Autism | The Last Krystallos

If you love cute frogs and enamel pins then Rayncloud Art’s Kickstarter is for you!

I recently backed Rayncloud Art’s new Kickstarter, and it’s so exciting I want to share it with you! Rayn is an independent artist with a track record of some great art and new ideas. Rayn is autistic and struggles with tics but doesn’t let it stop their art. One of the only things that helps calm their tics is working with their creativity. Rayn started out as a traditional artist, using watercolours, acrylics, and oils, and has recently moved into digital art. They mix crochet and much more into their brand too, creating an eclectic fusion of wonderful art.

Rayn and Squidge the Frog © Rayn Shambrook

One of Rayn’s digital creations is Squidge the Frog, the cutest little frog, and they designed a set of enamel pins, stickers, postcards, and phone wallpapers based on him. With encouragement from fans Rayn decided to plan a Kickstarter to finance the pins.

Rayn’s Kickstarter kicked off a couple of weeks ago with a Squidge the Frog Flower pin, and, very quickly, successfully reached their target! If the Kickstarter grows and people continue backing it new enamel pin designs will be added. The next one is Squidge Mushroom pin, and there are two further designs if pledges rise!

I backed this project, and can’t wait to get my pins!

Seriously, if you love frogs you should back this Kickstarter, and if you know anyone who collects cute pins, or adores frogs, then share the Kickstarter with them too!

Let’s see if we can unlock the next frog pin!

I asked Rayn about their art and what led to this venture:

Tell me a little about your art and recent change of style from painting to digital art…

I’ve loved art since I can remember but I only recently took the plunge into trying out digital art. I’ve spent years playing with different traditional mediums finally settling on Watercolour as my favoured medium but I’d always wanted to try digital art. I tried it a tiny bit as a young teen but I didn’t have the right equipment and consumer technology for digital art just wasn’t as affordable and accessible as it is now. I tried out digital art for the first time at the end of 2022 and I fell in love with it. It took away one of the biggest barriers for me when it came to creating art which was the energy needed to set up before painting and to clean up after. All of a sudden I could paint on a whim even with very little energy. I would honestly consider it life changing!

What’s your favourite subject to paint/draw?

I think my favourite subject to draw will always be people and portraits. I love the depth and detail in them, the way that one tiny line can change a whole expression. But I also love working in a more illustrative style and with that I love drawing animals! Animals are one of my autistic special interests so I love taking the time to research and make sure I include important features in these more simplistic illustrations, like gills on a shark, or the horizontal pupils of a frog.

Congratulations on your Kickstarter and reaching your first funding goal! Why frogs?

Thank you! I’m so happy about how well it’s going (I was so nervous that it would be a massive flop!)

It had to be frogs! I love frogs, I think theyre both strange looking and absolutely adorable! I also have a frog so I had to honour my boy Odo and make frogs my first pins.

Squidge the Frog has been in my art for perhaps longer than a lot of people realise, he’s been through a few changes.

Where would you like to take your art from here? More pins?

I definitely want to work on more pins, more of Squidge the Frog and also some other characters! (Members of my Ko-Fi will have seen the latest I’m working on.)

I want to work on more as well, I’m thinking keychains, washi tapes, maybe even tote bags or t-shirts!

Pet Portraits and Dragonscale Gloves © Rayn Shambrook

I’ve seen, and bought, some of your crochet, I adore my fingerless dragonscale gloves, do you enjoy expanding to other creative projects as well as painting and digital art?

I love letting my creativity run wild, crochet is a skill I’m so grateful to have learned and I’m working on some cute plushie keychains that are coming real soon to my shop.

I want to try polymer clay at some point too, just got to save for the equipment first!

I also love helping other people to learn new things too which is why I make YouTube videos.

You can find Rayn’s Kickstarter YouTube video here and follow their You Tube channel here.

Rayncloud Art and plushies © Rayn Shambrook

So, go and check out Squidge the Frog Kickstarter and see if you’re
interested in your own pin, and don’t forget all the lovely add-ons!

Go Squidge!

Being different is a good thing.
It means you’re brave enough to be yourself.
– Karen Salmansohn

When I was young I was painfully shy and shut myself away from people, lost in a world of reading, writing, and drawing. In nursery school I would head for the paint pots or book corner, or ride a tricycle around the playground. At home I’d swing as high as I could on our garden swing, listening to music on my personal stereo, as I disappeared into my own world in the clouds. I excelled in art and writing at school, but struggled with social situations. When things got too much, when I got overwhelmed or panicked, I ran away. I was trusting and naive which lead to a lot of being taken advantage of in various situations. I found I was able to fit in more as I got older, once I learned to be who people wanted me to be.

*Lisa ages 3 and 10, and favourite childhood things – the piece of black fur was a stim © Lisa Shambrook*

I learned to mask. Masking is a term used to describe how autistic people try to fit into a neurotypical society, by copying or mimicking behaviour to assimilate, supressing behaviour that might be considered odd, and developing methods to cope like creating scripts for situations, routines, and more. We change our natural responses to fit in.

*Lisa ages 12, 13, and 16 © Lisa Shambrook*

I’d never heard of autism when I was young. I had a long standing eating disorder controlling food intake and weight, self-harmed, had panic attacks, ran away from school, office, home multiple times, couldn’t say no, suffered crippling feelings of guilt and not being enough, and had major sensory sensitivities. I was misdiagnosed time and time again from the age of 18 upwards. I was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS or Post Viral Fatigue or ME – Myalgic Encephalomyelitis) at 19 when I began collapsing with exhaustion. Then I was diagnosed with chronic depression and put on a multitude of antidepressants that really didn’t work well over the next thirty years, and left to it.

