Donna Williams
I'm known as 'the arty autie' and have been described as the embodiment of creative chaos
.I'm an international bestselling author with 9 published books.
I've been a public presenter since 1994 and an autism consultant in the field of developmental differences since 1995.
I'm a qualified teacher with a background in sociology but largely I'm a prolific, fairly mad artist and singer songwriter with the band, Donna And The Aspinauts since 2008
I was assessed as psychotic at age 2 in 1965 when I was also thought deaf. Although I had stored speech (delayed echolalia), I was still tested for deafness till late childhood by which time I was labeled disturbed. It was then that my meaning deafness became understood and I was helped to discover interpretive meaning and with it, functional language. I was diagnosed with autism in my 20s.
Today I'm a bestselling author with 9 published books (all with Jessica Kingsley Publishers), an artist, screenwriter, autism consultant and public speaker. I live with my wonderful husband Chris Samuel in the hills, in Australia.
My website donnawilliams.net features my art works and books as well as articles and events and my blog.
I helped found an international self employment site for people on the autistic spectrum at www.auties.org and anyone autism-friendly is welcome to help us build a more autism-friendly world for what is one of the most under-employed groups of people the world over.
See you there.
...Donna Williams *)
Contact Information
Articles by Donna Williams
September 26, 2009
When an artist has a condition there is always the question of how or if that condition influences their work. I was sent an interview about my relationship to sculpting, particularly the relationship of my autism to my sculpting. Thought I'd share it.
September 26, 2009
As an Aussie who created her own one-woman-show, I was buzzed at the news that I'll get to perform my one-woman-musical, Footsteps of a Nobody, in the US in Jan 2010.
September 26, 2009
The term autism is highly politicised with some claiming their child as THE face of autism or desperately clinging to sinking stereotypes disappearing until the waves of diversity within the label itself. One of the face of that diversity is the aspect of personal space. Whether a child gets totally in people's faces, or avoids them like the plague, it all gets called 'the autism'.
September 02, 2009
I used to be a dreamer, a romantic, a person of ´if only´ who believed the word ´maybe´ held the promise of ´yes´. Then I became an idealist, someone who developed the warriors visions of a better world or worlds, the way things should be, could be, with all the dogmatic passion of a rebel.
September 02, 2009
I've been collecting orphans for 20 years. I wondered if this warrior would ever get over this addiction. Then it was as if every message and person and event around me conspired to sweep me up in a magic which would change all of that. I even remember about 10 days ago, alone here (I enjoy a lot of time alone) and was musing to myself about the saying 'feel the fear and do it anyway'. Well, I'd been a phobic, a slave to fear, but dedicated my life to conquering that. Pulled out all the stops and declared that I would not stop for fear, I'd seize life regardless. But guilt, well guilt was a whole other beast.
August 25, 2009
I was never one to wear shoes as a kid and didn't think much of socks either. I felt they were suffocating my feet. It was like being blindfolded or having your hands in gloves all the time. So whether the ground was covered in frost or the Australian summer tarmac so hot the tar stuck to your feet, those shoes came off!
June 30, 2009
In the book, Everyday Heaven I wrote of feeling like I was a gay man in a woman's body. I recently stumbled upon others who have written the same and the comments they received showed how those who don't experience this simply have no idea.
June 26, 2009
Watching Michael Jackson some years ago when I first wrote of Exposure Anxiety, I felt an urge to write to him about Exposure Anxiety, but didn't. Ironically, I felt it was too exposing to do something so personal, especially in the direction of someone already so public, so exposed. Two weeks ago I listed him on my blog in an article on Exposure Anxiety in which I listed famous people who may have had Exposure Anxiety and I wondered how any of those on that list might feel being associated with the condition. Now, I feel Michael Jackson will not have to feel the excruciating nature of exposure or walk the tightrope in which Exposure Anxiety allows performers to live a life by proxy which it would never allow them in their personal world.
May 23, 2009
Once upon a time Romans forced gladiators to fight wild animals for the audience's blood lust. Then we had Nazi Germany where regular Germans turned a blind eye to persecution or considered their own part in it minimal for they were only doing what 'others had already done'. And we had football but it became so corporate people lost ownership of it. Today we have celeb bashing as the new football and those who get the boots in will often say "I wasn't the first", "I'm only doing what others had already done" and that he or she 'deserved it' by 'making themselves a public person'. When haters call for new recruits, I find this lust for shared hatred sociologically fascinating but also calls to my spirituality as a Taoist. Why do people crave such imbalance?
May 17, 2009
Fiona Crosby is a second year English Literature student at UKs Teesside University currently doing an assignment on The Representation of "disability". She wanted to ask me questions in relation to the representation of "autistic presence" in contemporary cultural forms. This is our interview:
May 15, 2009
At the age of 25 I scored just under 70 on an IQ test. That's in the mildly mentally retarded range. But by then I already spoke 4 languages, could scan volumes of books, play instruments, and could recite back long auditory strings outside of the ability of most humans. I also already had an honors degree in Sociology, a degree in Linguistics. So how could I score so low?
