I know very little about Badenoch, but enough to be able to draw a comparison to T here in the States: the breathtaking cruelty, the bullying, the utter disregard for the lives and struggles and quiet triumphs of others. I read your post several times and each time it cracked my heart in half a little bit more. This is a story of healing and humanity, and I shudder at the idea that anyone would create a “pamphlet” identifying autism as a factor impeding economic growth. It throws off more than a passing whiff of Spiegelgrund and is wildly dangerous. Your candor is life-saving, and brought tears to my eyes. ❤️
Thank you for sharing what is deeply personal to you. As a mother of an autistic son I have seen first hand the suffering and pain for him in a world that wasn't set up for anyone that isn't neurotypical. For Kemi (and I hadn't heard of her comments about this until now) to make such loaded statements is hugely insensitive and I would add ignorant of someone who doesn't know the damage her words will do to people whom already feel like they don't fit. To politicise disability in order to make headlines and to gain traction is a low blow. The system had not helped our son and when he couldn't go to school and when he was suicidal at 14, everything about our life for 2 years became about saving his. Which as a mother is the hardest thing to write. Saving him from himself was the priority. Piecing him back together was the most painful thing to have experienced. Living through each day worried he would cause himself harm that he couldn't come back from was my greatest fear. He had to work so hard to understand himself again, to know who he was without having to mask which had worn him down without realising that that is what he was doing. All of his support had to be private because the school and system couldn't give him access to what he needed which included a diagnosis of multiple neurodiverse conditions. I dread to think what I would be writing now had we not have made the decisions we did because the psychologist (whom also worked in the NHS) said he was at breaking point. In my mind, there isn't enough and enough at the right time for people in need. Our son will forever be judged in situations where he 'should' be doing or behaving in a certain way, he will forever have to battle to navigate the world as it is rather than a world where everyone is understood and catered for. I know this isn't an open letter but I'm glad you wrote this because it stands for everyone that struggles to find their place and continues to adapt themselves to fit in with what norms have said they must. Standing tall isn't easy when the place we all exist within can make us feel small but it is where courage meets what eventually will be the change that encompasses us all. :-)x
Katherine I have rephrased this comment several times to put better what I feel about your moving and articulate post, but am concluding by failing at all of that. So instead here is a huge and heartfelt *thank you*. Also, I wanted to send love. xx
Wow -- this is so moving and needed. I resonated with so much -- very early in life I developed a knack of what I call 'trance' -- going inside myself to shut out noise, lights... a texture I couldn't control was school milk with staws (which shows my age) - I spent every play time being 'trained' to try to drink warm, coagulating milk through a straw -- tiny sip, another tiny sip ... till I gagged and threw up - then it was 'enough' till tomorrow. At some point they gave up. I got incredibly skilled at masking but was also completely alienated from my own body and feelings -- I got maried at 18 in good part because I was too frozen to say no. I was lucky not to be bullied -- I developed a knack of speaking up for the class to teachers deemed scary which made me weird but useful and gave away my lunch every day to girls who would have been the bullies (not by force -- I hardly ate and didn't want it). And I was lucky that there were a few adults around (at school and in a local church) who realised I was odd but clever and quietly supported so I went fro a dysfunctional working class family to Cambridge at the end of the 70s (2 weeks after getting married!). It was like being on Mars but I found myself fascinated rather than repelled and a few kind people made enough space for me to be safe if always 'strange'. I only taught for 3 years and it was much more than enough and then church ministry, which ended horribly after 3 work place assaults and massive gaslighting from the hierarchy around the 'bad publicity', but aspects of it worked along the way -- really resonated with "bursts of social effort with a lot of time at home, working alone." Which is what I found even more of when I founded an indie press and have been doing for 20 years (after the interlude of a major helath breakdown -- physcial and emotional -- after the assaults. When my oldest child was about 4 a friend who is a paediatrician suggested R was autistic and we started on that journey, but I still didn't aply it to myself and it's only in the last few years that my youngest son started suggesting to me that it fit me too. And he is so right -- it made sense - there at almost 60 -- to hear this.
It's interesting that Ms Badenoch's position is ecomomic -- individuals should fit the system and not 'cost' anything. Then those individuals break and the costs (not just financial) become hugely more than it would have taken to have humane and accomodating systems in the first place. Her thinking is fundamental to any philosophy that insists on homogeneity and leads to policies like eugenics, genocide of the inconvenient, inhumanity to assylum seekers, insisting human diversity is personal and private and should not be seen or accomodated in society at large... Basic inhumanity.
