny and Ben, whom she falls for, she decides a change of career and wants to become a counsellor. There is a scene where a pupil is locked in the outdoor girls' toilet and Faith helps her out. This scene was inspired by a true experience of mine when I was at primary school. Two girls, whom I thought were my friends, did lock me in the toilets, but they let me out in the end.

So, that was what inspired me to write the story idea and that particular scene.

'A friend in need' is available from Amazon UK at http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00T3ET0OG
Amazon US at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00T3ET0OG