Today on Neurodiversity News, we’ve had the honor to interview Christa Holmans, who runs the blog, Neurodivergent Rebel. This is what they had to say.
Neurodiversity News: Tell me about yourself and what you do.
Christa Holmans: I’m currently employed full-time as the VP of Marketing and an Organizational Change Agent, specializing in neurodiversity at the Austin Alliance Group – but outside of “office hours,” I run a popular neurodiversity blog – Neurodivergent Rebel.
NN: What inspired you to become an autistic advocate?
CH: When I was diagnosed as autistic at the age of 29, I went to Google to learn more about autism, but the results I found were depressing. I was at a crucial fork in the road. When autistic people are diagnosed, we can go down one of two paths when learning about autism – the path towards accepting ourselves and living our best autistic lives OR the path towards self-loathing and resentment for being “different.”
NN: How do you think your YouTube channel and social media platforms have impacted the autistic community?
CH: People have sent me countless messages and DM’s saying that finding my page has helped them to do one of the following: Realize they are also autistic, accept themselves more as a neurodivergent individual, and my personal favorite would be a parent who ALMOST tried ABA but read something on my page and realized that was NOT what they should be doing. I get a LOT of these – THAT brings me a great joy.
NN: I know you do public speaking as well. How has that been going?
CH: In March, before COVID-19 hit, I had a full tour lined up this year. I already had an average of about one flight a month booked from March until November. I was gearing up to start traveling to conferences all over the country… then the flights started canceling. Some of the events have moved to virtual, and I’ve been doing a lot of Zoom presentations. It’s funny when I started traveling to do public speaking the entire adventure of traveling alone, and speaking in front of people was often overwhelming… I was JUST starting to get used to and even look forward to these trips when they canceled. The truth is, presenting virtually IS easier for me. I can also do more work with less downtime to recharge in between.
NN: Who are your greatest inspirations?
CH: Fred Rodgers, Bob Ross, Martin Luther King Jr., & Marsha P. Johnson.
NN: What do you hope to achieve in the future?
CH: I really hope that the work I do and the content that I create helps people. That’s really my only goal with everything I do. I’m just trying to do some good with the time I have on this planet, and leave this earth a bit better than I found it.