Hi all! Nothing like the school break to bring all our neurodivergent needs to the surface :/ May is a big month and we have lots to (over) share.
The Overshare is broken up into seven sections: Listen Up–for all things auditory and musical, All The Feels–for sensory gadgets and neurodivergent products we are loving, Off The Shelf–bookish things including what we are reading and upcoming events, Uh Oh–life disasters, bloopers and social mistakes, Leaving The House–pretty self explanatory, Who Put Me In Charge–challenges in parenting, executive functioning, and life admin, and Scratch Pad–to share new writing bits and pieces. Let’s do it.
Listen Up
Anna: I’ve been listening to ‘EMDR’ music while reading about trauma. Weirdly, I think it’s helping. The music goes from one ear to the other annoyingly. They don’t really know why this helps people with trauma but it can. It can also trigger, so be careful. It’s not supposed to be used therapeutically this way, but I thought I’d give it a go. I like one by Liborio Conti. I’m not this kind of doctor, so please remember I’m just Anna and sharing what I’m up to!
Kay: I am exclusively listening to the soundtrack for Our Flag Means Death at the moment because my brain has latched on to this beautiful, weird show as a new special interest. Perfect use of The Chain by Fleetwood Mac in this scene. I’m obsessed. We have been having some pretty hard parenting nights lately (sleep, what is sleep??) and scrolling through fan art and watching little clips from the show has been a balm. I loved this piece about the show by Maya Gittelman. Now renew it already, HBO!
All the feels
Kay: Okay, so I have been trying out a few new sensory products ahead of my week in Sydney. I am excited about the trip AND I know it is going to be a lot (new place, lots of new people, multiple speaking events etc) so I want to make sure I am supporting my needs along the way. I recently purchased two pairs of Loop Earplugs, one for sleeping and one for noise reduction during the day. The sleeping ones are similar to the ones I use now, only fancier and more expensive, but the daytime ones (called Experience) are a game-changer. They cut out background noise, but you can still hear conversations and the things you need to hear. It has taken a little bit to get used to them, but now I love them.
I also ordered two pieces of fidget jewellery from Kaiko Fidgets. I got a Spikey Finger Fidget (which is like a coil ring) and a Caterpillar Necklace. They are both soo good! I especially love the finger fidget. What I love most about Kaiko is that it was co-founded by a young neurodivergent person, Kai, with their Occupational Therapist mum, Jo. It feels great to support a ND business. Kai started making his own fidgets when he was 11, which is so cool.
Anna: These are so classy, Kay! My hearing is already on the way out, with a specific deafness to low tones, and I still need noise cancelling headphones. As for us, we’ve enjoyed the sensory love of art. I’ve bought new pens - so so many pens - and while I put most adventures on instagram, or post finished products, I’m seriously considering a sensory indulgence account for social media. The scratching of a freshly sharpened pencil. The glide of a metallic gelly roller. The glitter of glitter pens.
Off the shelf
Kay: It is a big writing event month for me. I am speaking at Brisbane Writers’ Festival Love YA Day tomorrow (May 7). Our panel is first up, with Rhiannon Wilde, Jodi McAlister, Tobias Madden and Hope Ferris-Green. It is called It’s A Love Story, which, yes! I’m so excited about. And later this month, I am heading down to Sydney for Sydney Writers’ Festival. My panel is called We Can Work It Out, with Clayton Zane Comber and Sophie Gonzales. I am also chatting with Tobias Madden as part of the Secondary Schools program. Please come and say hi if you’re coming along to any of these talks!
Anna: I’ve read Tobias Madden’s latest masterpiece: Take a Bow, Noah Mitchell, and it was amazing! Very pleased. I’m also reading The Body Keeps the Score. I’m only a third in, so I’ll have to leave my comments till next time.
And I will have read neurodivergent author Kate Foster’s middle grade novel, The Bravest Word, but probably too late for this edition so here’s an #ownvoices review by Sarah Ross. Sarah is an awesome human, just sayin. Kate, also an awesome human, will be launching her new book next week.
Uh Oh
Kay: I am having a lot of trouble keeping on top of *life* and my schedule at the moment/always. Over the holidays it seemed to get worse, like being tuned in to parenting 24/7 meant I forgot things like appointments even existed. I messed up and missed so many things, including nearly missing our NDIS review meeting. Argh! In a very ‘ND person attempting to take control of their life’ move, I have purchased a wall calendar and I am hoping it will help me to stay on top of things like appointments and deadlines for the rest of the year. It is surprisingly hard to find a yearly wall planner that is functional with a good layout. I bought this one from Sarah Firth’s shop and printed it myself. If you have any other life planning tips, please let me know.
Anna: I have tips! Clearly, I also struggle A LOT hahaha_cry. We use an Alexa for voice reminders. There are other products that do the same, Hey Google etc., this isn’t an advertisement. As in, the kids can shout out ‘Alexa, remind me to feed the fish in the morning’ and she will. Vocally. No need to look or remember to check what needs doing, she interrupts the music or just kinda shouts into the house-void. Siri was too personal/device like, and prone to mute and sleep commands. She does other things too but it will truly start to sound like an endorsement, which this isn’t. And despite all the functions, we mostly just shout at her. My kid also asks her to tell jokes and insults and then analyses why the responses are insulting or funny.
