Welcome to The Autistic Joy Project

It’s all about finding happiness in the details

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about joy and how to find it. When there’s so much negativity and suffering all around us, and so little we can do about it as individuals, it can be hard to stay cheerful.

As an autistic, physically disabled person (I have hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and MCAS), I don’t have the strength or energy to go out into the world and campaign for change. I don’t have the mental or physical resources to alter the big picture.

That’s why I decided to focus on the small and the quirky. To seek out – and share – the insignificant, everyday things that bring me moments of happiness, in the hope they might help others feel a little lighter, a bit brighter too. To pay attention to the patterns and subtle variations in shade that lift my heart.

And to invite others – autistic or not – to get in touch and share some of the often overlooked things that make their lives more pleasant and the world more bearable.