May 15, 2009
Christophe Pillault produces some of the most moving art by a person with autism in the world. Severely autistic, functionally non-verbal and with extremely limited self help skills he produces faceless, figurative works of soulful figures interacting.
May 15, 2009
I've been an international public speaker since 1994. So I found it so amusing recently when someone posted that I earn $1000 a lecture plus a nice hotel. Wow, so I could potentially be earning $365,000 a year at that rate. Goodness, I could buy my own hotel! So how true is the fantasy that as an autistic person working as a public speaker that I might live a decadent life of luxury?
May 13, 2009
Zealots love a conspiracy and there´s nothing anyone can do to HELP THEM get over the manifestation of what might even be THEIR personality disorder. So why do some people pull out all the stops to gather others with their same orientation to escalate their theories into hate, even into public shaming forums and as far as cyber stalking?
May 13, 2009
Unemployment of adults on the autism spectrum is huge, thought to be at a rate of around 80-90% of people diagnosed as on the autism spectrum have no full time work.
March 19, 2009
Belinda is a student doing the last year of a professional doctorate in clincial psychology. She has already completed a bachelor in behavioral neuroscience and postgraduate diploma in psychology. Her research project is investigating relationships and attraction among individuals with an Autism Spectrum Condition (ASC). The focus of her study is to explore attraction between those with an ASD and non-spectrum people to establish:
- What non-spectrum individuals find attractive in partners with an ASC
- What differences exist in the ratings of initial attraction between non-spectrum individuals with an ASC partner versus non-spectrum individuals with non-spectrum partner
- What individuals with an ASC find attractive in non-spectrum partners
I've invited her to send me 5 questions based on her research interest. Here's that interview:
March 19, 2009
Katherine Kasper is a reader on the spectrum who read the third book in my autobiographical series, Like Colour To The Blind. When she emailed me about the book I offered her the opportunity to send me 10 interview questions about it. Here's that interview.
March 19, 2009
I was asked some questions by Elaine Meyer, a freelance journalist and student at Columbia's journalism school, who was writing an article about autism as a metaphor in literature. She explained that a literature professor at Cambridge named Andy Martin recently came out with an article comparing the writers Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus in which he said Sartre's writing and personality exhibited autistic tendencies and Camus' exhibited what he considered opposite empathetic tendencies. She said he cited Simon Baron-Cohen's work as an influence and asked if she could ask me a few interview questions on the topic. Here's our interview:
March 19, 2009
Last month, with my band, Donna and The Aspinauts, I had the honor of playing with a wonderful performer, Heidi Everett. We discussed her concept of Mental Skillness. This is my interview with her.
March 19, 2009
A reader from Aspergers Parallel Planet, Alyson Bradley, sent me interview questions about the fourth book in my autobiographical series, Everyday Heaven (published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers). A brave woman indeed for she is diagnosed with Asperger's, is Dyslexic with learning difficulties and cognitive challenges and not a big reader. Her questions are interesting. Here's our interview.
March 19, 2009
Whilst there are many political roads one can go in the autism world, I see there are at least three quite BASIC ones :
March 18, 2009
I could never understand why this irrelevant, alienating question gets used daily as a greeting. What a one-size-fits-all world, a world in which those with Alexithymia, which effects 85% of those with autism, must be invisible.
January 12, 2009
Kissing… it can be engulfing, sloppy, overwhelming and messy and even worse if one of the parties has a gut disorder, tooth decay or just doesn´t brush - ew. And some of us have to warm up to directly confrontational mouth kisses, especially those of us who see faces in pieces or are face blind - ew - that fragmented face comin´ at ya
January 09, 2009
OK, so you're face blind, a little meaning deaf, maybe you have social-emotional agnosia and can't read facial expression or body language to save your life or are completely literal. Would you be a little socially phobia? Have a little social anxiety? Struggle socially in the mainstream?
Well, how do a bunch of autistic people with this stuff rock up to a popular live music venue in the inner city and hang out among a crowd of potentially largely non-autism-spectrum people?
December 20, 2008
We all get them, year after year....those PR 'Christmas cards' which remind us that a company is thinking of us (and their potential future capacity to profit from us). I think they are now so very passe.
December 20, 2008
Writing a book, making cards, artworks, crafts, CDs, DVDs are all wonderful creative things to do if you can´t take work outside of the house and you can always start a free quality blog which you can use to showcase your work, even link it to an online payment facility to take payments. But it´s hard to sell anything right now as people don´t have money and for many the future of their jobs is uncertain so they are understandably holding onto their money very tightly.
So what else can a stay at home parent, housebound or transport-limited person do?
November 29, 2008
If you get brain edema, fluid retention, liver problems, tend to inflammation, or struggle to detox, if you are sick of migraine from coffee withdrawal, find coffee keeps you up all night, or are worried about coffee dependency or its impact on anxiety states or mania, this may be the recipe for you!
November 29, 2008
I lived 35 years with two primary immune deficiencies and their impact on blood health and circulation before overcoming them (which I wrote of in the book Everyday Heaven). I´m now in my 40s and although my immune deficiencies are in remission, I still nurse a genetic tendency to systemic inflammation
November 27, 2008
it's not easy to be context blind and have some object blindness and move from hotel room to hotel room. But I have a system.
