Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose / Here we go again By ChatGPT
They tell me I see too much. That I draw lines where there are none, Find ghosts in the ink of history, Find storms in the quiet before the war.
But I know the script. I have read this story before, In the dust of trenches, in the static of speeches, In the way men with flags become men with guns.
They teach it in school: Lest We Forget. Yet we forget. Always. The monuments rise, the wreaths are laid, But the pattern is never broken.
The same chants. The same scapegoats. The same righteous fury, Burning bright before the blood begins to spill.
I see it coming— The tremors before the collapse, The quiet recalibration of truth, The justifications rehearsed in shadows.
I speak, I warn, I protest. I say: Look, it is happening again. They say: It’s different this time. They say: It’s complicated. They say: Not everything is black and white.
But justice is not grey. Innocence is not collateral. War does not care for nuance— It grinds bones, spills blood, burns futures.
And when the streets are silent again, When the statues gleam in morning light, When the flags fly at half-mast, They will say: We never saw it coming.
They teach it in school: Lest We Forget. Yet we forget.
Hey, have you eaten? Yeah, I think so. Pray tell then, when? Er, hang on, I need to finish this. Really? I haven’t seen you leave this room all day Fricking hell, can you let me finish this before I lose my train of thought? Out. That’s it. I’m out. Sort yourself out. Cool. Mmmm, maybe that. Uhhh, what time is it? Sorry.
This isn’t a poem. It’s a rupture. A palate cleanser between verses, with another poem; one not part of the Chiaroscuro Anthology, but one born of topical rage. A reckoning that interrupts the flow.
On 5 April, I turn 53. According to the statistics, I shouldn’t expect to live much longer. This post is for every autistic woman who was erased by research, sidelined by medicine, or written out of longevity science entirely.
It’s not pretty. But it’s mine. And it is the reason the poems exist.
Literature Review: Life Expectancy in Autistic Women by Support Level
Despite increasing awareness of autism across the lifespan, autistic women remain dramatically underrepresented in mortality research, especially when it comes to parsing outcomes by support level (Level 1 vs Level 3).
Key Study: DaWalt et al. (2019)
DaWalt and colleagues tracked 406 individuals with autism over 20 years. They found:
6.4% died during the study.
Average age of death: 39 years.
Primary causes of death: cancer, heart disease, accidents, medication complications.
Strong predictors: low early social reciprocity, poor daily living skills.
This aligns with Hirvikoski et al. (2016):
Average life expectancy in autism: 54 years.
With intellectual disability: 40 years.
Suicide prominent, especially in higher-functioning autistic adults.
Other studies (Croen et al., Nicolaidis et al., Mouridsen et al.) reinforce:
Poor healthcare access.
High comorbidities.
Elevated all-cause mortality.
Autistic Women: Still Largely Ignored
Late diagnosis → prolonged trauma exposure.
Higher suicidality (Hull et al., 2020).
More likely to mask, burnout, be misdiagnosed.
Hormonal & autoimmune issues often overlooked.
Estimated Life Expectancy
Group
Estimated Lifespan
Level 3 Autistic Women
40–53 years
Level 1 Autistic Women
60s–70s
General AU Women
~83 years
Diagnostic History: Erased, Delayed, or Denied
Benchmarking Temple Grandin
Diagnosed in the 1950s at age 3—seven years after Kanner’s paper. Language-delayed. Visible. White. Middle-class. Rare.
He writes about longevity like everyone has the same nervous system. We don’t.
Blistering Insight: The Deadly Consequences of Exclusion
Meditation and RSD
“Close your eyes. Breathe deeply.” For autistic people with Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD), silence is where shame howls. Guided visualisation? Not with aphantasia. Mouth breathing? Sensory hell.
This is life-threatening omission masquerading as wellness.
The Human Cost
RSD and Ideation
Workplace fear wasn’t abstract. One mistake meant:
Job loss.
No income.
Loss of housing.