Leaving The House
Anna: I went to a theme park. Family from interstate chose to go there and I couldn’t really argue! It was loud, and packed with people and fun and interesting and exhausting. I don’t quite remember it all, but I do remember how accessible it was (yay!) and that I tried not to be ‘that anxious parent’ with the wipes and the masks on her kids. So yes, my youngest got gastro. BE THAT PARENT. I hereby authorise you all. I then came down with it a few days after, of course, and I’m still not recovered. I think my reason for not doing my usual hygiene care was that I already had so much attention on my needs (in a wheelchair) that I didn’t want to make it ‘worse’. To be judged or scoffed at. I don’t really know who I thought would do this, but when you spend all day needing help… to ask for someone to find the wipes just feels too much. I need to self assess a little there perhaps. How we didn’t get covid I’ll never know.
Who Put Me In Charge
Kay: In an attempt to minimise the stresses of hosting a kid’s birthday party this year, I inadvertently made things WAY more stressful for myself with three separate birthday things. Way to go, me. We did a ‘cake with family’ thing, which was fun and exhausting, a ‘trip to Australia Zoo with two school friends’ thing, which was fun and exhausting, and a ‘Frozen Musical with Mum and Nana’, which was surprisingly the easiest of all, although the drive down and back to Brisbane left us pretty exhausted too. So, lesson learned, I am going to scale it right back next year and just do ONE THING. I think I did a good job of factoring in my daughter’s support needs this year, but probably not so much my own. I struggle with frustration around my own limitations sometimes, and school holidays always seems to bring that out.
Anna: As I’ve been bunking in with massive amounts of self care lately, my nine year old has kinda followed suit. We both have tables that lean over the couch, and she’s lined up her pens in perfect colour/tone order along the back. We watch random TV and create things for no reason at all. I’ve just found Cheri Hunt on youtube for inspiration - her attitude is perfectly aligned with mine. Here’s her Neurographic art tutorial. Back in the day, I was trained to teach kids from nursery to grade three, specifically, and my art teacher at uni was also a huge inspiration for stress-free positive art moments with kids. I have three children who will make a massive mess without concern, enjoying the gloop and colour and shine regardless of what is produced. I’m proud of the little monsters I’ve made (that’s my kids btw) given all of us have perfectionist tendencies. But yes, the house is a mess lol.
Scratch Pad
Anna: I have a few old pieces of flash fiction I thought I’d re edit.. just to keep my word muscles limber. This didn’t win anything, of course! But I found it helpful when processing Alzheimer and dementia within the fantasy genre.
Notes of Mourning
Solemn notes of mourning hang in the air. I leave the burning pyre, my feet crunch on the frozen grass and my back warms from the heat of her burning body.
‘Where will you go?’ My aunt Frel asks, unsure whether to follow me, or stay with her head bowed in churlish grief.
‘Away. My time has come.’ My life can begin now my mother’s life has ended.
‘You did well by her. Life can’t have been easy,’ Frel says. I keep walking, my aunt’s woeful words lost in the pyre's crackle. A waft of charred meat conjures memories of when mother burnt me with a poker. I put sugar in the tea, just as I’d sugared her tea every day for ten years. She threw the teacup against the wall. A brown stain still smears the embossed pearly white wallpaper. She thought I’d poisoned the tea, hunted her own daughter with a hot poker. I respected her spirit and feared the fury in her eye as my flesh endured her madness.
That’s not my mother on the pyre. That corpse held the monster that took her from me. She would never have harmed me, or lived with such hatred. My mother was strong and wily. She fought for her child and escaped a life bound to my father. No one would take us in, so we ran, me and her. We ran through the woods away from him and laughed and danced once we were free. My mother was a revolution.
We lived far from here. Over the years, she taught me the glorious strength of womanhood, before the disease took her. Paranoia overcame, confusion reigned within her and she demanded we return to the town that turned us away. Yet still, no one would help the mad old woman and her wilful daughter.
They were unaware of the money we had made. The piles of silver and gold we earned with our sweat and wit. Mother must have rambled one day as Frel suddenly offered to bake, to come and sit with the verbose monster who had taken my mother’s body. I let her, of course, while I planned. Frel stands in the smoke of her sister’s life, crying her craving tears.
‘You can’t just leave.’ The pyre’s crackle consumes her pathetic wail. She will get nothing. I’m strong and wily like my mother, and our gold and silver now line my dragon’s den in the northern mountains. The drums beat and my mouth curls in a smile.
I mourned my mother when the disease took her from me. Today is a celebration. Finally, we are both free.
My feet crunch on the frozen grass as I walk away in time to the music.
To make collect all the random things we mention, and as many are Twitter/Meta nervous, we now have a Pinterest board! Follow or join or whatever it is we do on Pinterest.