Hoagie's Gifted October 2019: If you[th] but knew/Michaelmas Term Reflections

In July 1995, on a doctor's visit, I read an alphabet which said I for if only in reference to learning differences like reading and writing disorder [known as dyslexia and dysgraphia] - 'If only' are the saddest words in the English language.

It was in a women's magazine/general interest magazine - probably something like Better Homes and Gardens.

Now we are in October 2019 and Hoagie's Gifted have done a blog hop known as If you only knew. I only got into Hoagie's Gifted again after a long break in May 2019 when I was really starting to explore Mix.

Thank you Pamela and Caroline for what you do.

It was super good to read Gail, Teresa and Linda in Living with Geniuses; Help My Children Thrive and Gifted Challenges.

Pamela and Caroline? Aren't those names familiar?

And alphabetisation and literacy? Aren't those going to be important in some way?

There is a wonderful book called If youth but knew which I picked up one day some time between 2009 and 2014 and finally had myself read in 2014. It seems to be a romance of multigenerations and I hope it introduced healthy communication among the generations and within generations.

I am thinking too of Yom Kippur, and the terrible thing which happened in Halle, Germany. Two people were killed because of anti-Semitism [and this article shows us how Germany is trying to deal with it]. The suspect did confess; according to Deutsche Welle.

And I know who won the Nobel Literature Prize in 2019! I read Olga Tokarczuk this year [had to check twice to get it right - I had only just read her Flights over Christmas and again a few months later] and I do not know if I have read Peter Handke. He seems like a film person.

Narrative power and linguistic integrity - these are big things, and things that I have "pleased to strive" over my whole literary life.

This Monday Michaelmas Term began - it is supposed to begin around the end of September of any year and it is after St Michael and all the Angels.

For me Yom Kippur is all about repentance and confession - something that I understand both in the religious and the mental health worlds.

I explored repentance a lot in Rivals of the Collegiate through the actions and words of a sensitive young woman who is Gifted and has many Gifted friends. She is moderately gifted [or only just over bright] - her friend is profoundly gifted.

They do this over the spring term [March-June].

The students - like Holly McCutcheon - explore repentance too.

During Michaelmas Term there are a lot of set pieces and people get to know one another, or know one another again. There is always - always - hope!

This is the first thing I want to concentrate on in this If youth but knew post.

A lot of people do not feel hope in the first place; or have it taken away or stolen from them for some reason.

Or they invest a lot of hope in things which may or may not happen.

It is all a matter of probabilities and of trust.

The thing I wanted to repent hardest during this Yom Kippur season was intellectual arrogance.

Over this season I had said some hard and harsh things to Astrid and some flippant things to Emma in the This is the very definition of rain.

Relaxing or slacking with our fellows means so much. Especially if we have to maintain high standards in public life and we hold ourselves to high expectations. We can forget that not everybody does this; nor desires to do this; nor has to do this.

We think misleadingly that society is so much more cruel than we could ever be individually and we forget to #choosekind.

Or we believe that humility is a form of oppression and we tend to believe our own publicity.

And we forget that we too are vulnerable. Or we are too/overly conscious of our vulnerability in the face of audiences real and imaginary.

At the Ray Chen performance I had the opportunity to meet a lot of gifted youth and youth with all sorts of gifts.

I remember too how I studied intellectual virtue.

In the Funk and Wagnalls 1997 year book [events of 1996] which did not come to me until the early 2010s as the result of the death of a grandparent there is a reference to Bennett's The book of virtues.

Midgley and Murdoch [Iris] did a lot to teach me about virtue too.

And there was Stephanie Tolan and a great website about intellectual virtues, which I was able to explore through a case study of Justin Chapman.

The story of Chapman is a very tragic one at least as I perceived it in early December 2001.

There were strong implications of fraud and imposture.

Eighteen years later I hope Justin is being good and doing good for his own values of good and finding harmony and decency and dignity.

The way gifted people live is not always very pretty - especially scrabbling along with the 99%.

One thing that really helps me is that three times as many people measure as intellectually disabled as do within the range of the gifted.

This keeps me more focused on grit than on glamour.

Grit is a very good thing and a very undervalued thing - especially if one is intolerant; impatient and used to quick results.

The consequences grind more slowly in relationship than in behaviourism or some other ideology.

My own intellectual virtues are curiosity and openness - those are the two I achieve consistently.

The others are spottier.

One of the others is intellectual courage. I consider it to be one which is not so spotty.

