Health and wellbeing
how late diagnosis can hurt mental health and self image
For many women, adult diagnoses of autism are “a light in the darkness”, an epiphany of self-understanding. My “lightbulb moment” came in my late 20s. “They thought you were autistic,” my mum mused when I told her I was embarking on an academic career in autism research.
Read more “Like many women, I didn’t know I was autistic until adulthood –”
Learning with OTARC
Content warning: This video explores the themes of suicide and mental illness, which some viewers may find distressing.
Read more “Mental wellbeing for Autistic young adults”
OTARC Seminar Series
Content warning: The following seminar contains content about suicide.
Any mother would die for their child, but how do you live for them?
Dr Jessica Revill is a psychologist and parent survivor to the loss of her Autistic son Gregory. She wrote the memoir of his death “Find him Among the Living” in 2020. In her book, her investigations into the mental health system, suicide and Autism revealed not a ‘broken system’ but an absent one. Coming from the perspective of both lived experience and research raises questions about the following:
Health and wellbeing
Approximately 9 min reading time. Downloadable version available here [ PDF 112KB].
Adequate and refreshing sleep is important for health and wellbeing. Poor sleep quality or insomnia can negatively affect multiple aspects of physical and mental health and can impair daytime functioning. Autistic adults generally report poor sleep quality compared to non-autistic adults, and for most Autistic adults, getting good quality sleep each night can be a challenge.
Common sleep issues reported by Autistic adults include:
Learning with OTARC
Coping Strategies, Resilience and Mental Health Outcomes in Autistic Adults
There is consensus surrounding the poor mental health outcomes experienced by many in the Autistic adult population. While the non-autistic literature suggests that high stress represents a key contributor to poor mental health and well-being, individual resources such as coping and resilience have the potential to mitigate the negative effects of stress, accounting for individual differences across mental health outcomes. Despite emerging research showing high stress in Autistic adults, investigations of coping and resilience in this population remain limited.
Read more “Facing Stress: Coping Strategies, Resilience and Mental Health Outcomes in Autistic Adult”
News
On 9 December 2021, over 600 people attended the Australasian Society for Autism Research online conference Mental Wellbeing and Suicide Prevention in Autism. Following the conference, a select group of lived experience experts and researchers met to draw together content from the conference into the documents below.
Read more “Suicide Prevention in Autism report and policy brief”