Autism Book Shelf: What I Mean When I Say I’m Autistic
This book came from a recommendation on one of the ND Facebook groups I’m in. The post was by someone looking for books to give to people in their circle, family and friends, to help explain what it’s like to be autistic…and maybe to legitimize the experience, because for whatever fake reason, if it’s printed…
I Guess I Like That I’m Autistic
A friend of mine posted a question on Facebook: Let’s start today out with some self-loveand positivity! What’s something you like about yourself? Some people went with physical traits, others a personality trait–there were no wrong answers here. I went with my inability to see social hierarchy. No one has inherent authority (so I’m great…
Poor Interoception: When Your Body Keeps Secrets From You
The Bladder of Steel, one of my superpowers. I can do an 11-hour drive without stopping. I can work the booth at a trade show or festival on my own without having to pee–or even find food and water (same issue, different things to not actually brag about). I can hyperfocus on a project and…
Grief: Can I Have It or Do I Want It?
Content warning: death, loss, and what might seem like insensitive discussion of them. It’s clear that I don’t feel or process emotions the way most people do. Without professional confirmation on this, I’m pretty certain I am alexithymic (I don’t see a therapist, but it came up during my ASD assessment), and in combination with…
Finding Home
I’m marking the fourth anniversary of my move to Chicago. Thing is, I grew up in Chicago, spending the bulk of my first 24 years here. But as we know, autistic people commonly feel uncomfortable, out of place, wherever they are–and since I didn’t know I was autistic, I just carried this mysterious and frustrating…
Autism Book Shelf: Divergent Mind
This one had been recommended to me personally as well as popped up in autism groups: Jenara Nerenberg’s Divergent Mind: Thriving in a World That Wasn’t Designed for You. Especially when it was backordered when I tried to get it, I was really excited to read it–recommended by neurodivergents and hard to get? It must…
No Surprises, Please
Autistic people are all different, much like neurotypicals are all different, so we’re all going to have our own challenges. A super common challenge is surprises. It’s a big one for me, for sure. I love routine. I love knowing what’s around the corner. I love knowing which characters will die in a book or…
A Different Kind of Imposter Syndrome
It’s been about three weeks since I received my autism diagnosis and I’ve been trying to figure out how and why I feel different about myself. Because I do feel very different, and it’s mostly really great. Aside from everything else, it’s a very long project I’ve completed, from entertaining the idea that I might…
Baby Steps to Diagnosis: Part 4 (The Diagnosis)
If you’ve been following along with the Baby Steps series (or longer than that), you can maybe imagine the buildup to my results appointment. It took about four weeks following my in-person testing — I was expecting three weeks, so that extra week was painful and I did end up sending a check-in email in…
Baby Steps to Diagnosis: Part 3
Following my intake interview, I had some homework to complete before the in-person testing. These were the four questionnaires I was assigned: An online quiz made up of maybe 400 true/false statements. This was the most difficult, since so many of them were judgments or used vague wording or wording so absolute that I wasn’t…
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