I thought courage to be a big virtue - and I was able to read a wonderful article on a trip about physical courage and moral courage. This was some time in October 1995.

In my own life I find they are intertwined. I can show moral courage by physical courage and vice versa.

That whole keeping on keeping on - intellectual persistence.

Here is some of the work of Leia Zhu who lives in the United Kingdom. She is a violinist and I discovered her through Ray Chen and his performances of Waltzing Matilda and Paganini. Zhu has some wonderful things to say about her craft which developed over her European trip with a friend.

I had first thought of contributing to Hoagie's Gifted seriously in September 2019 when the topic was Anxiety and Perfectionism and using Natalie Portman's BLACK SWAN - Darren Aronofsky is a legendary director who gets a lot into and out of his women. The things Ms Portman's character puts into Swan Lake being Giselle. I had also read Meredith Danman's biography of Margot Fonteyn.

Australian Ballet is really good too. McAllister is leaving.

Love Zhu's spiritual and wise words here. And the glowing purple.

There is Wiesnaski also.

Two years ago of course there was the mainstreaming of #metoo / #balancetonporc [Bring your pig/abuser to account]. In 1996 Tamika had a young lady at camp who testified against her abuser and Tamika felt she wasn't doing enough.

I think too we can often feel like we are not doing enough.

Or we have done too much too wrong at the wrong time.

I keep a Kim Wilde song for times like this. It is called You'll never be so wrong.

When YouTube and Quora and Twitter are not behaving themselves it can make my work and play very difficult!

Two lovers in a city cafe - what a great beginning.

In late 1999-early 2000 I wrote a scene which was set in Portsmouth, Hampshire. I reflected last Tuesday that these are some of the scenes I am proud of as a writer - yes, among the overall text. And to think that five years before at the earliest I had barely started my writing life.

School stories were only supposed to be a side hustle and amusement. I am sorry, but it is true. This was a fairly recent reflection.

Some final notes on courage from We bought a zoo:

B Mee says "You need twenty seconds of courage" to his son Dylan.

I believe - every twenty seconds there is a moment or ounce of courage. And if you find that at least once you are doing pretty well.

Chloe Gillmere and Elena are looking for new wheelchairs and new controls. I remembered a Bangalore gentleman who wrote to me this May.

"The joy of professional exchange is a curiously unsung hymn"...

"For great practitioners of the art, whose lives are at the mercy of a vocation" ...

"Such people are wedded to the endless rigor of the search and perhaps the most ultimate union an artist can ever forge will be with someone who shares not his bed, but his dreams". [Daneman 2004].

Margot Fonteyn would be 100 years old if she were still alive.

And the Rugby World Cup is going well. Still in the second half 10-3 Australia - Georgia.

Abiy Ahmad won the Nobel Peace Prize! Yes!

So I wanted to say something about my literary godfathers - Jeffrey Archer; Ian Serralier and Miroslav Sasek. And there was this Latvian guy who wrote Little Bibie the Turtle.

“This has incredible value” ... something every family member and carer should know

Prologue here:

Dictee is important. Yes; even if you're deaf or dyslexic. It's an element of the French and Francophone system which doesn't ever seem to go away. It was particularly helpful for me today this Bastille Day weekend - if nothing else it keeps a student or a person occupied, and thus in good mental health and occupational therapy.

I have been working on oral histories like Alexievich's Secondhand Time [2016] and Recording Oral History: a guide for the humanities and social sciences ed3 from Raleigh Yow [2015].

You’re not just there to supplement or replace the Government.

“Struggle without their presence - or significant contribution”.

What matters to carers? this is what today is about.

How to recognise and support the contribution.

Planning for the future - growing and ageing population.

Diminishing presence in lives and communities a difficult question for many to consider.

The role of young carers - how will they be best supported?

The impact will be profound.

I wonder if Rebecca Thomas is just such a young carer? Or is she a more traditional one?

Carers spoke about the rewards of their caring roles - sharing a deep personal bond.

How hard it can be - relentless and ongoing.

The need to be recognised; respected; assessment; treatment.

Requirements in legislation and the value of sharing information.

Connection to supports and services which respond to the breadth of loved ones’ needs.

Repeating information - justice; education; housing; health services.

Supports for carers too specifically to help.

Excessive expectations from a pressured system - their loved one is home too soon.

A range of different prospects: Rebecca Thomas has a family with multi-generational issues.

She cared for her mother first. Teenage and adult years - later on she cared for her two brothers - one brother died from suicide earlier in 2019.

