Hello Leonora! Besides the links I posted above, which connect to specific autism-positive people and organizations, I’m thinking that Richard J. Davidson’s new book, The Emotional Life of Your Brain, would be an excellent thing to look at in conditions where a person does not have a good interoceptive sense of themselves.

Richardson identifies six dimensions of emotional style, and talks about ways to manage, moderate, increase, or decrease each one. The dimension that relates to alexythymia would probably be Self-Awareness, which Davidson identifies on a continuum from Self-Aware to Self-Opaque — and he’s got specific mindfulness skills to help people become more able to tune into themselves. I think it might be a good book to look into!

Thanks Veronica,

You may want to see if he’s connected to support within the autistic community. This is a unique neurology, and many autistic people don’t get the support they need to live healthy and appropriate lives for their neurology.

I’ll include the links I posted for Monika, above, in case you’re still connected to your autistic friend:

Have you found ASAN (http://autisticadvocacy.org/ ) and TPGA (http://www.thinkingautismguide.com/ )? These are groups of autistic advocates and allies who work to destigmatize the condition so that autistic kids can grow into adulthood more safely and with a sense of dignity and belonging. Groups that treat autism as a tragedy and an epidemic tend to treat autistic people as broken disease entities, and that doesn’t help.

There’s also a wonderful autistic woman named Karla Fisher on Facebook who’s providing deeply empathic support to autistic youth and adults. Her page is here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Karlas-ASD-Page/155369821204141

And my beloved Ibby Anderson-Grace is an autistic researcher who answers questions about autism on her blog: http://www.tinygracenotes.com/

I’m finding that the real experts on autism are autistic people themselves, and luckily, many autistic youth and adults are stepping forward to help, support, and advocate for each other. It’s an awesome social movement.

Hello Ludwina,

Thanks for your response, and yes, you can refer to the post I wrote. Interesting about the GFCF diet — it’s a huge area of contention within the autism community right now, because it’s being promoted as a one-size-fits-all curative for autistic people. However, it doesn’t work for everyone, and there’s concern that parents are trying it without any medical reason to do so, and unnecessarily limiting their children’s diets.

But the testing is expensive and invasive, and for many parents, just trying it seems worth the possible risks in terms of nutritional deficiencies. However, as you probably have already discovered, there’s a lot of intensity around the diet, and when parents don’t see any positive response, the suggestion is often: You aren’t doing the diet right (or long enough, or with enough restriction, etc). It’s a troubling situation.

If you’re doing well n a GFCF diet, then awesome! I do too! However, it’s not for everyone.

Thank you Jennifer! I’m working more with somatic processes now, and I really agree with you about the slowness. It’s an amazing healing and awareness modality — to simply slow down one’s movements and see what’s in there.

I’m also working with a somatically trained aikido sensei and autistic advocate named Nick Walker, and his approach is very exciting. His website is here: http://walkersensei.com/

Thank you Monica, and sorry to reply so late! These replies didn’t display for me until this week. Strange.

Have you found ASAN (http://autisticadvocacy.org/ ) and TPGA (http://www.thinkingautismguide.com/ )? These are groups of autistic advocates and allies who work to destigmatize the condition so that autistic kids can grow into adulthood more safely and with a sense of dignity and belonging. Groups that treat autism as a tragedy and an epidemic tend to treat autistic people as broken disease entities, and that doesn’t help.

There’s also a wonderful autistic woman named Karla Fisher on Facebook who’s providing deeply empathic support to autistic youth and adults. Her page is here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Karlas-ASD-Page/155369821204141

And my beloved Ibby Anderson-Grace is an autistic researcher who answers questions about autism on her blog: http://www.tinygracenotes.com/

I’m finding that the real experts on autism are autistic people themselves, and luckily, many autistic youth and adults are stepping forward to help, support, and advocate for each other. It’s an awesome social movement.

I send you and your grandson blessings!

I am a “neurotypical” who also was around Autistic person for awhile. I agree with you 100%. This person was in fact highly sesetive to everything and lived in constant overdrive. I believe SE should help as it “grounds”. I even think that sourse of this person was in fact a trauma when he was horrible damaged while he was “off guard”, when he felt safe but it was false sence of safety. I felt he cant let go anymore and ground himself because of this.