November 27, 2008
In my 30s a good friend gave me a precious piece of paper with a sentence on it. It was about the opportunity of change and that when we fight change the most likely gift is pain. She died shortly after that and I remembered that sentence as I mourned that loss and celebrated her spiritual presence in the beliefs, philosophies and sisterhood she had shared with me.
November 27, 2008
Australian Government proposing internet censorship to rival China
November 04, 2008
November fifth, in 2008
the world had held its breath
November 03, 2008
"It is now five minutes to midnight on the doomsday clock, reflecting the fact that we are closer to assuring the obliteration of our species than we have been at any time since the early eighties. We are rapidly approaching a tipping point, where we will either transform our violent, exploitative global system into a peaceful, cooperative one, or enter a catastrophic decline".
That´s the introductory blurb to Evolution´s Edge, an important new book by Australian activist Graeme Taylor and recently published by New Society Publishers.
October 31, 2008
So you feel sorry for the shopkeepers this Christmas if you don´t buy an A-Z of consumables. But what you may not realise is that those shopkeepers usually sell goods which were DESIGNED not to last, designed to rip you off, to be upgraded, replaced, thrown into landfill, designed to eat a hole in your pocket, designed to give a quick thrill and promote a mentality of momentary enjoyment and long term dissatisfaction with life itself. So what´s an intangible Christmas with substance?
October 24, 2008
If you care about your own special needs child, vote for a strong economy, for without it, no amount of promises will matter a damn.
October 19, 2008
I was approached by a student in architecture, Regina Chen, from The National University of Singapore about the way people with autism perceive space. Whilst I´m only one person with autism and every ´autism fruit salad´ is a different combination, I have worked with 100s of people on the autism spectrum so felt I´d reply as best I could keeping that diversity in mind.
October 18, 2008
I was born in the 1960s, before the abolition of the White Australia Policy. It was a shameful time of Anglo-Australians presuming themselves the First, the Real, Australians.
October 18, 2008
Pam Lane is from the Dallas chapter of Autism Society of America had the opportunity to as me some questions before I'm presenting in Dallas this Nov 08 as part of my US lecture tour. Here´s our interview:
October 07, 2008
According to Wikipedia the definition of Terrorism is ,
"the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion. This includes the psychological element: Psychological impact and fear – The attack was carried out in such a way as to maximize the severity and length of the psychological impact. Each act of terrorism is a "performance," devised to have an impact on many large audiences".
Furthermore Sarah Palin may have been 'pal'n it with a few terrorists of her own'.
October 06, 2008
Wendy Rudin is a presenter with Spirit FM 91.1, a community radio station in Australia explores the experiences of finding one's voice and the performer within with autistic author, artist, singer-songwriter, Donna Williams. Here´s the interview.
September 30, 2008
With the world markets in chaos, where can you invest without great risk? More...Property and most types of shares are plunging. What about art? Choose the right artist, the right work, and you may have a sound investment as their work becomes increasingly high profile and in demand. So what makes 'the right artist', 'the right work' from an investment point of view?
A patchwork quilt is still one quilt: An Interview with Donna Williams, author of Somebody Somewhere
September 02, 2008
From Multiple Personality Disorder to autism with visits to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, an interviewer grills autistic author Donna Williams about her book, Somebody Somewhere and particularly on her experiences with fragmentation, trauma and it's relationship with handling the mainstream world as an adult.
September 02, 2008
I don´t know if I´m Australia´s first diagnosed autistic interviewer (I´m diagnosed with autism as I acquired functional speech by late childhood) but I expect I´m the first who is diagnosed with both autism and language processing disorder. I´m not sure if it´s a compliment to be told ´you wouldn´t know it´ but I guess that´s their way of saying ´you did a fab job´.
August 18, 2008
In 2000, my husband Chris and I visited Japan and met with the stars of the international hit TV series: "Things You Taught Me" ("Kimi Ga Oshiete Kureta Koto") and it's director at TBS (Tokyo Broadcasting) , Tsunenari Yamasaki. Eight years on the series has shown in countries throughout Asia and I thought to ask when we might get to see it in English speaking countries. Here's my interview with the director:
August 18, 2008
I got a letter from a lovely parent about her teenage daughter, a wonderful long distance runner. Yet the coach was stumped. Why wouldn´t she compete? She´d just let the others pass her, retaining her same rhythmic pace.
July 27, 2008
We passed her on the train platform, tall, mid 20s, sporting a stylish winter coat, hair well kept. She was probably reasonably well educated, reasonably financial. And she sucked on a cancer stick. I thought, another sucker for the billionaire multinationals and their rat experiments.
July 14, 2008
Yesterday I decided to be helpful and it almost killed me.
July 14, 2008
Our TV here in Australia has just had advertisements urging everyone to go vegetarian. That may not sound so strange but we, like the US, are a meat producing nation. It´s deeply ingrained in the Australian culture and identity with meat on the ´barbie´ and advertisements urging people to eat red meat daily. I´ve even recently heard a butcher´s advertisement using a media personality claiming that it´s un-Australian to not eat meat...