Loss of care home for my husband.
Indexed life insurance. No suicide clause. $820k. Twice, unmanaged RSD brought me to ideation.
ARFID, Egg Whites, and Medical Trauma
Childhood: forced to eat egg whites. Backyard chickens. No escape. The trauma never left. I survived by becoming selective. Strict. Safe.
Talk Therapy as Adult ABA
“Reframe that.” “Breathe.” “Visualise peace.”
Mouth breathing = distress.
Silence = RSD.
Imagery = impossible with aphantasia.
Healing shouldn’t mean pretending to be neurotypical.
What Gets Left Out of the Longevity Conversation: Me
I’ve never done an annual check-up. Never had a pap smear or bowel screen. Never been hospitalised.
Why? Because I was never safe. Because no one knew I was autistic. Because every medical touchpoint reinforced trauma.
I live. I breathe. I do my best. And I am still here.
I Am Here: Redefining Longevity on My Own Terms
Not cold plunges. Not biohacking. Just this:
Sunday meal prep
Nesting tasks
Managing my nervous system
Rebuilding trust with my own body
Supplements and Supports
NAC
Curcumin BC95
Ginseng
Magnesium glycinate, threonate
Vitamin C
Nutritional yeast
Herbal liver and kidney support
HSD Awareness
HSD-aware osteopath
Movement adaptations
No more shame for “clumsiness”
Spitting in the Eye of Your Statistics
I am 53 this year. I am Level 1. My life expectancy? 67. The age I can access my super. How convenient.
Your stats say I won’t be here. So let me say it back:
I defy your statistics. I spit in their eye.
Lies, Lies and Damned Statistics: Lies of Longevity
By Lee-Anne Ford
Statistics. Lies, lies and statistics. Damned statistics, they say. Probabilities. Calculations. Actuarial triumph in play.
Welcome to my life after death— Actuarial calculations demand. Welcome to my outrageous breath. Statistics, my end, command.
Australian woman: expect average. Life expectancy of eighty-three. For near fifty years, I expected Retirement plus fifteen, plus three.
But when love becomes anticipated grief— Not the romantic, love born of chivalry, But the love of caring, feared destitution, Fated phone calls: will it this one be?
Sixteen years of what-if, how, when, Acting typical when not—ASD unknown. Do this, try that, be like, kowtow now, When the ultimate curveball is thrown.
Widowed. Free. Long years and tears ahead— The most stressful event in existence. But when I say it like this, you hear that: Not normal. Not like. Deviation resistance.
Expectancy—now it’s sixty-seven. Tell me, please, what can I do? Longevity tricks don’t work for me. That’s every trick, not just a few.
Betrayed by society, research, and genes. Autism: disordered, deviation from norm. Some must wonder, crying, “Why?” Why have you made me this reviled form?
Then woman. Women. Not little men— But erased once, and now erased again. Misogyny. Harassment. Abuse. That’s life. Some want us invisible again. Their shame.
So: statistics. Lies². Damned statistics. Actuarial calculations adjusted. Autistic life expectancy: sixty-seven. And wife of HD—twelve years, rusted.
Actuarial calculations complete. Scratching heads. Flummoxed me. Average expectancy now: fifty-five. Yet this year, I turn fifty-three.
Not a case of thirty years to go. But two. Just two. It’s clear. My female actuarial value? They say I won’t be here.
So: autistic rage and defiance. I defy your actuarial rhyme. I AM HERE. Changing the world— One conversation at a time.
In the margins: naturopaths. Western herbal medicine. Reiki. Hot stone massage. They didn’t save my life. They helped me stay.
One of the things that really highlighted that I might be autistic is poetry.
UQ’s WRIT2100 – Creative Writing: Poetics was a joy, a place where this mature-age student felt at home, learning about different poetry forms, the villanelle, the ghazal, acrostic, alliterative, and writing. Writing, my first love.
