Looking for Normal – An Autistic Boy Who Beat The Odds.

Looking For Normal is the memoir of author,
musician and filmmaker, Steve Slavin.

His obsession with music, as a child, led to a long career in the creative arts; albeit one plagued by clinical depression and the symptoms of a condition he was unaware of until 2008.

In recounting the 48 years that led to his autism diagnosis, this darkly humorous memoir will inform and inspire anyone with an interest in mental health and autism. But more than this, it is the story of an “emotionally disturbed child, without a future” who, against the backdrop of low expectation, became an ambitious, independent adult, with a wife, daughters, and a career stifled by the long shadow of his childhood dysfunction. Read More

TIMOTHY BLOSSOM – OFFICIALLY BRILLIANT!

Timothy Blossom sees the world differently to other people.
Barbara, Timothy’s mother, says this is due to his ‘special wiring’, a concept he struggles to understand – as does Bert Blossom, probably the grumpiest dad in East Winslow.

Timothy is twelve years, three months and five days old. He also happens to be the brainiest kid at Highcrest Manor School, but only when it comes to science. When it comes to tying his shoelaces, well… that’s another matter.

‘Officially Brilliant’ is about the year Timothy finds out he has Autism Spectrum Disorder. Or the ‘A-word’ as he calls it. It’s also about his blossoming friendship with, of all people, Adrian Wilkes; the single most annoying excuse for a human on the entire planet.

How will Timothy cope with the complexities of making friends and becoming a teenager?
Find out in ‘Timothy Blossom – Officially Brilliant.’ Read More

Autism: Feeling sympathy for inanimate objects

Autism: Feeling sympathy for inanimate objects Article by Steve Slavin Inanimate Object. Definition: A thing that is not alive. For example: a cardboard box, a pair of scissors, a car tyre. I have felt sympathy for objects since I was a young child. This has caused me a huge amount of sadness and anxiety over the years. I feel sad for the photograph that gets pushed to the back of Read More

Social Anxiety Kept Me From Meeting George Michael

In 1986, twenty-two years before my autism diagnosis, I had a chance to meet one of my musical heroes, George Michael. I hadn’t met George before, and the prospect of spending hours with him in the close confines of a recording studio thrilled and terrified me in equal measures. At around 10 pm that Friday evening, I was told that George was on his way to the studio and that I should make my way over. Immediately, the panic set in. My stomach began to churn with anxiety, and the excuses began as to why I couldn’t attend the session. Read More

Psilocybin: the magical new psychiatric drug for depression?

Psilocibyn: The Magic New Treatment For Depression. In 2020, I took part in a psilocybin trial. Psilocybin is the psychedelic ingredient found in magic mushrooms. The trial was carried out at a London hospital and designed to study the potential benefits of psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression—a condition I have struggled with for fifty-five years. The program consisted of five therapy sessions, a single dosing day, then six weeks of integration Read More

ANNA C. WILSON A PLACE FOR EVERYTHING MY MOTHER, AUTISM AND ME

Anna C. Wilson’s book A Place For Everything, describes her mother’s autism diagnosis at 72 years of age. Watch the video. Read More

Why I No Longer Tell People I’m Autistic.

I used to hear people on the autistic spectrum say they do not wish to be defined by their autism, and until recently, I never really understood what they meant by this. Read More

Clinical Depression – How Meditation Saved My Life

In February 2019, my world crashed into a life-shattering wall of all-consuming clinical depression. Following 6 months of increasingly poor mental health, I could go no further in any direction. I feared that I had plunged so deep into the well of despair and hopelessness that perhaps life was simply to painful to carry on. Read More

Autism and the City

Autism In The City Autism and the City It could be the autism talking, but I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m just not cut out for city life. Or, perhaps I should change that to: I would love city life if it wasn’t for all the people, the noise, the traffic, the dirt, the concrete, the pollution, the distinct lack of greenery, but mostly it’s the people–there are just Read More

Can Autistic People Also Have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder?

Can you have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder if you have autism? Read More

Autism Meets OCD

OCD-ACTION Annual Facilitator Day – Birmingham 2017 On November 4th, OCD ACTION kindly invited me to speak about autism at their annual facilitator’s event in Birmingham, UK. This is due to the rise in people with OCD asking them for advice who are also on the autistic spectrum. I spoke for around an hour to groups of OCD support groups from around the country, that are brought together each year Read More