Chewigem & Sensooli’s Jamie Turns 18!
When the Chewigem journey began Jamie was a 7-year-old girl with autism and the need to chew. Before you get upset about the language I have just used the point of this blog is to show how far Jamie and the business have come in the last 11 years. Jamie is now an autistic person but it is important to know that we have all made mistakes when it comes to language.
Chewigem & Sensooli’s Jamie Turns 18!
In the last 11 years, Jamie has been to 5 different schools and has also been home educated regularly in between.
So Jamie has been to mainstream school, a school with an attached autism unit, a specialist residential school and an autism academy.
We are currently looking into colleges that take young adults from the age of 18-25 to start making some headway with life skills and independent living. We are awaiting an assessment from the Social Services Adult Team to see what support they can offer Jamie.
Jamie hasn’t had the best of help due to chronic pain and mobility issues. Jamie regularly uses a walking stick or wheelchair to enable them to do things and as yet we still have no answers and are not much further forward than we were 11 years ago. We are currently awaiting an appointment at the pain clinic.
Chewigem & Sensooli’s Jamie Turns 18!
Jamie started life assigned female at birth and they soon began crushing on cartoon characters. By the age of 7, Jamie had decided that they were probably a lesbian. That didn’t last for too long though when Jamie realised they were actually bisexual. However, that is probably because Jamie had never really felt comfortable with their female self and age 15 came out as non-binary trans. This was no surprise for me and everyone has been incredibly supportive of this journey.
Check out Jamies Gender Video here
Over the last 11 years, Jamie’s restricted diet has remained pretty restricted. They have added a couple of new foods over these years but not anything of significance. We will continue to try in this area but as I probably said 11 years ago this isn’t one of the battles that I feel is most important and as long as Jamie is eating that is all that matters to me.
This brings me on very nicely to Cosplay. Jamie loves Cosplay and has dressed up as many different characters. Some of these include Red from Pokemon, Metal Sonic, Vriska from HomeStuck and Byleth from Fire Emblem Three Houses. I know that Cosplay will continue to be a big part of Jamie’s life and I love being part of it even though my craft & creative skills aren’t very good.
Chewigem & Sensooli’s Jamie Turns 18!
I know you don’t like or celebrate birthdays but I just wanted to tell you what a special person you have become. You’ve made the last 18 years very interesting, to say the least. You have shown me so much love and acceptance and enabled me to be the person that I want to be … and I’m supposed to be the parent!
So let’s raise a champagne flute of blackcurrant fruit shoot or a can of Pepsi to my favourite person in the whole wide world.
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