So here we are in 2022. (Let’s pretend February is the start of the year, okay.) Happy New Year, everyone :/ The holiday season certainly played out a little differently than expected. Or maybe exactly as expected? Those Covid numbers! RAT shortages! Empty shelves, again! So much rain! It’s all been a bit much, hasn’t it. Let’s talk about how we are coping (or not coping) and what has helped.
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.
(Side note, this corduroy bear is from one of my favourite stories ever…)
Listen Up
Kay: A lot of my anxiety towards the end of last year revolved around parenting, and not always being able to react in the calm and comforting ways I want to when I am burnt out or sensorily triggered. I gravitated towards Instagram accounts that shared short videos with scripts on how to handle certain parenting situations, including Dr Becky Kennedy. I have since discovered she has a podcast called Good Inside, and it has been providing me with small moments of assurance and guidance for tricky parenting dilemmas. I know it is not for everyone, but if child psychology is your kind of thing, I highly recommend it.
Also, I recently spoke to the wonderful Allison Tait for the Australian Writers’ Centre So You Want To Be A Writer podcast. You can listen here.
Anna: I’ve been listening to friends play games. As in, I log in to my discord gaming server, say hi and that I can’t talk, turn off my mic, and listen to them play. When I’m feeling lonely or disconnected because of family commitments - or I can’t sit at the computer due to pain - I can at least feel part of the group. Thankfully, they understand and also do the same sometimes. We come from all walks of life and range from thirteen to forty-four in age. Yes, I’m the super old one (I’m the future). They don’t care, judging me only on my gaming and how I treat them. One server renamed me MOTHER and hearing them call me that in different American accents makes me laugh every time. Some never speak and instead type into a ‘no-mic-chat’ channel, only logging in to hear the rest of us play. We all need people on occasion, and I’m grateful to have a neurodivergent friendly way to engage.
All the feels
Kay: What a time to buy a fish tank and a sensory swing! Truly #blessed because we have spent so much time at home this long, wet, Covid-y summer. The fish tank has been a constant source of chaos, but it is small, manageable chaos like the fact that one of the fish we brought home on Christmas Eve gave birth overnight and we woke up with 20 babies swimming around (and shortly after, a dead mum, because apparently this is a Disney movie). Then ANOTHER fish had babies a few days later, but she didn’t die. Apparently the stress of moving tanks and giving birth on the same day is what happened with poor Zatz. RIP.
So then we had 35 baby fish, plus 4 adult fish. Not ideal in a 35L tank. Most have been rehomed, and we still have about 8 babies who are doing well, although they do annoy poor Princess Catfish a bit. Now I’m managing the weekly routine of vacuuming the gravel, changing 30% of the water, fertilising the plants, giving them optimal amounts of LED light, and monitoring the fish (one was doing a weird barrel-roll type move for a few days but seems fine now) which has taken time I would usually dedicate to social media and doom-scrolling. Being mostly off Insta and Twitter has been a good mental-health move, because it is not ideal for my brain to be constantly exposed to that level of anxiety, anger, distress, and the sheer number of hot takes. Opinions everywhere!
Very aware that I’ve been info-dumping this whole section, but also the sensory swing is incredible. A is on it 3-4 hours a day and it is helping with emotional regulation, as well as the need for constant movement SO MUCH.
Anna: Kay, that was long! Does that mean I write more too? Or less? OMG KAY now I don’t know what to do! I have a swing on order… last one deteriorated. Also have many many fish tanks. I’ll add a pic - that’s worth a thousand words, I’ve heard.
Kay: Oh no, don’t follow my lead. I don’t know what I’m doing. Fishy is beautiful!
Off the shelf
Kay: Before I jump into my recent reads, I wanted to share this piece from Liel Bridgford for ABC Arts about disability representation in fiction. Liel does incredible work in this space, and I was so happy to have the chance to chat to her for it.
I recently finished My Body Keeps Your Secrets by Lucia Osborne-Crowley. It is an incredible work of non-fiction that blends memoir, research, and interviews, exploring the ways trauma can manifest in our bodies, as well as the fight to reclaim them. Lucia is a brilliant thinker and I was reading this at the same time as I was following her coverage of the Ghislaine Maxwell case, which felt quite poignant.
My latest read was The Competition by Katherine Collette and I definitely recommend it as a perfect balm for these weird times. It was a lot of fun to get drawn into the world of SpeechMakers. As with Collette’s first novel The Helpline, this has a cast of eccentric oddballs and insight into the inner workings of an organisation I hadn’t previously given much thought. For Brisbane folk, Katherine will be doing an event at Avid Reader on February 15. It will also be over Zoom. More info here.
