STRANGERS IN A STRANGE PLACE – MEMORY & FASD
“When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don’t blame the lettuce.” Thich Nhat Hanh I wrote this blog originally as the opening remarks for a pre-conference day on memory for the international FASD research conference in Vancouver that was to have occurred in 2020. That was before COVID messed up the […]
A JOURNEY TO HEALING
“Our stories are not meant for everyone. Hearing them is a privilege, and we should always ask ourselves this before we share: “Who has earned the right to hear my story?” If we have one or two people in our lives who can sit with us and hold space for our shame stories, and love […]
ORIGIN STORIES AND DESTINATIONS
ORIGIN STORIES AND DESTINATIONS – DO THEY MATTER? “There’s a story behind everything. How a picture got on a wall. How a scar got on your face. Sometimes the stories are simple, and sometimes they are hard and heartbreaking. But behind all your stories is always your mother’s story, because hers is where yours began.” […]
PART-TIME MEMORY: The Reality of Our Reality
I want to tell you all a story. Trust me, this story leads into my blog subject on memory, and things related to my memory – and that of everyone else with FASD that I know. Just before Christmas I was working (when I am not taking forever to write my next blog, I work […]
REPRESENTATION
As a person with FASD I never saw myself represented in television or books. The closest character I could relate to was Amelia Bedelia because in the books she would take everything literally, like if someone asked her to “draw the blinds” instead of closing the blinds she drew a picture. The representation ended there. […]
THE LANGUAGE OF DIAGNOSIS: The Unintended Messages in the Language We Use
On May 30th of this year, I was asked, along with Kat Griffin, to give the annual Salzberg Memorial Ethics Lecture for the Provincial Health Services Association of British Columbia. I wrote the lecture that we both delivered, which we did on behalf of the Adult Leadership Committee of FASD Change Makers, so it is […]
GOING FOR COFFEE: AN OBSTACLE COURSE OF STIMULUS
Picture an air filter. What does it do? It stops all the dust and bits from entering your home and filling your house and body with all sorts of things they don’t really need. I liken this to what happens when I get what always feels like an attack – an overload of sensory stimuli. […]
WORDS OF EXPERIENCE TO TEENS AND ADULTS WITH FASD
Note from CJ to those with FASD: If reading is hard for you, like it is for many of us, get someone you know to read this to you. Or do something like read it in bits and pieces because you don’t have to read it all at once. Do whatever works for you, not […]
