Someone called me brave last week. I was at a small gathering with a few people I knew. Nothing dramatic. Nothing particularly difficult. I was sitting at the table, listening to everyone talk, occasionally joining in, and mostly doing what I always do in situations like that: keeping track ofRead More »Inspiration Porn and Disability: Stop Calling Autistic People Brave for Existing
I need to tell you something and I need you to stay with me even if your first instinct is to get defensive. Because I’m not coming at you. I’m not coming at anyone. I’m coming from the middle of something that I think is breaking the autism community apartRead More »Dear Autism Parents: The Autistic Adults You’re Arguing With Online Are Your Child’s Future. Maybe Listen to Them.
Let me describe someone to you. They’re smart — often very smart. Socially perceptive in ways that surprise people. Creative. Funny. When things are good, they’re genuinely magnetic. And then a demand enters the picture. Not a big demand. Sometimes the smallest thing — put your shoes on, it’s timeRead More »PDA Is Not a Behavior Problem. Stop Treating It Like One.
I want to tell you about a specific feeling. Not the Friday-night-with-nowhere-to-be kind of lonely. Not the moved-to-a-new-city-and-don’t-know-anyone kind. Those kinds of loneliness are real and they’re hard, but they at least make sense to other people when you describe them. Someone can look at your situation and understand whyRead More »You Can Be Surrounded By People Who Love You and Still Feel Completely Alone
Someone asked me recently what my favorite movie was. Simple question. The kind people ask at parties, on first dates, in the awkward silences between more important conversations. The kind that has an easy answer if you’re a person who knows yourself. I didn’t have one. And it wasn’t thatRead More »Who Were You Before You Learned to Disappear? Autism, Masking, and the Long Work of Finding Yourself
I had a very specific idea of what an advocate looked like. Confident. Articulate in the moment — not just in their head on the drive home. Organized. Not visibly afraid. The kind of person who could walk into a room full of people who disagreed with them, say theRead More »I Used to Think Advocacy Was for People Who Had It Together
America is turning 250 years old. Two hundred and fifty years of being a country. Two hundred and fifty years of the founding story — the one where a group of people looked at a king, looked at each other, and collectively decided: no. Not here. Not us. Not anymore.Read More »No Kings Then, No Kings Now: What America’s 250th Birthday Means When You’re the Person They’re Legislating Against.
I thought getting the diagnosis would feel like relief. And it did. For about a week. And then something else happened that nobody had prepared me for — something that felt closer to a kind of grief I couldn’t name yet. Not grief for the diagnosis. Grief for every yearRead More »Nobody Warned Me That Getting the Diagnosis Would Break Something Open
I need you to try something with me for a second. Imagine you’re in a restaurant. Decent place. Not too loud. You’re having a conversation with someone you like, and the food is good. Normal evening. Now imagine that at the same volume you’re speaking to your friend, you canRead More »What the Sensory World Actually Feels Like (And Why “Just Ignore It” Is Not a Thing)
We have always praised children who make adults comfortable. The ones who sat still. Who didn’t make a fuss. Who said “please” and “thank you” without being reminded. They never caused a scene and were, in the language adults used for children they prefer, good. Good. What a thing toRead More »The “Good Kid” Was Never Fine: Rethinking What We Were Actually Praising When We Praised Compliance
This presentation featured Tessa Watkins and Liz Peace, LPC, at the 13th annual Disability & Mental Health Summit. This talk was given in person on May 7, 2026, in Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
Something shifted in the way people talk about money. It’s not new to be broke. Poverty is old. Debt is old. The desperation of watching the gap between what things cost and what you earn continues to widen—that’s not new either. But something about the texture of financial stress inRead More »Being Broke in 2026 Feels Different. It’s Because It Is.