Anna: I have two new poetry books, both by Andy Jackson. I love them both and haven’t finished them because they always spark so many thoughts I get lost.
Uh Oh
Anna: Well, so much of my life is the Uh Oh moment that I hardly know where to start. How about the bit where I drank too much? Or maybe the serious weight gain? (scratch that, I’m loving it too much). Perhaps we could look at my inability to tweet… or maybe the bit where I didn’t finish my book on time, again. No? Hmm. I know! I can’t do image descriptions.
This is a bit controversial but I find the need to add image descriptions quite often keeps me away from social media. The descriptions make social media accessible for many of my own people, most of whom are disabled.
I understand the need. I’m filled with guilt. I also can’t describe real facial expressions. It’s a different skill to writing fiction, or maybe I’m terrified I’ll get it wrong. My hands hurt to type more than I must on a phone screen. My own disabilities mean I can’t help others who are disabled. So I just don’t post the pics on twitter unless I have many spoons, and I often beg forgiveness on Insta. Sometimes, others jump in to help and add descriptions for me. I live in gratitude to these people. There’s no happy or pithy ending to this, it’s just a thing I don’t know how to solve to be honest.
Kay: I feel this, so much. I’ve been feeling like a bad book friend for not posting about other people’s books as much as usual. It’s been a slog just to exist, so the extra stuff falls away…
Leaving The House
Kay: Lol. No.
Who Put Me In Charge
Kay: With school back next week, I have been trying to gently introduce the idea to A that one or all of us may get Covid and have to isolate within the house, just so it isn’t a terrible surprise if/when it happens. The idea that I would have to isolate in another room is a particularly hard one to handle, as I am primary carer, she has high needs, and we co-sleep. I don’t know how other families have coped with this. I accept that if she gets it elsewhere I will probably get it and we will continue to co-sleep etc. But the other way around, I can’t accept giving it to her without at least trying to prevent it, if I am the one who first catches it. Probably though, given our small house, single bathroom, and sleeping arrangements, we are likely to all get it. I mean, she breathes directly into my face all night. How are other families, especially those with ND kids, handling this? We have had the joy (hell) of doing one RAT with her, and I hate the dialogue around schools that says ‘just rapid test the kids all the time’ because that is not possible for everyone. We minimise Covid talk because of anxiety, but I didn’t want to surprise her with ‘guess what, you are not allowed to see your mum for a week’, without at least one conversation around it first.
Anna: Far out Kay that’s hard. I hadn’t appreciated the change in risk with having only children 8+. My issues surround gaming choices, how to get physical activity, and how to keep the kids interacting with people their age. My youngest has two friends who she has regular plays with because we are all immunised, as are the kids now, and they honestly need each other.
Scratch Pad
Kay: Against all odds, I am working on my new book at the moment. This non-fiction project has actually been in the works behind the scenes since last August. I am just about at the end of the interviewing and research stage, and so excited about how it is shaping up. It is one of those projects that requires a lot of work outside of writing, so it feels like I have done nothing and everything at the same time, really. I am not sure how much I can give away, but I will say that I have been interviewing other autistic people and it has been such an incredible, humbling, illuminating, exhausting, and affirming experience. I can’t wait to share more about it. I’ve set myself a monthly word count goal, and I am attempting Scrivener again. It seems to be a good program for a non-fiction book that has a lot of different bits and pieces. That’s not really a Scratch Pad WIP piece, but it is a writing update!
Thank you both so much for the latest edition of The Overshare!
I can’t imagine the logistics involved with little humans at the moment, and how overwhelming it must be. Thinking of you Kay! I’m glad the fish tank and swing are providing some pockets of lightness and joy.
I love your tip about Discord, Anna - I’m going to recommend it to one of my friends who uses the platform. I’m so glad you’ve got such a lovely community on there!
Soooooooo relatable. My eldest’s support worker tested positive with CoVid and we were so unprepared. One toilet and bathroom too. We put hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes in lots of places. Asked him to wear a mask when leaving his room as I can’t imagine confining him. He’s not caught it. My daughter had a bad cold and tested negative for a week. It’s really hard to isolate your kids. I caught her cold and stayed in my room and my husband still slept with me and escaped the lurgy. Total anxiety during all this with repeated testing, sensory challenges, arguments and frustration.