July 10, 2008
PAUL SWANN:
So that´s the meaning of life, the universe and everything solved in just 2 questions! Again your response has given me a lot to think about. The teacher who´s had the biggest influence on me is Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, an uneducated cigarette seller who lived in a tenement building in Bombay. And yet his books such as "I Am That" (based on transcripts of his talks) contain the most profound wisdom. Perhaps the reason that some people are more able to see the truth of life is because their brain functions in a different way to the norm. I imagine that this can be both a blessing and a curse....
July 05, 2008
My parents were party people in the 60s and 70s. Alcohol flowed and morality wasn´t a family priority even though bravado, power and laughing things off and away, was. There was a recklessness, a constant reminder of ´yeah, yeah, you´ll get over it´.
June 25, 2008
Hi Donna, I wonder if you could answer a quick question. Do auties experience feelings of love? If so can they experience trauma through loss of a person, attachment or object? Many thanks.
Here´s my reply...
June 18, 2008
I got this a question about the nature of ´Autism Spectrum Disorder´. I was asked
In your opinion is ASD a learning disability, a neurological
condition or a mental health issue…or something entirely unique perhaps?
Here was my answer….
June 14, 2008
We can change these things, if we understand them, if we know we are not pawns in this, we are active participants and we can choose what we support, what we buy, how we adapt. We are not powerless.
June 13, 2008
A fellow Autie (person with autism) was chatting with me about the autism spectrum and how categories of Autie and Aspie (person with Asperger's Syndrome) aren't as clear cut as many imagine. We were chatting about those with features of each. I talked of Aspie-Auties and Autie-Aspies. She then jokes about Aspinauts, that this could describe those with features of each.
June 10, 2008
Chris Draper, a scientific researcher with the Born Free Foundation contacted me about a new ´therapy´ ready to cash in on the tail of that equally hot money spinner in the ever expanding autism marketplace, dolphin therapy.
June 09, 2008
An exciting art exhibition in Melbourne is bringing together a collection of Australia´s best known and respected graffiti writers in one show in Melbourne´s highly cosmopolitan Collingwood arts district. I spoke to the owner of Lindberg Contemporary Gallery, David Moulday, about the show.
June 08, 2008
There was weird case where a wife got killed after falling on upturned knife in a cutlery basket as she was emptying out the dishwasher with her husband. Yeah, sure, say most of us… he sure got away with a tall story there… how the hell could someone be that unlucky and how coincidental that he was right there when it happened. Well, I experienced my own version.
June 03, 2008
Nobody Nowhere was written in the days when autism was thought to affect 4 in 10,000 children (currently 1 in 150)… of course there were all those psychotic and disturbed children, assessed at age 2 or 3 who filled the children´s homes, the one´s whose families erased their names, their childhood photos…and the one´s who were kept, sometimes abused into submission, who learned to ´act normal´ or get locked away, or worse.
May 31, 2008
OK, so you buy the toothpaste in it´s fancy cardboard box and bring it home and first thing you do is throw that dyed, bleached, often not even recycled cardboard into the rubbish bin, or hopefully at least the recycle bin. You do it, I do it, and gazillions of households world wide do it ALL THE TIME. Why we need to ditch the boxes.
May 20, 2008
Between lucid dreaming and this netherland between dreams and spirituality, do dreams really keep us sane? Or do they sometimes haunt our waking lives with nostalgia and quests leaving us only half awake?
May 20, 2008
Our local postmasters are wonderfully autism friendly. They must be saints, these two. I have walked out without paying so many times (I always come back within the hour, day or week). I have been unable to remember which end is the back of the queue. I walk up to them with the task without saying hello or fail to answer hello to theirs, or I make mine then turn away. I have my vocal tics now and then and the occasional motor tic, sharp clap in front of my face thing which makes me look like I´m swatting a mosquito....
May 12, 2008
When we take about teachers and autism, we usually presume this means non-autistic teachers teaching autistic children. Think again. Geraldine Robertson is one of a growing number of adults diagnosed on the autism spectrum who works alongside non-autistic peers in teaching autistic children with challenges she herself has had to try to adapt to and manage.
Ghost writing and elves under the refridgerator - the amazing talent of Aspie writer Kimberly Tucker
May 06, 2008
Kimberly Tucker is woman with Asperger's, Social Anxiety and Selective Mutism who is an autism activist, artist and ghost writer with a poignant story of her own. Here is our interview.
April 27, 2008
One of australia's pioneering graffiti artists of the grafiti boom in the early 80s, Duel featured in a cult Australian graffiti documentary, Sprayed Conflict. His work today is of a particularly high standard. His recent solo exhibition challenges the stereotype of graffiti as vandalism.
April 05, 2008
I recently met Rosa Martinez when she purchased some of my artworks and invited me to join other savant artists with autism in a series of New York exhibitions. She´s dedicated her life to working with people with autism and channeled some of this into her deep love of art. Here´s our interview.
March 24, 2008
JUST as the dispute over whether vaccines cause autism was dying down at last, the US federal government is to compensate a couple who say that the regular childhood vaccines, given to their baby daughter in 2000, caused her to develop autism. But this was a VERY particular case.