I read this half a day ago and I've thought of very little else since. It's heartbreaking to read - but also a testament to your incredible resilience, and a window into how unjust and cowardly all this is.
For senior politicians to be so utterly bereft of empathy and basic humanity that they'll target what they've identified as suitably vulnerable & therefore relatively powerless sections of society and heap blame upon them for the *economy* of all bloody things...it's straight out of the authoritarian's playbook for starters (and it's happening elsewhere in the world, of course) but it's also just plain flat-out monstrous. I am glad the reaction to Badenoch's pamphlet is an uproar, but it's so awful that it's out there in the world in the first place, doing so much damage and inflicting so much emotional cruelty...
Thank you for writing this, Katherine. I wish you didn't have to.
Katherine, your writing and exposé of your life-long suffering has gone straight to my core, bringing up tears. Bravo: for this letter and articulation of your thoughts and experience; for surviving, and now doing the work you are doing, touching and helping so many. I am a late-diagnosed autistic myself. I came across you when you launched Wintering (a friend told me about a cool online book launch during the early COVID days). Then I had no real idea of what autism is, and that I could possibly be autistic myself. My journey to diagnosis was propelled by other factors (crises!), but once diagnosed, I remembered you. Your bravery and what you have done with your life inspired me and gave me hope. Those things still do, and are directly affecting how I am increasingly successfully navigating my life. Thank you. My gratitude couldn’t be more whole-hearted.
Feeling like a tuning fork over here, ringing in recognition.
How maddening that people like Kemi don’t have the capacity for empathy, preferring clickbait blaming to real change that would help us all. Thank you for doing the work others refuse to. So unfair that it’s needed.
In your country and mine, there are a growing number of people for whom cruelty is a drug. Too many of them are either in positions of power, or trying desperately to get there by any means possible, including lying, cheating, stealing. Too many of them are given a bully pulpit. This is completely wrong, and detrimental to society and all we as compatriots hold dear: community, compassion, and especially CHILDREN. This account you have written is a valuable lesson for those who need to understand how terribly important it is that communities find compassion in caring for children. To “other” a child is a horrific wrong. We have learned better. And WE ARE NOT GOING BACK despite all their proud and disproportionate influence on systems of government and the media.
Hi Katherine, thank you for sharing your painful experiences and your resourcefulness. So much reasonated from my life and i have also wanted to not respond to Kemi but also to protest the ignorance and cruelty of her words. Thank-you for being you and i am so glad i stumbled onto your book Wintering in 2020! Keep on being you! Kind wishes, Penn
Oh my goodness! So many tears here! The photo of little Katherine… I want to steal her away and help her have a very different and custom made life ! There would be no school … what a horrid thing to do to any child much less one so sensitive! Our days would be filled with the joy of play, the discovery of the world around us… her inclinations, whether involving sound or texture would be respectfully honored and solved. Her extraordinary mind would be celebrated and engaged with in whatever manner she needed, and she would have allies to run to as she explored and emerged into the larger world at her desired pace. I know how to do this because this is just what I did with my beloved son, who, while other kids carried Teddy Bears, toted Phaidon’s Art Book under his arm, making up games like “ok who is the artist and what museum is this hanging in?“ So much joy amidst the challenges. But we met them all until a seizure took him one morning at the age of 19. I am so grateful for you shining your amazing light on the singular beauty of each of us. Much love to young Katherine and to the extraordinary adult you’ve become.