*Purple electricity – autistic brains are wired differently, anxiety, antidepressants © Lisa Shambrook*

I married young and had three children. As Rayn, my oldest, grew up, they struggled a lot with fitting in, with behaviour, and school was a nightmare. In Junior school I got used to phone calls asking me to come and take Rayn home, to extricate them from the toilets where they’d hidden, to catch them on the school field where a teacher hadn’t been able to, to collect them after violent behaviour. As they moved into their teens we tried to get help. There wasn’t much available, and at first we looked into bipolar as a possible reason. My younger sister had been diagnosed with hyperactivity disorder as a child, and bipolar as an adult, and later autism. In the end, Rayn was dismissed by CAMHS – Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, as just a fifteen-year-old hormonal teen.

*Lisa ages 19, also 19 at wedding, and 29 © Lisa Shambrook*

Autism was looked at as a predominantly male condition, and girls and women were (and still are) often overlooked. Telling my child, to their face, that they were just a hormonal teen and needed to grow up was literally the worst thing they could have said. Rayn closed down, and it took another six years before they could begin to ask for help again. Rayn researched autism and after a few years finally got an assessment.

At the video assessment (during Covid) the assessor finished and immediately told Rayn that they were autistic. Usually you’d wait for the official diagnosis letter to come through before you knew, but the assessor said it was so obvious, and they were so sad that Rayn had been so badly let down before. Rayn and I cried with relief and validation. I wish we’d known when they were at school. As an adult there is no active support when you are diagnosed, but I believe as a child there are many accommodations you can ask for and get support at school. We can still ask for considerations and accommodations at work and for medical situations, but it’s more precarious.

*Blue rain, school, Autism Passport © Lisa Shambrook*

When Rayn had begun to research autism before assessment, we’d talked a lot and Rayn said I should get assessed too. I wasn’t sure, but the more I looked at it, the more I saw myself, so I got referred.

I still struggle with any social situation, with no idea how to make small talk, and not knowing when to speak, or to stop oversharing. I can’t deal with crowds, noise, changed plans, broken routines, and I often miss jokes or sarcasm. I hate change, I panic if my favourite toothpaste, or body lotion, or food is discontinued. I hate people visiting my house unless they’re family. I have misophonia sensitivity to noises and sounds, and misokinesia sensitivity to movement or things in my eye line. I’m also sensitive to materials, smells, and touch. I hate being hugged unless I initiate it or already know and like the person. I need meticulous order, plans, and routine. I can’t bear telephones or making phone calls. I’m obsessive, I catastrophise, and my imagination is far too big! I struggle to hear people, not because I can’t hear them, but because I have to process what people say as I hear it, and that takes time. I stim, stimming is repetitive self-stimulation regulatory behaviour, usually repetitive movements or noises in aid to calm or pacify. I related to being autistic so much.

*Lisa ages 40, 43, and 48 © Lisa Shambrook*

I was assessed eighteen months after Rayn, and after almost four years on the waiting list. On the second part of the assessment, my assessor wondered if my diagnosis’ of both CFS and depression was actually autistic burnout and overwhelm, that the sexual assaults I’d suffered could’ve been linked to misplaced trust, and was also the person who pointed out that my eating disorder was really ARFID Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder instead. As we talked my life suddenly made sense, and a few weeks later almost exactly on the 50^th birthday I got my official autism diagnosis.

Again, so much validation, which is incredibly important, and it lead me to be able to understand myself so much more. It helped those around me to understand autism, and to see it unmasked as I began to relax and be my authentic self.

There’s a magic in being able to freely be who you are. The system is gradually catching up with autism in women, and more and more older women, who were missed when they were younger, have been receiving assessment and diagnosis.

*Lisa age 50 with Autism diagnosis © Lisa Shambrook*

It was recently reported that over 122,000 people are currently waiting for autism assessment in England, with long waiting lists. I don’t know the figures in Wales, but more than 2,200 children are currently waiting in my local Hywel Dda Health Authority in Wales. More needs to done and understood to improve lives.

Trying to fit into a neurotypical society is tough for a person with neurodivergent mind. Autism is not a mental health illness, our brains are just wired differently, a neurological condition. It’s estimated that 15% of the UK population are neurodivergent and 15 – 20% of world population.

And there’s a very pertinent quote from Stephen Shore, an American Autistic professor of special education, If you’ve met one person with Autism, you’ve met one person with Autism. Don’t compare one autistic person to another; every single one of us is different.

*Autism Wheel by Autism Sketches, Sunflower lanyard, my tattoo and beads – the moon and beads are two of my special interests © Lisa Shambrook*

Autism is a spectrum. Think of it like a wheel with different symptoms radiating out, any autistic person could be anywhere on that circle in a number of different places. Though some autistic people will need a lot more support than others, it is not a sliding scale of most affected to least affected. It’s much more varied than that. Regardless, understanding and compassion is paramount to acceptance as a society and for us to accept ourselves. Being different is hard for anyone, but we are just as important in society as anyone else.

It’s been a revelation to accept myself for who I am, and to understand who I am. I now know I don’t need to fit in, I don’t need to belong, because, in my own way, I already do.