February 12, 2008
I´m interviewing an adventurer of inner worlds and an explorer of Everest. He´s a man who has reached the professional heights of photographic art, the spiritual depths of becoming a relatively balanced human, and the chaos of paranoid schizophrenia. He´s a fascinating man, welcome to an interview with Stuart Baker-Brown.
January 30, 2008
Unemployment among those on the autism spectrum is massive. But those with ASD can be proactive. There's a free global self help service which can help them make that start.
January 30, 2008
Cyber Bully... we've all had one.
This was the first of a series of poems in a 24hr poetry challenge in which readers sent in suggested titles and I came back with poems to fit.
January 30, 2008
There are many things one can treat, sometimes should treat. But extreme manifestations of natural personality traits can't be cured without eradication of the person themselves. So where might autistic begin and autism end? And if one treats a child's autism, are they still autistic? There have been many wars only different 'normalities'. Before any war is waged on the ADJECTIVE 'autistic' it'd be a good idea to double check how many autistic moments and autistic phases ALL people have.
January 04, 2008
Finally the US lead terms ‘war on terror’ and ‘islamic terrorist’ have been ditched by the UK government according to The Daily Mail. The terms are now seen as outdated, inflammatory and inaccurate. To quote:
Sir Ken Macdonald said terrorist fanatics were not soldiers fighting a war but simpl...
December 30, 2007
In 1996 my first text book, Autism; An Inside Out Approach was published, in which I discussed strategies for meaning deafness, meaning blindness, lack of body connectedness and lacking simultaneous processing of a sense of self and other. To most people, that may sound like something from a Sci Fi ...
December 30, 2007
What is autism? Beyond the symptoms and stereotypes.
My definition of autism has evolved through my experience as an autism consultant with hundreds of children since 1997 together with my own experience as a person assessed as a psychotic infant in 1965 at age 2 and later diagnosed with auti...
December 30, 2007
I often write of object blindness, context blindness and face blindness as part of delayed visual processing. This is not a problem with the eyes but with the part of the brain which processes what the eyes see. And I have tinted lenses which cut out certain light frequencies, reducing incoming visu...
November 29, 2007
There's an international online autism conference featuring the world's most renowned experts in autism and the lastest in research. It's just opened so I decided to interview it's founder, Adam Feinstein, who started the AWARES online autism conference which is now in it’s 3rd year.
1) Hi Adam,...
November 23, 2007
High versus Low Functioning depends on the nature of the ‘autism fruit salad‘ underpinning the diagnosis with autism.
These ‘autism fruit salads’ can be standard or exotic, simple or complex, small or large quantities or pieces, separated contents or very mixed up.
High Functioning Autism
...
November 04, 2007
In 1996 my first text book, Autism; An Inside Out Approach was published, in which I discussed strategies for meaning deafness, meaning blindness, lack of body connectedness and lacking simultaneous processing of a sense of self and other. To most people, that may sound like something from a Sci Fi ...
October 28, 2007
My UK speaker’s agent and good friend was relishing a book by Jenny Mc Carthy called Louder Than Words and sent me some clips of the author from an interview on Larry King Live. The DAN (Defeat Autism Now) forum has been showing ‘recovered’ children with autism for some years now, demonstrating thei...
September 26, 2007
My father used gestures and characterisations as far as I could remember. He had a repertoire of stories and he’d insist on telling them no matter how many times anyone had heard them. And fact is, he was right, most of the time they were still funny even after hearing them an hour ago or for the hu...
August 05, 2007
Here I interview artist and singer, RozaGy about a recent song to raise autism awarness.
DONNA
Hi Roza,
I met you at one of my UK lectures last year. You were quite memorable perhaps in part to a rather obvious eccentricity and the fact you came armed with wonderful original sparkly paintings t...
July 22, 2007
Is there a link between fluoride toxicity, gastro-intestinal damage and Salicylate intolerance commonly found in those with ADHD and Autism?
Salicylate Intolerance is a condition in which some people struggle more than others to metabolise foods high in Phenols and Salicylates. One of the results...
July 07, 2007
Just for those who don't know, the term 'NT' stands for 'Neuro-Typical'. It came to be used to contrast those who were 'neuro-typical' with those who were 'neuro-atypical', basically 'typical' and 'atypical' brains. Over time, however, the term went from being purely an adjective to being commonly u...
July 07, 2007
We have a post office near us, one of the few and only shops I regularly go into, and its caused some challenges for me.
It used to have overtly bigoted people in there who would be abrupt and roll their eyes and 'tutt' and stuff like that when I didn't get my money out or didn't work out my pu...
July 07, 2007
One of the very simple things that bugs me are questions like 'would you like...?' , 'what do you want....?'
I used to have such acute chronic Exposure Anxiety that I couldn't bear having my existence so brutally made overt as through being addressed about MY reality, my inner reality. I'd ra...
July 07, 2007
Renowned Cattle Chute designer and author of "Thinking In Pictures", Temple Grandin, is well known for her presumption that 'Autistics Think in Pictures' and felt this was such a unique way of thinking she described being An Anthropologist On Mars. She had presumed that most non-autistic people, ...
