Normalcy vs. Needs
Here’s the thing no one tells you about people with a medical condition: The disease is always on their mind, but they don’t always want to think about it.
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It’ll Make Your Head Spin
Severe, chronic vertigo associated with migraines like mine is a “silent” disability, one people can’t see. Many people are compassionate. But others lack sensitivity, assume you’re faking it or just have a headache and will get over it.
Chronic Illness and the Friend Factor
I’ve never written fiction about living with Crohn’s, and to be honest, I’ve never wanted to. Perhaps because I still feel what I felt for years growing up: that nobody wants to hear about my annoying, humiliating misery. Yet I know, intellectually, that this is a shame, because there should be more characters in YA literature who live with chronic illnesses like IBD.
Crazy Creative
According to pop culture, mentally ill people are magically more creative, filled with a manic drive to create art that pushes them to the brink until they finally explode.
Driver’s Ed for Epilepsy
Did you know in the US it’s illegal to drive within six months after having a seizure? Even under supervision, even just around the block, I wasn’t trusted behind a wheel.
Writing Autistic Characters: Behaviorizing vs. Humanizing Approaches
Here is a key insight to creating realistic autistic characters: We do not do the visibly autistic things we do because of “autism,” full stop. Like non-autistic people, we are responding to our experiences of the world. Those experiences simply differ from those of non-autistic people.
Why Pelvic Pain Is Absent from YA Fiction
An estimated 1 in 7 women suffer from chronic pelvic pain; it’s bizarre and disappointing that despite these statistics, there are distinctly zero characters with this condition.
Lost in Translation
After second grade, I stopped reading most books unless they were assigned for class. Even then, I often didn’t read them. The reason being, when I read a sentence, I often didn’t understand it. Somewhere between my eyes seeing the words and my brain, the phrase disappeared into the ether.
Separating Writer from Character
When I received my diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome seven years ago, I thought of all the young people today who face the social challenges and bullying that I faced decades earlier. I wanted to create a character like me, but one who fights back against the way others treat her in a way that I never did.
Growing Up Deaf in the Public School System
It wasn’t until I was an adult that I could finally understand that from the time of my diagnosis, my education was not going to be “complete,” because I did not have the full access I needed. It was as if intensive speech therapy and itinerant teachers were more important than having a sign language interpreter in my classes.