Well and importantly shared. I have just completed my MA at CCCU and got to know a fellow student who was brave enough to share her experiences if autism growing up in our anthology we produced. I have two grand daughters, both diagnosed ADHD and one undiagnosed ASD too ( a few years wait for that) the oldest is coping with transition to senior school. The world we know is scarey for them and quite simple solutions can help once they are not just classified as naughty. Thank you for your honesty and how horrifying that someone should think like this
I know very little about Badenoch, but enough to be able to draw a comparison to T here in the States: the breathtaking cruelty, the bullying, the utter disregard for the lives and struggles and quiet triumphs of others. I read your post several times and each time it cracked my heart in half a little bit more. This is a story of healing and humanity, and I shudder at the idea that anyone would create a “pamphlet” identifying autism as a factor impeding economic growth. It throws off more than a passing whiff of Spiegelgrund and is wildly dangerous. Your candor is life-saving, and brought tears to my eyes. ❤️
Thank you for sharing what is deeply personal to you. As a mother of an autistic son I have seen first hand the suffering and pain for him in a world that wasn't set up for anyone that isn't neurotypical. For Kemi (and I hadn't heard of her comments about this until now) to make such loaded statements is hugely insensitive and I would add ignorant of someone who doesn't know the damage her words will do to people whom already feel like they don't fit. To politicise disability in order to make headlines and to gain traction is a low blow. The system had not helped our son and when he couldn't go to school and when he was suicidal at 14, everything about our life for 2 years became about saving his. Which as a mother is the hardest thing to write. Saving him from himself was the priority. Piecing him back together was the most painful thing to have experienced. Living through each day worried he would cause himself harm that he couldn't come back from was my greatest fear. He had to work so hard to understand himself again, to know who he was without having to mask which had worn him down without realising that that is what he was doing. All of his support had to be private because the school and system couldn't give him access to what he needed which included a diagnosis of multiple neurodiverse conditions. I dread to think what I would be writing now had we not have made the decisions we did because the psychologist (whom also worked in the NHS) said he was at breaking point. In my mind, there isn't enough and enough at the right time for people in need. Our son will forever be judged in situations where he 'should' be doing or behaving in a certain way, he will forever have to battle to navigate the world as it is rather than a world where everyone is understood and catered for. I know this isn't an open letter but I'm glad you wrote this because it stands for everyone that struggles to find their place and continues to adapt themselves to fit in with what norms have said they must. Standing tall isn't easy when the place we all exist within can make us feel small but it is where courage meets what eventually will be the change that encompasses us all. :-)x
Katherine I have rephrased this comment several times to put better what I feel about your moving and articulate post, but am concluding by failing at all of that. So instead here is a huge and heartfelt *thank you*. Also, I wanted to send love. xx
Wow -- this is so moving and needed. I resonated with so much -- very early in life I developed a knack of what I call 'trance' -- going inside myself to shut out noise, lights... a texture I couldn't control was school milk with staws (which shows my age) - I spent every play time being 'trained' to try to drink warm, coagulating milk through a straw -- tiny sip, another tiny sip ... till I gagged and threw up - then it was 'enough' till tomorrow. At some point they gave up. I got incredibly skilled at masking but was also completely alienated from my own body and feelings -- I got maried at 18 in good part because I was too frozen to say no. I was lucky not to be bullied -- I developed a knack of speaking up for the class to teachers deemed scary which made me weird but useful and gave away my lunch every day to girls who would have been the bullies (not by force -- I hardly ate and didn't want it). And I was lucky that there were a few adults around (at school and in a local church) who realised I was odd but clever and quietly supported so I went fro a dysfunctional working class family to Cambridge at the end of the 70s (2 weeks after getting married!). It was like being on Mars but I found myself fascinated rather than repelled and a few kind people made enough space for me to be safe if always 'strange'. I only taught for 3 years and it was much more than enough and then church ministry, which ended horribly after 3 work place assaults and massive gaslighting from the hierarchy around the 'bad publicity', but aspects of it worked along the way -- really resonated with "bursts of social effort with a lot of time at home, working alone." Which is what I found even more of when I founded an indie press and have been doing for 20 years (after the interlude of a major helath breakdown -- physcial and emotional -- after the assaults. When my oldest child was about 4 a friend who is a paediatrician suggested R was autistic and we started on that journey, but I still didn't aply it to myself and it's only in the last few years that my youngest son started suggesting to me that it fit me too. And he is so right -- it made sense - there at almost 60 -- to hear this.
It's interesting that Ms Badenoch's position is ecomomic -- individuals should fit the system and not 'cost' anything. Then those individuals break and the costs (not just financial) become hugely more than it would have taken to have humane and accomodating systems in the first place. Her thinking is fundamental to any philosophy that insists on homogeneity and leads to policies like eugenics, genocide of the inconvenient, inhumanity to assylum seekers, insisting human diversity is personal and private and should not be seen or accomodated in society at large... Basic inhumanity.
Thank you for your words. xx
I read this half a day ago and I've thought of very little else since. It's heartbreaking to read - but also a testament to your incredible resilience, and a window into how unjust and cowardly all this is.