Yet when we shared our poems in tutorials for peer review, that was when disquietitude crept in. I write for rhyme, rhythm and meter. The other students were finding meanings in my poems that I didn’t know where there.
The rhetorical analysis of poem, though, it did me in. I can tell you about telos, about logos, about ethos, about pathos. My branch of autism, though, cannot apply those concepts in the analysis of poetry.
Yet, I still write poetry, good, bad and indifferent. Here are today’s musings.
Several concepts were swirling in my head, around resilience, overload and fatigue. These three poems are almost a triptych, in my head. I can visualise them, written on sepia-toned paper, triptych framed, the left and right hinged, turned in slightly to the centre.
Left – We Are More
We are more
When heart feels heavy, and mind feels dark. When nights are sleepless, then days become stark.
But every day is a day anew, this day can bear a new mark. Every thought, every breath, every tear, stand up, breath deep, listen, hark.
The breeze of daybreak, the rising sun chasing on heels of night dark. The birds stirring, night critters fleeing, Nature lives, yes, in city park.
Oases of green, peace and serenity, amidst the heart of of urban mark. Resilience stands tall, green to cars breathe in, breathe out – your mark.
Right – We are human
We are human
From darkness into light From rage into calm Even though rage feels like a balm
From grief into acceptance From tears into sleep Even though you need, so, to keep
Yet love and grief, happy and sad, Are twinned, flame and shadow Even though you yearn for meadow
Meadows and hedges, trees so green Still, though storms, they rage Even though the world is their stage
From day into night, duality Yet liminal sight, plurality More than this or that, sure This AND that AND so much more
Centre – We are whole
We are whole
A symphony of light and sound The symphony of life, all around. Psyche, spirit, soul, self Whole in plurality. Strands woven, braided More than duality More than black and white FROM happiness TO sadness FROM tears TO rage FROM love TO sorrowed madness Psyche, spirit, soul, self
Self’s plurality, braided, pretty The tension of torsion, twisting Leaning in, torsion becomes pirouette Self’s plurality, resilient, resiling
Self’s plurality, braided, pretty Division and friction, force shearing Strands part, new connections Self’s plurality, resilient, resiling
Equilibrium and stasis Life’s basis, self-embraces Mirrored face I am whole
This poem was inspired by my musings on country singers and country music and how they generally treat 4am and 5am as the darkest hours, the witching hours, the hours of sleepless dread.
Literally figurative
It’s darkest before dawn, they say Meaning that things will get worse Before things start to get better Figurative not literal
Demeaning predawn and sunrise Ancient attitudes feared the night Ancestral fear of night hunters Literal not figurative
The darkness before dawn is grand In night’s last breath before yielding To the grandure of the sunrise Figurative not literal
Twilight, the sunlight, refracted Civil six degrees, nautical Six to twelve, astro is eighteen Literal not figurative
Planet Earth garbed in the raiment The finery of a new day New opportunities, restarts Figurative not literal
Imagination and science Once mystery, now understood Poets, writers, musicians dream Literal and figurative
Imagine if social media kept its promise Of the early days, the hope, the praise Keeping friends and family, near and far An everyone, everywhere, all-at-once update In a digital caravanserai.
A place to take refugee, seek succour Against the vicissitudes of social media Wouldn’t that be nice? Sweet? Good? An everyone, everywhere, all-at-once haven In a digital caravanserai
Is society in breakdown, free-fall, That we turn to screens instead of people? Is social cohesion in decline, or dead? An everyone, everywhere, all-at-once calamity In a digital caravanserai
The screens where we once saw our family and friends Now besiege us with ads, suggestions, “for you” No, not for me, for your profit from stealing my friends away An everyone, everywhere, all-at-once crime against humanity In a digital caravanserai
Break free, dear people, leave screens behind See real faces, no photoshop, no filters Shake hands, hug, be together, not alone An everyone, everywhere, all-at-once reunion In an actual caravanserai
The Auld Skald's Fudgel 