She is part of the support network for her family and other people.

RT is under a RPO.

Rose Cuff - state-wide co-ordinator for parents with a mental illness - FAPNE - how people come to be carers for their parents.

Jessie Morgan - carer for his mum. He is 25 years old - has been caring for mother since 14 - cooking; shopping; part-time work; going to school. He had no supports or help with those things. Consequences for schooling - set him back.

His caring role was always his priority. He has his own mental

Mary Pershall - she will talk about Anna. Anna needed a lot of help when she was very young - she did get a stable treatment environment even if she was imprisoned for it. 17-year sentence for manslaughter

Margaret Leggatt - Wellways Australia - we fight to get their e-mails. She talks about schizophrenia [like Anna has - she probably has schizoaffective disorder].

John Murray and Kate - parents of a daughter who had an eating disorder. Speak of their joint experiences. Journey from teenager to adult. Pen-name RPO [restricted publication order].

#autistichistorymonth "A different sort of magic which is in everyone"

Those who don't know magic will never find it - Roald Dahl. Or he said something closely similar.

Right now I am watching The princess and the goblin which was a product of a certain time.

What I remember is more important than what I forget said a woman who has limbic encephalitis. Allergic reactions and inflammations are two causes of this.

And then someone else said - Magic is easy for me. I can always find it. Or was it Enid Blyton about happiness rather than magic? Her books are often full of both, especially the first ones I read, like about Mr Pinkwhistle who is an activist and interventionist of the fairy/pixie/brownie world she often moves in when she writes her fantasies for younger children.

I spent a lot of time around Tom Shakespeare and his profiles, and also listening to Sabrina from the mid-1980s - three albums of hers this weekend.

Ah - goblins! They are such creatures. A lot of you might know them from Gringotts Bank. I had a thought about this when I was reading Independence Chick about house-elves and the way they align with disability rights and cross-disability work.

What disability advocates can learn from house-elves from Independence Chick - in short, lots!

Also I was able to set up the subtitles for Princess and the Goblin in a special way.

Apparently Public Broadcasting Service picks up the subtitles from the iPad - the closed captions. I called the format Dupont Humanite and used blue, red and yellow and shadows.

YouTube captions are slightly different. For instance; there are shadows and boxes which can be used to best advantage - reminding me of when I would work with Microsoft Word versions 5 and 5.1 in the mid-1990s. Before that I would use TeachText and/or ClarisWorks.

And now of course there is Pages which has a long-overdue update. I mainly use it to convert documents from before like Preview does and to make iBooks. And it would be good for brochures and business cards also.

I started off with the text. You can make it serif or sans-serif [and monotype/proportional - sort of the difference between Monaco; Geneva; New York; Palatino]. And then there are boxes and backgrounds which may or may not be good for the eyes.

Some people like high contrasts like yellow and blue or pink and red.

Red and pink and green should never be seen unless with a neutral colour like beige - I'm so glad subtitles and closed captions aren't beige! - or grey - shades of grey work well because they quiet and calm the eyes. They focus the mind also.

Or you may want to make your titles goblin-like or Irenie-like or grandmother-like.

The biggest problem I have had with titles is storyboarding and timing.

Some are based on audio description effects.

I first started seriously investigating these Internet effects 18 months ago when I was corresponding with the author of Disability Diaries and their cohort.

I still think subtitles are magic and I was first able to access a television with them - which had multimedia capacities I cherished for producing and consuming - in 2008. The Global Financial Crisis was good for something after all!

A few days ago I watched a show about the Cleveland Browns and their season-winning sweeping ways in 1995 and 1996. It was Football lives or that series.

There were not even capital letters like on US news shows of that calibre.

And when al-Jazeera says - This show is not captioned. I know that the YouTube and Vimeo videos from that conglomerate often are and there are transcripts, for more of life's good things such as the Press Clubs and Foreign Correspondence Clubs.

Thank you Joseph T. Graham for your copy of The Princess and the Goblin.

I still have not tried YouTube Red.

The goblins look something like the bat Bartok in Anastasia from the Don Bluth group.

And I am thinking of the time I learnt the truth about Jansen - it was made by a Hungarian in the style of a Dutch type foundry.

It is an easy font to read in, easier than Joanna which is a Penguin font.

And The monthly will be a whole different font altogether. It was designed by a Swiss group.

Dyslexie is a font I read in sometimes.

The beauty of the lilies I have just completed. A few years ago I was exploring The People's Temple and Jim Jones and Geoffrey Falk [perhaps 2013]. I remember the tuna cans were very hard to open that day, even with the grandparents' magnet opener which had been bought.

