Ellie Middleton

(un)masked

Founder

Great Influence

Content Strategist

Personal Brand Manager

Kurogo

Content & Social Media Executive

Damart UK

Online Coordinator

Customer Service Advisor

Santander UK

Post Office Ltd

Counter Clerk

📚 Pre-order my book: https://tr.ee/ZFzDlmF2ic

💌 Speaking enquiries: https://www.inspirationalspeakers.co.uk/speaker/ellie-middleton/

💌 All other business enquiries: contact@unmasked.ltd

⭐️ All other channels & links: https://linktr.ee/elliemidds

Friendly reminder to all neurodivergents that there are no prizes for doing life in hard mode.

Find cleaning hard? It's okay to get a cleaner.

Find the supermarket stressful? It's okay to get a delivery.

Find admin tasks tricky? Apply to access to work for a support worker.

Finding it hard to achieve your goals? It's okay to find an accountability partner.

Find getting your exercise in hard? It's okay to work with a personal trainer.

A lot of these things are absolutely a privilege, but if it's something you are lucky enough to be able to afford or access, then there is no shame in making life easier for yourself 💙

Friendly reminder that being inclusive doesn’t just mean working with neurodivergent people…

It means accepting neurodivergent realities.

Forgive lateness.
Understand last-minute cancellations.
Support rejection-sensitive dysphoria.
Understand emotional dysregulation.
Offer flexibility.
Accept intensity.
Forgive disorganisation.

Giving us a seat at the table is one thing - accepting us for who we REALLY are is another 💜


The most frustrating thing about life as an autistic person:

You will repeatedly and clearly express your needs…

Yet people will still choose to use their “best judgement” over what you’ve asked for.

They don't understand the way you work.
They don’t have the same operating system that you do.
They don’t see how their way, that’s always worked for them, wouldn’t work for you.

So despite you communicating that you are autistic, and that you need accommodating, and how you’d like to be accommodated…

It still doesn’t happen.

You don’t need to use your best judgement - you need to listen to what we’re asking.

Putting your own ideas ahead of someone’s specific requests is dehumanising, infantilising and degrading.


🧠 Autistic ADHDer | 📚 Penguin Life Author | 🗣️ TEDx Speaker

Forbes 30 under 30 is great...

If you know that you need to apply for it.

Or have the capacity to do so 🥲

I used to beat myself up whenever I saw lists or awards like these announced. Until I learned that I couldn't *possibly* have made it... because I didn't nominate myself!

And this year, I started my morning by beating myself up because I didn't remember and/or have the executive functioning capacity to apply earlier in the year 😅

Lists like these requiring you to self-nominate make it much less likely that women, people marginalised for their gender, working-class people, disabled people, and/or people of colour will be fairly represented.

To put it simply: they often have a lot more plates to spin or hurdles to jump over, so finding the time and energy to self-nominate for awards just gets bumped lower and lower down the list of things to do.

And that's if they've even been told about it in the first place 🤷🏻‍♀️

IMO, awards and lists should have a diverse casting panel who go out and search for a diverse range of people doing a diverse range of amazing things.

And a friendly reminder to anyone who needs it that success doesn't depend on recognition 💖

I never thought I’d be celebrating 2 years since my autism diagnosis…

By announcing my second book with Penguin Publishing Group!!!!!

Written to help neurodivergents learn to work WITH their brains, rather than against them 🥹

Pre-order How To Be You now at https://amzn.to/3xagn6j 💖

The biggest autism paradox 👇🏼

Wanting to be alone - but then feeling lonely.

Social interaction is really energy expensive to me. When life gets busy, busy, busy - I don’t have the energy to socialise.

I’ll cancel plans.
I’ll want to be alone.
I’ll cut myself off from communication.

But then, I’ll feel really lonely 🌝

And although I can notice that I’m lonely, that still doesn’t mean I want to socialise, either.

The perfect scenario would be to sit in silence with another human:

Both doing our own thing.
Neither feeling the pressure to communicate.
But both knowing that they’re not alone.


Let’s get one thing straight…

There is nothing childish about being autistic.⁠
⁠
Having sensory needs? Not childish.⁠
Stimming? Not childish.⁠
Special interests? Not childish.⁠
Autistic joy? You guessed it, sure as hell NOT CHILDISH.⁠
⁠
Let’s remember that needs ARE NEEDS, and differences are NOT DEFICITS, they’re just exactly what it says on the tin - different.

That’s not bad, or scary, or “cringey” - it’s a natural part of being human.⁠
⁠
That’s all 😌⁠


Here's why autistic representation matters:

If 5-year-old, 10-year-old, or 15-year-old Ellie had seen the 25-year-old Ellie of today on her favourite TV programmes, in her favourite magazine, or on the cinema screen...

I am confident that she would have arrived at her lightbulb moment of diagnosis a whole lot sooner.

And been a whole lot happier in herself in the process.


It's World Autism Acceptance Day and I truly can't think of a better way to celebrate than by inviting you to our very first FESTIVAL OF AUTISTIC JOY 💖

We've teamed up with the wonderful Tiimo to bring you a virtual live stream of our (un)masked Autistic Joy panel THIS SATURDAY at 2 pm!

I'll be joined by the lovely Ella Willis, Arlo West, Demi Colleen and Neurodivergent_lou, and we'll be celebrating what autistic joy means to us, and sharing our top tips on how you can sprinkle it throughout your life 🌟

You can grab your tickets now at  https://lnkd.in/eY9_D7Fz (on a sliding scale from free to £10) - I can't wait to see you there!

AD

DID YOU HEAR THE NEWS?! 👀

My second book, How To Be You, is available to pre-order now!!!!

If my content has helped you in any way over the last couple of years, the best way you can support me is by pre-ordering 💙

Pre-orders are so important for authors as they let retailers know that people are interested in the book and so it’s more likely to get stocked in more places and therefore help more people!

Grab yours now at https://lnkd.in/ejDTubQk 📚

How to accommodate your autistic talent on April Fools' Day 🥲

Petition for April Fools' to also be "International Stay Off Social Media If You Are An Autistic Literal Thinker Day" 😂

Appreciate you always Verity Park 💖

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