Rebecca Sharrock
Bio
I'm an autistic person who is making a career from writing, public speaking and advocacy work.
Stories (36/0)
Us Humans Are Too Curious for Our Own Good
When the New Horizons space probe launched in 2007 I couldn’t wait for it to reach Pluto in 2015 and finally reveal many secrets of that mysterious dwarf planet. Once that time came I was fascinated to read about the physical details of Pluto that had never been seen before, such as Pluto giving off x-rays. I experience the exact same curiosity whenever a new extrasolar planet is discovered, as well as distant quasars (almost as old as the universe itself).
By Rebecca Sharrock7 years ago in Futurism
Learning to Walk
Developing the ability to walk and talk were two of the biggest milestones of my life. As I mentioned in a recent blog I recall practicing vocal sounds almost from the moment I left the womb. Yet the trickiest part was developing the cognitive ability to group vocal sounds together to form words.
By Rebecca Sharrock7 years ago in Families
We All Possess Different Kinds of Memory
Our memories are a very important part of our life because they make up our entire experience of living. Without our memories, we would have no sense of self or any other sense of being alive. There are indeed cases of memory loss. However, we don’t merely have memories stored in one particular area. Instead, it’s a case of us having many different subcategories of our memory as a whole.
By Rebecca Sharrock7 years ago in Longevity
- Top Story - August 2017
What It's Really Like to Have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Top Story - August 2017
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is widely heard of and spoken about. Yet it is also one of the most misunderstood disorders at the same time. So many people jokingly describe moments of fussiness and particularity as “OCD moments.” There has even been a television show, Monk, which is about a detective with excessive fears of germs and anything which is not 100 percent perfect. But OCD in real life is slightly different from those stereotypes.
By Rebecca Sharrock7 years ago in Psyche
Learning to Talk
It’s well known that children begin to basically talk at around 12 months on average. That’s when a child generally has the mental development, cognitive skills, and has heard enough verbal communication around them to be able to do so. I myself began to talk at around that age. However, it didn’t feel quite as much of a sudden milestone for me as learning to walk did.
By Rebecca Sharrock7 years ago in Families
The Perfection of Life
Technology is rapidly growing at an increased rate with every passing year. Computers are storing more memory, the internet is becoming faster and more widespread, graphics are getting ever more realistic, and robots are even being made to do tedious tasks of which we don’t want to do.
By Rebecca Sharrock7 years ago in Futurism
How it Feels to Have an Autistic Meltdown
Autistic meltdowns are a common occurrence, and are hence becoming widespread knowledge amongst the autism community. An autistic meltdown may be mistaken for a temper tantrum. Yet there are a few key differences which will be mentioned. During a meltdown an autistic child or adult may scream, yell, and thrash around uncontrollably. Meltdowns are so intense that police and/or paramedics are even called occasionally to assess and handle the situation.
By Rebecca Sharrock7 years ago in Longevity
I Never See Facial Expressions
In an art class in high school, I drew and painted a picture of Harry Potter flying a broomstick in the Hogwarts Quidditch Stadium. When I took my completed painting to the teacher, she asked about why none of the people in the picture had facial expressions, as they were all showing the same blank face. My answer was that I drew and painted them as such because that’s the way I see people in real life. Due to my autism, facial expressions are very difficult for me to both notice and interpret. Whenever I look at a person’s face, I just see their physical features.
By Rebecca Sharrock7 years ago in Longevity
Life as a Female with Autism
Throughout the past few decades, autism diagnoses have skyrocketed for both genders. There are various theories for this that have been brought up in the community. Autism also appears to affect more people who are male than it does for those of us who are female. Various theories as to why that is the case have arisen too.
By Rebecca Sharrock7 years ago in Longevity
Enabling Autistic People to Cope with Change
It’s a well-known fact that those of us with autism have a lot of difficulty coping with any sort of change. These include changes of routine, changes of environment, and also times when things don’t happen the way in which we had expected them to. Autistic meltdowns (episodes where we may yell, thrash around, and lose control of ourselves) are almost always attached to some kind of change from our usual situation. I myself am autistic and experience anxiety from changes of various kinds, and I’ll mention a few of them in this piece.
By Rebecca Sharrock7 years ago in Longevity