"Don't keep calling me princess - I'm human you know," says Irenie. [and so is Curdie!]

"I call it grandmother's thread".

"How did I find you now?"

They simplified this story a lot so it's about being lost and getting into trouble. Which is probably not the way George McDonald would have it. It's more like a Charles Kingsley adaptation or even Matthew Arnold.

And there was a good Sp!ked article about Matthew Arnold.

An example of an audio description effect would be almost poetic - even though you're not supposed to interpret them that way. If you had an individual person who likes poetry.

And there are endless automatic translations everything from Vietnamese to Haitian to Amharic. So I put it into Hmong for fun.

Curdie is very funny. I think there is another book that McDonald wrote which focuses on him and his adventures.

Green Knowe was written by Lucy Boston - a mid-century modern who puts us deep back into the past. And like this text, the grandmother is invisible.

And Curdie is finding it very hard to believe - to the extent of Friends don't lie to each other. I wonder if the Duffer Brothers had Eleven watch this? All the TV she seems to watch would be in sitcoms and soapies.

And there was a movie talk website which talked about The Lost Sister. I am thinking of what I saw about glow up which is like growing up though it has all these eighties and nineties connotations. This century it seems to be a very LGBTQIA thing and there was a big coming out.

"You'll find your own magic if you follow the thread", so Irenie finds her own thread and thinks for herself. Or Turnip the cat helps her.

I am going to think of Roald Dahl's very last book - Minpins - which is being released in a new generation so it will be editioned. And probably seditioned if I know the children and adolescents of the 21st century.

I remember Jon Scieszka's Politically correct fairy tales which were told from the perspective of the Wolf who was sufficiently Big and Bad to get people's attention. And my own first exposure would have been Rosen's Fairy tales and nursery crimes which is the second book ever I bought at a stall.

The first one was Aliki's How a book is made. And, yes, that probably did seal my fate and solidified my faith. I love the little kitten who has a mother who works in the publishing industry and the inside view we get. They make a sixteen-pager called Spring.

How a book is made with Amazon and Aliki - comes with Feelings and Manners for the 3 for 2

#autistichistorymonth Cellophane Rainbow and In the beauty of the lilies [Updike]

I had said I wish you a cellophane rainbow, and I was referring directly to this song.

Most of the effects in it are cellophane or transparent. Very prettifying or scarifying depending on your point of view.

There is a really cool play called Alexithymia. I'm still sure in absolute numbers [rather than in percentages] the great majority of alexithymics are neurotypical.

Tom has written three plays and I like what he says about the play for you and the play for everyone else which was coming out in rehearsals.

And I had first known of alexithymia in either 1995 or 2000 depending on Emotional intelligence which we had bought for Granddad or whether it had come back to us after he left the house for retirement village living.

And then there were some heavy critiques on Daniel Goleman and the way he commercialised and commodified emotional intelligence.

The three plays consist of Social_function.exe.

I also looked at the sisters Caley and Creighton and their Autism spectrum explained which useed to be on Thinking Persons' Guide until recently - at least the Facebook.

Our blog by the sisters Caley and Creighton

Communication Placemat from 2015

I cannot call my sister cute because that is treating someone in their twenties like they're three; triggering intense disrespect and disdain.

And I looked at Ink and daggers and the October and November writings of the people from Autonomous Press especially Paperback writer which song I first remember listening to in September 1998 when the marketing and advertising business began to tell intensely.

We can be an accomodating bunch, can't we? Too accomodating, though, and it could be a sign of abuse or neglect [see Autism and Safety from ASAN in three parts].

Creighton's sibling perspective [Caley is the autistic one].

A mother's story

A lot of Creighton's job is explaining to kids - including the kids who have cousins.

Evidence

Visual supports

Colin's perspective - there is also a book called Very late diagnosis.

Culture presentation

Stigma and discrimination

Tenets

Tutoring in Florida and Texas and Skype around the world

People are still talking about Jeremy the dud.

I am reading In the beauty of the lilies, a late Updike which has three generations of Wilmots in it - Clarence; Teddy and Esther/Alma. I think her nickname is Essie and I am halfway through the hardback. Alma is Esther's movie star name.

In the beauty of the lilies on Wikipedia

The second episode of Victoria was great. More plotting around the young Queen's instability and - honestly - mucking around in her friendship because of ideology and politics? Don't do that.

