wow

[Guest guest]

I copied this directly from Donna ' website at www.donna.inuk.com

Go to her site. It's wonderful!

(for those of you who are really new to autism, Donna is a very famous

autistic woman who wrote the first-person account of being autistic called

" Nobody Nowhere " )

>>

But I'm more than an 'autie'. I'm Donna (it took me most of my childhood to

connect with that name or that any name was inherently linked with the feel of a

person). I'm wild and wooly, with an incredible naughty streak, prone to phobia

and compulsion with a great determination to strive for balance and detachment

yet a great love of connection and discovery.

I found a diamond of a person and he shone so bright I asked him to marry me.

adores me for whatever I am and however I change, when diet gets messed up

and in the stability in between. We make a home for our cat Tommy Girl and live

in the Hills of Malvern, a green place in the county of Worcestershire in the UK

where they make the sauce and a place which just happened to be the pinpoint in

the center of a map of Britain.

I believe in being free to be oneself, in challenging ideas of ourselves in

order to find out who's really there and in daring to be bold in the face of

change and criticism because there is no greater reward in life than the freedom

to find out who we are not and to infinitely discover ourselves in the becoming

of it.

I live for adventure and warmth, belonging and being equal and part of that

expresses itself through music and sculpture, through art and writing which are

all other parts of having a voice out loud to myself before the world if it so

chooses. The first bite of my own pear, though, is mine.

I believe in God, the pooh bear God within myself, my own being ness so much

more balanced than mind and consciousness can fathom. When I have a question or

need a direction, I don't assume to have the answer nor assume to have the sense

to plan, but ask the question, tell the desire for change, as if to the air. In

the morning, it progressively is there. This is God, the unraveling of

invisible string when I but out. I try to see past the enemy within myself and

my own self righteous rigid black and white beliefs of absolutes, what's what

and who's who. I believe in trying, and in staying happy and wild and seeing

the world in a piece of fluff. I believe in the strength of daring humility.

I believe in diet, and that's not easy. It's a choice between a drugged state

and being part of the world. I strive to discover life after gluten free, dairy

free, sugar free, additive free, low salicylate. and if I can discover in there

new elastic definitions and incarnations of 'ice-cream', 'cake', bread',

'custard', 'icing', then there is one more day I don't feel like crying.

Besides, it has helped me turn life into the buzz which compensates for a lack

of shop bought pizza.

I'm a consultant to schools and do workshops and lectures, catering to the

Education Authority, Social Services, the National Health Service and the

Autistic Societies as well as the general public. At my first US talk

(Connecticut) I came out and sat and cried for the first five minutes. The

audience was silent and patient and I was so moved they didn't try to control me

or talk to me, they just let me be, they trusted. I honored that respect and

eventually got to my feet and read the pages I couldn't understand in this state

of shutdown until the words began to have meaning. In between I looked up,

cried again and continued. They taught me I could dare to be me before others

no matter what. They gave me so much more than I could give. Now I just walk

out and introduce myself and talk out loud allowing others to hear. I even

challenge my audiences to question me and answer them without the middle man of

typing and paper.

However I may be criticized or praised and for whatever reason you came to see

the website of this once someone loony girl with more labels than a jam jar, I

am proud of me just to be and you are welcome to find your being ness here for

your own sake.

.. Donna *)