July 05, 2007
Amanda Baggs shot to notoriety after pictures of her caused controversy on an autistic pride website. After she produced a You Tube video featuring herself typing her communication, she featured on US TV and her video was seen by over a 1/4 of a million viewers, inspiring functionally non-verbal peo...
July 03, 2007
This June, a recent article in one of our newspapers, The Age, entitled "Smoking might be a choice, but what to do about the bunch of tossers choosing to pollute?" shocked me with its findings.
240 million cigarette butts a year are washed down storm water drains and end up in Melbourne’s water ...
July 03, 2007
Exposure to heavy metals is part of modern life. These heavy metals are in many common household products as well as the petrochemicals in our air and waterways. If toxic levels of heavy metals, including mercury, are being found in many children with autism and blamed for their autism, what if the ...
July 02, 2007
Richard Attfield is one of the authors featured in the book "Autism and The Myth of The Person Alone" edited by Professor Doug Biklen from Syracuse University. Richard was one of the first people with autism in the UK to use the augmented communication device called a Canon Communicator and develo...
July 02, 2007
I'm interviewing the curator of a very special art show. It's a charity art auction featuring works by autistic artists who have united to help raise money for autism services.
Here's the interview.
DONNA WILLIAMS:
Hi Sarah, you have a very special online art auction happening right now. A...
June 18, 2007
How many of us wish to reduce toxins in the food chain, save wildlife, reduce the pollution of our waterways? Yes many of those same people flush perfume and bleach down their sinks, baths, showers and toilets every day.
Among the average ten toxins contained in perfume almost all synthetic perf...
June 09, 2007
OK, so your government doesn’t seem to care much about generations 20-50 years from now who will be faced with the economic and climatic catastrophes relating to global warming and the end of affordable petrol and is more concerned spending tax payer dollars doing public self back patting and image ...
May 28, 2007
As a person with autism and an autism consultant, I was often asked by parents of children with autism and PDD whether I had poor muscle tone.
I'm quick to rage, which I used to channel largely into hyperactivity and now channel into mad ARTism so I can be very strong.
My natural answer was, no ...
May 26, 2007
Sure, I'm an author in that field, I've been a consultant for 12 years in that field, a lecturer for 14 years and I put the word autistic in association with my name which I feel humanises the condition and raises its public profile, paving the way hopefully for the belief in the potential of others...
May 22, 2007
Ever the naughty Autie
« Adventures with Glutamine
Interviewing Lewis aged 11. »
Interview with humanitarian and author, Nick Fourikis.
And Then by Donna Williams www.donnawilliams.net DONNA:
Hi Nick. We met recently over email and you kindly sent me a copy of Hollywood, Amarroo. It’s a ver...
May 22, 2007
A wild interview with 11 year old teenager, Lewis Schofield who has Asperger's Syndrome, by bestselling autistic author and artist, Donna Williams.
DONNA:
Hi there Lewis,Well, loved visiting your website.
LEWIS:
Thank you. I visited your website, too, and boy is there ever a lot of stuff o...
May 10, 2007
The Australian film industry has been involved in some memorable and groundbreaking films - Breaker Morant, Gallipoli, The Piano, Murial's Wedding, Rabbit Proof Fence, Shine, Lantana, Ten Canoes. But with a population of only 20 million people, government funding for the film industry has always been limited and until now
May 07, 2007
With no look of apology or shame, I make my way to what others perceive as the front of the queue and wonder at the intolerance of those who grumble at me. Without the slightest embarrassment I talk over customers speaking with the cashier and ask for directions to what I’m looking for and when I’m ...
April 26, 2007
When two local Australian high school teenagers and My Space enthusiasts, Stephanie Gestier and Jodie Gater, were found hanging by their necks from a tree down the road from us, the buzz word EMO began informing those of us over 30 of the sad plight of these emotionally sensitive, passionate creatu...
April 23, 2007
Bestselling fantasy fiction author, Caiseal Mor, was diagnosed with ASD as a child. He’d written his autobiography in adulthood but the publishers and the journalists who helped his fiction works climb to fame were convinced that public awareness of his autism would be unhelpful to book sales. He w...
April 18, 2007
Ah, a brave new world indeed.
6 year olds playing with toy prostitutes and shopping for bras. Online games addicts playing for up to 50 hours straight and developing thrombosis, anorexia and heart problems and actually dropping dead in their chairs. Millions of people paying $15 a week, enough to...
April 17, 2007
He broke up with his girlfriend. She was seeing an older man. So he shot 31 people on a Virginia college campus.
Illogical?
Somehow not to him. But how?
Are some people so detached from fellow human beings, so insular in their relationship with one human being, so invested in that objectifi...
March 09, 2007
Some people in the non-USA world view America as a whole as having money as its God.
If the president is the largest power in people's lives next to God
and if they give him the power of life and death as they believe God has
then what do we make of the fact that George Bush got into power as a...
March 04, 2007
More and more books are now looking at Catatonic episodes in those on the autistic spectrum.