#31for21: A 47-chromosome masterclass in valuing yourself and changing your world; barrier-free ways to access enthusiastic consent

I love posts which help me to be the person or people my 15-year-old self needed and posts which help me be the person or people current 15-19-year-olds need and want in their lives. This open letter from Amy Silverman - Phoenix journalist - made a connection that my heart can't even believe now. Again, the information and emotion in this open letter is something I would have valued from the time I was 10

Don't judge the people with Down Syndrome

Sophie Silverman 

The person I needed when I was fifteen would have told me No is a complete sentence - yes, even in academic writing or formal writing.

This alone would have been enlightening and empowering to this English language learner.

The thing about life is that you learn and that you continue to learn. And if learning is one of your values; you continue to seek out opportunities and advocate for yourself in these opportunities.

One of the biggest opportunities we have in our social and sexual and political lives are the ones which enthusiastic consent brings us.

Because Yes is a complete sentence too.

What do I mean by a 47-chromosome masterclass in valuing yourself and changing your world?

We make big claims on high stakes here at Halfway at Rysy Peak.

Though I personally don't often make big claims on my own account.

I am focusing on the fifth point in Silverman's Open Letter: You can say no to a person with Down syndrome.

And I experienced that as a "Yes - but" ...

Like - Yes, you can say no to a person with Down Syndrome, but there's a cost involved.

And people with Trisomy 21 have already experienced or are soon to experience some of the biggest no's in our world.

How dare I invalidate their existence further than I already have done? How dare I violate their essence?

In the USA people value life; liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

In France, people are much more into liberte, egalite and fraternite.

Silverman touched on fraternite when she talked about "as with any student or friend". And egalite.

I have a problem with egalite right there. And I'm going to work through this with lots of questions.

How do you feel about saying no to people who are small; weak and vulnerable?

What do you think; how do you feel; how do you act when it comes to saying no to children?

What do you think; how do you feel; how do you act when it comes to saying no to animals?

A lot of us have a lot of cognitive and emotional barriers to saying no.

And some of this no-saying is violence. Lateral violence.

So next few questions:

When was the first time/the last time you said no to someone with cerebral palsy?

With epilepsy?

With autism?

With an intellectual disability which is not Trisomy 21?

And I know a lot of people have problems saying no to people of their own karyotype!

When I was thirteen I struggled a lot with denial and withdrawal especially of the arbitrary type.

Since we began to relate to people and people began to relate to us, yes and no have become very personal and very political words.

They're not only words.

Think about the ways you affect and effect the world every day.

What if you had fewer or no ways to do this?

Every way the world is affected and effected is valuable and to be respected. This is very much a core value of mine and one of the ways that I act in the world.

And when we think of our relationships with the world and with consent -

this is a twiggly mess.

There are so many barriers involved!

Colin Barnes wrote about these barriers in a book called The cabbage syndrome in 1990.

I think again of choice and of acceptance and rejection.

A lot of teenage and young adult identity formation is built and broken in rejection. Sometimes it never comes back again or not in the same way.

I wish a lot more of it was built in acceptance.

Acceptance itself can be passive or active - or even aggressive.

Konrad Lorenz wrote a good book called On aggression which will challenge any mid-adolescent. I didn't read it until I was 30.

Here are some of my ways to experience barrier-free access to enthusiastic consent:

I make sure my past; present and future self are aligned with each other and the world.

I do not get up in pain; fear or fatigue.

I set myself up for success.

I reward myself for success.

I flow through my life.

I affirm others as I affirm myself and I would like to be affirmed/they would like to be affirmed.

Would love to talk about the whole irresistible impulse phenomenon which is recognised in psychology; in sociology and in law.

We are much more likely to consent [or at least to assent] when we feel we have a choice or we actually have a choice.

I thought and still think a lot about determinism and free will, which was reinforced by Religious Instruction every Monday. Perhaps you have a Philosophy or Ethics class.

And it is important to be mindful of developmental and chronological expectations about decisions and consent - and the gap that we may often have.

People with Down syndrome aren't the only ones to be affected by this gap - nor to have negative responses which may make even further barriers.

Think about it: What do you think makes a choice your choice? When was the first time / the last time your 'no' was your 'no'?

Education is supposed to be a place which is relatively free of the hard sell - at least it was in the 1990s up until the early 2000s.

Self-education can be particularly vulnerable to the lack of sell.

And while we're talking about selling and buying?

The Swedish Academy Economics Prize was about nudge. Behavioural economics.