For senior politicians to be so utterly bereft of empathy and basic humanity that they'll target what they've identified as suitably vulnerable & therefore relatively powerless sections of society and heap blame upon them for the *economy* of all bloody things...it's straight out of the authoritarian's playbook for starters (and it's happening elsewhere in the world, of course) but it's also just plain flat-out monstrous. I am glad the reaction to Badenoch's pamphlet is an uproar, but it's so awful that it's out there in the world in the first place, doing so much damage and inflicting so much emotional cruelty...
Thank you for writing this, Katherine. I wish you didn't have to.
I totally understand why you prefer the poetry of writing but this is brilliant writing. It's a bit of flint writing is what it is. x
Yesss… this flint needed to be struck!
Katherine, your writing and exposé of your life-long suffering has gone straight to my core, bringing up tears. Bravo: for this letter and articulation of your thoughts and experience; for surviving, and now doing the work you are doing, touching and helping so many. I am a late-diagnosed autistic myself. I came across you when you launched Wintering (a friend told me about a cool online book launch during the early COVID days). Then I had no real idea of what autism is, and that I could possibly be autistic myself. My journey to diagnosis was propelled by other factors (crises!), but once diagnosed, I remembered you. Your bravery and what you have done with your life inspired me and gave me hope. Those things still do, and are directly affecting how I am increasingly successfully navigating my life. Thank you. My gratitude couldn’t be more whole-hearted.
There are no polite words about Kemi. I know what I'd like to do, but I suspect I am not allowed to do that either.
She is obviously an ignorant, ridiculously sheltered privileged twit and as much use as lettuce leaf against a hurricane.
Your words echo so much of what my friends and now their children are going through. The system is broken, none of you are.
Feeling like a tuning fork over here, ringing in recognition.
How maddening that people like Kemi don’t have the capacity for empathy, preferring clickbait blaming to real change that would help us all. Thank you for doing the work others refuse to. So unfair that it’s needed.
In your country and mine, there are a growing number of people for whom cruelty is a drug. Too many of them are either in positions of power, or trying desperately to get there by any means possible, including lying, cheating, stealing. Too many of them are given a bully pulpit. This is completely wrong, and detrimental to society and all we as compatriots hold dear: community, compassion, and especially CHILDREN. This account you have written is a valuable lesson for those who need to understand how terribly important it is that communities find compassion in caring for children. To “other” a child is a horrific wrong. We have learned better. And WE ARE NOT GOING BACK despite all their proud and disproportionate influence on systems of government and the media.
Hi Katherine, thank you for sharing your painful experiences and your resourcefulness. So much reasonated from my life and i have also wanted to not respond to Kemi but also to protest the ignorance and cruelty of her words. Thank-you for being you and i am so glad i stumbled onto your book Wintering in 2020! Keep on being you! Kind wishes, Penn
I’m so sorry that you had to write this, but I admire the brave and powerful way in which you have done so.
Oh my goodness! So many tears here! The photo of little Katherine… I want to steal her away and help her have a very different and custom made life ! There would be no school … what a horrid thing to do to any child much less one so sensitive! Our days would be filled with the joy of play, the discovery of the world around us… her inclinations, whether involving sound or texture would be respectfully honored and solved. Her extraordinary mind would be celebrated and engaged with in whatever manner she needed, and she would have allies to run to as she explored and emerged into the larger world at her desired pace. I know how to do this because this is just what I did with my beloved son, who, while other kids carried Teddy Bears, toted Phaidon’s Art Book under his arm, making up games like “ok who is the artist and what museum is this hanging in?“ So much joy amidst the challenges. But we met them all until a seizure took him one morning at the age of 19. I am so grateful for you shining your amazing light on the singular beauty of each of us. Much love to young Katherine and to the extraordinary adult you’ve become.
Ps This Kemi sounds like a real fuckface :)
Amen to all of this Francine x
❤️
Thank you. You put so many things into words that I just can’t. That was me too 💐
Oftentimes you bring me great joy. Oftentimes you break my heart.
I learn so much by carefully listening to you.
I would like to ask you not to underestimate yourself and the import of your journey to me and to so many others.
You are essential.
And I thank you! Debbie
Well and importantly shared. I have just completed my MA at CCCU and got to know a fellow student who was brave enough to share her experiences if autism growing up in our anthology we produced. I have two grand daughters, both diagnosed ADHD and one undiagnosed ASD too ( a few years wait for that) the oldest is coping with transition to senior school. The world we know is scarey for them and quite simple solutions can help once they are not just classified as naughty. Thank you for your honesty and how horrifying that someone should think like this