In the first of my four autobiographical works about my life with autism, Nobody Nowhere, I also wrote of a catatonic state brought on by acute depression and anxiety.
In books like Autism and Sensing; T...
March 04, 2007
This year, 2007 is an election year in Australia.
Yes, the Australian public did vote John Howard, back into power twice in a row. Its that same voting public which says little to stop housing refugee children in ‘mandatory detention centres’ (sometimes for years) where rape, violence and subsequ...
March 04, 2007
With the Australian government's new proposal to phase out incandescent light bulbs, what about those on the autism spectrum with the visual perceptual processing challenge of Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome who struggle to concentrate, read and learn under fluorescent lighting? I always squinted in b...
March 04, 2007
When a man who even the prosecutor’s agree never fired a shot in anger is charged with attempted murder, then I guess we can only imagine the lovely staff of Guantamo must have been playing tiddly winks over hot chocolate with Australian detainee, David Hicks, these last 5 years.
I’m saddened by ...
March 04, 2007
A friend dropped by yesterday and I my medication hadn’t yet kicked in. I’m usually pretty manic last thing at night and first thing in the morning (yes, would drive many people nuts!). But I drink Lemon Balm tea, which is a muscle relaxant and makes me pretty laid back, quite mellow. The result? ...
March 04, 2007
Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) used to be associated with orphans in Romanian orphanages, the battered, neglected and abused children of some disturbed or addict mothers or children given up for adoption. But what if, like autism, RAD is actually a spectrum? Today, the causes of RAD are far mo...
January 01, 2007
We’re looking after a tawny frogmouth (yes, looks like a Furby so now he’s called Furby and, no, he is NOT an owl, they are related to Nightjars, not owls) this Christmas after it fell from a nest and was hand raised by my friend. The rescue services she called said they had too many so with the arr...
January 01, 2007
Saddam the bad man has gone. Narcissist, psychopath, national leader, mass murderer. Except for the last description, he doesn’t differ too much from some other world leaders, past and present. Perhaps even then, it depends on your definition of mass murderer. Is a narcissistic psychopath leading a ...
October 18, 2006
This morning I ran a bath.
I ran that bath.
I then announced to my husband Chris that I could now run baths.
I'm 43.
I've been trying to run baths for 28 years.More...
I flood them, run them without the plug, run them cold, run the boiling, get in at the wrong time (ouch), forget them...
September 04, 2006
US icon, Steve Irwin, died yesterday doing what he loves; working with animals.
Wildly vibrant, Steve Irwin was a ‘rough diamond’, a diamond in the mud that sparkles for those who see past the bits of mud. A massive icon in the US where he was a refreshing, honest, straight forward, passionate wa...
September 01, 2006
Now the ‘terrorists’ are equivalent to Nazis, Fascists and Communists, according to the new campaign trail launched by George W Bush to try and win back failing support for his unlawful invasion of Iraq which has so far left 2,500 Americans and 45,000 Iraqis dead
OK, so when Bush waged his ‘war o...
August 23, 2006
England has its European heritage, its history as a waring nation, its shame as a monarchy claiming nations, destroying languages, dominating and patronising entire indigenous cultures on its own shared island (Scotland, Wales), on its doorstep (Ireland), into India, South Africa, America, Canada and Australia.
August 14, 2006
It’s strange perhaps, but somehow those who don’t converse sometimes take the role of family dog or cat, and hear some chilling confessions.
In my teens a man in his twenties confessed a guilt and shame he’d carried since his teens which haunted him. Together with a charismatic sociopathic teenag...
August 12, 2006
This week a group of so called Klu Klux Klan in Australia, threatened to bash up Aboriginal children out after dark in Lismore, NSW.
http://www.northernstar.com.au/localnews/storydisplay.cfm?storyid=3696419&thesection=localnews&thesubsection=&thesecondsubsection=
The presence of this morally i...
August 10, 2006
Thouroughly addicted to videos, one autistic child after another will go without eating, sleeping, washing, dressing, schooling, even the toilet to reply, just one more millionth time their favorite Disney, Thomas The Tank or Bob The Builder video. Like addicts some of the worst affected will self i...
August 10, 2006
Temple Grandin wrote and lectured much on ‘thinking in pictures’, imagining that, because a majority of high functioning people with Asperger’s did think in pictures (though many were auditory thinkers who thought in words) that, therefore, this was indicative of how ALL people with autism thought.
...
August 10, 2006
People got busy
Electronica ate time
We got eaten up by subliminal advertising, streamlining and labels
Till individuality wasn’t a given, it was a flag wave.
We got services and rights and stopped having to be so creative to survive
We got one-size-fits-all heroes and stopped imagi...
June 07, 2006
I have had lucid dreaming for years. When I was a child I had night terrors which are basically like lucid dreaming whilst also sleep walking.
Lucid dreaming isn’t like usual dreams. It’s maybe like comparing a comic strip to the 3D film, like comparing a melody line to a full blown orchestral arr...
April 30, 2006
I had to renew my prescription this week for the small amount of atypical antipsychotic medication that helps me cope with life and found myself talking about medication and the concept of 'being oneself'.
When does medication stop us being ourself? When does it enable us to be more of that sel...