And I would not be doing my job on Halfway up Rysy Peak if I did not talk about tolerances and affordances.

Teenagers and young adults can tap into this energy that they do not fully understand, nor do younger people and adults.

Do your "yes"ses and "no"s keep you in role or out of role?

Sadly, in some societies, student and friend are not particularly valued or valuable roles.

I was often acting from a basis of being undervalued or devalued as a student or a friend. Perhaps you recognise this.

And being overvalued or hypervalued - that is bad too.

You may like it for a little while or even for a long time.

When we give our yesses and our nos based on what we can tolerate and/or what we can afford - these are very conditional.

And, yes, studentship and friendship are deeply conditional - though they aspire to being unconditional.

Conditionality is another pressure. You know when you live inside conditions and when you live outside - conditions do not have to contain us.

I have a cognitive block when it comes to containing objects. This is a direct result of traumatic stress sustained in the mid-1990s.

Tolerances and affordances can be contained. Can be. What happens when they can't?

It is so hard for teenagers and young adults to find their right value in the world.

So what would this wrongly valued teenager or young adult see when they see someone with Down syndrome?

Someone who demands their role and their value. You may feel a frisson of envy, or a sense that it would be fearful and terrible to stand in their way.

Yes - a lot of responses come out of fear and of terror.

In the USA you have had a lot of consent violations. You have grown through and around and with them.

And thank you Brian Stotko for that foundation survey.

I am remembering something which really moved me in Helen Keller's Teacher when I first read it when I was 11-ish in my grandparents' house.

I wish I had someone who really cared, Annie Sullivan had said. It's more effective in the memoir she wrote with NBH - Brady Henney.

Enthusiastic consent is one way you can show you really care about someone.

And it's always good to expand your circle of moral and ethical concern.

Sometimes it can be very narrow or hyperfocused - like when you have a glasses prescription or another sensory or cognitive prosthesis.

It would be good to talk about prosthesis and enhancement later on. We still have three days.




You might learn a lot from the 2011 survey that Stotko and colleagues did about self-perception.

How did this one group of people come to like and value themselves so much?

Well - it was partly because of you and me.

Enthusiastic consent is about helping people to value themselves even more than they did before. Can this ever be coercive, as a lot of self-esteem and self-concept development programmes tend to be?

I will admit that I have a narrative about myself which makes me chronically and terminally irresponsible. My own self-talk says I will die of irresponsibility.

And the various ways this manifests - think about the ideas you have developed about responsibility and caring and how you act upon them.

Back in the 1970s and 1980s - we had all this received wisdom about Down syndrome - without having met or regularly interacted with someone with Down syndrome.

And this received wisdom - and inherited guilt - is another struggle; another barrier.

As Silverman has said, or a friend of Silverman said, people want to be seen. Think of all the ways you see and don't see - your own blind spots and those you inherited and evolved and developed.

Johari and Nohari windows are good for this. My Nohari window says simple and arrogant.

And the Ukraine situation - this is what Sofia Sanchez left. All the people who stayed - they're in al-Jazeera - which some people call the "Arabic Fox" behind my back. Think of the al-Jazeera people who fought for free journalism in the Middle East.

And I think of Dumbledore in Harry Potter and how he developed his attitudes and values towards power and responsibility. Ten years after I read Red Hen about the Dumbledore family - I recognise that Dumbledore had used a form of avoidant coping.

A profile of Dumbledore - think about Dumbledore in his Wizarding World and how he might have used avoidant coping

For me, avoidant coping is when my yes is not really my yes and my no is not really my no.

Avoidant coping is a big cognitive load. Load is another way of saying affordance.

And so many people use their intellect or their other big qualities.

Listening to the Kate Grant story. She is a fashion model. Vive la BBC!

C'est magnifique! One thing I love about Ireland and Northern Ireland is how they value their population. Ireland may just be the best place to have Trisomy 21 in the whole wide world.

How and why does enthusiastic consent shape you into the person you need and want to be? The person with Down syndrome deserves no less.

Identify your barriers and your access opportunities. Advocate through them accordingly.

And, yes, we feel grief and guilt for the denials and the withdrawals of the past, even the ones which arguably had and helped us grow.

Make sure your yes is your yes and your no is your no.

Work through the tolerances and affordances. Find your personal and professional nudges.

Value people you would not value or could not value in the past. Make sure your values are ever expanding - though not in an imperalist or colonialist way.

[what are we afraid of? That someone with Down Syndrome will become an imperalist or a colonialist? That is a power differential!?!?!]