Catherine Simpson

My Daughter is autistic and proud of it.

Because my daughter is autistic and proud of it she asks questions like:

Who are you to tell me I’m disabled?

Who are you to tell me the way I think is wrong?

Who are you to look down on me?

Who are you to leave me out and think I won’t notice?

Who are you to make decisions about autism without asking for an autistic opinion?

Who are you to label me ‘disordered’?

Who are you to tell me I’m ‘inspiring’ while pitying me?

Who are you to tell me what will make me happy?

Who are you to tell me to learn to be ‘normal’?

Who are you to tell me how to live?

Because my daughter is autistic and proud of it she asks questions other people don’t know to ask.

Catherine Simpson is a novelist and journalist. Her novel Truestory, published by Sandstone Press, is the story of a boy with Asperger Syndrome who refuses to leave the house. Truestory is told from his mother’s point of view. Catherine was inspired to write the novel after raising her own autistic daughter, Nina Mega (photographed), who is now a student at Edinburgh University.