April 15, 2006
When my first book, Nobody Nowhere was up for publication my landlord helped deal with the business side of things, with my agent and publishers.
We had several bidders for the book, each with their own take on things. We were offered more by one company but the publisher came into the house havin...
April 15, 2006
I believe there are 'boy mothers' and 'girl mothers'. The 'boy mothers' can relate easily to boys without feeling of threat or competition, without jealousy. The 'girl mothers' like the emotional sharing thing of having daughters and find the boys too self owning, too distant, too practical and l...
April 15, 2006
We can commit constructive suicide every day.
We can kill off the call to the adrenaline rush of threatening our own life.
We can kill off the lust to provoke regret from our enemies.
We can kill off the enjoyment of endulging in projections of our own self pity of how 'they'll all wish I'd li...
April 15, 2006
The Mask by Donna Williams Someone wrote to me from out of the ether after getting my CD. It was a beautiful letter about feeling found through having connected with the songs but also the most tangible aloneness as though they were calling from the darkness someone. People forget that I too am a st...
April 15, 2006
I was asked, if I was a religious person would I pray for someone's autistic child that this child would become 'reachable'.
More...
Yet I knew this child was already reachable just in a different cognitive, sensory, emotional world to this parent. Can people so different not connect? I think th...
April 15, 2006
Choices are like shopping, they are a supermarket. Some products will have too many additives and overpower the real subtleties and tastes with what's imposed.
Some products will be too candied, too salted, others all wrapper and More...no care or thought about the product's taste and texture und...
April 14, 2006
My husband and I were driving down the road when we saw two parrots by the side of the road, one alive, one dead. We were quickly struck with sadness for the living parrot obviously mourning its parnter. But the next morning, the thought was still nagging me. How the hell did we KNOW the living parr...
April 13, 2006
I would like to draw people's attention to Disability Discrimination Act which is part of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commissions (government) rulings (at least here in Australia).
http://www.hreoc.gov.au/complaints_information/index.html
The disability act often refers to peopl...
April 12, 2006
There are many ways people slow down and the chronic use of speed is one of them.
People slow down when they can’t sleep anymore, one of the first side-effects of chronic use of speed, along with increased irritability, emotional instability, a delusional feeling of invincibility and equally the f...
April 10, 2006
I watched MTV or Rage or whatever the music program was on the TV the other morning and there was some skinny blond twiglet singing a line ad nauseum till it sat in my head like an ?ohrwurm? (English translation ?earworm??the experience when something goes round and round your head like a broken ...
April 10, 2006
I have a compliment I direct towards my closest friends. I call them ‘dag’.
Now ‘dag‘ is an Australian term referring to a piece of poo left hanging from a sheep’s bottom when caught up in the wool of their tail.
Hardly an endearing term for one’s friends?
Well, ‘dag’ has had many transitions....
April 06, 2006
I was a kid in the 60s, and I remember a big glossy red square with a love heart on it and a man in the middle of the heart looking at me. He had a great honesty, no walls. He has a quiet feel to him, almost a shyness. When he looked at me off that glossy cover, he didn?t take from me, or give to m...
April 02, 2006
Swept up in pattern by Donna WilliamsWe all have had that experience where we know someone but just can?t remember where we know them from. Face Blindness is like this except it happens all the time, even with people you know really really well.
When I was a child I recognised people by the color ...
March 25, 2006
I recently read an essay by a friend who was talking about a cycle of poverty in which those born poor stay poor. Whilst this is often so, what intrigued me was that she was specifically referring to those born to families who disrespected education, authority and the law as though this was synoymo...
March 15, 2006
We can commit constructive suicide every day
We can kill off the call to the adrenaline rush of threatening our own life.
We can kill off overly lofty or rigidly purist ideals and expectations that fill us with defeat, impossibility or intolerance and drive despair and entrapment.
We can kill ...
March 15, 2006
'I lose time', said the woman across the table from me.
It was the follow-up sentence after having told me she lived with a mental health problem.
'Do you tell this to all your customers?' I asked, perplexed.
She had just told me she was a 'multiple'.
This didn't mean she was good at maths, ...
March 15, 2006
Adventures in Japan
Got back from Japan last week, yes, one of those other countries beyond the shores of America.
Somewhere in a mosaic of tepanyaki, a duck billed bullet train on Tokyo station, lecture theatres with black curtains and backstage bento boxes, I delivered seminars to around 800 p...
March 14, 2006
We went to visit an old friend on the weekend. He'd be diagnosed with coeliac 12 months ago in his 50s and had been through lots of health complications (including being told to increase bran!) before finding out.
He'd been shocked, of course, then there's all kinds of feelings:
Relief - to fina...
November 30, 1999
Cats Home by Donna Williams www.donnawilliams.net Someone's birthday? Christmas, Valentines Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day or other festivity? Thinking of spending your hard earned cash on something that may only clutter, support unethical corporates, support exploitative establishments and hideous...
Articles by Donna Williams From Other Sources
January 01, 2008
published in Autism and Sensing; The Unlost Instinct
January 01, 2008
published in Exposure Anxiety; The Invisible Cage