I was introduced to Torey Hayden's books in college by my Freshman year Foundations of Education professor. Her book, One Child, was required reading at some point or another during that year. The class was a year-long class and at the time I was a music education (double) major. I loved that education class, aside from … Continue reading Relating to Torey Hayden’s Books
Pre-diagnosis
Autistic Body Language and Emotion
I've written some about this topic before, regarding the joy I feel when I see other Autistic people moving in Autistic ways, but today I want to write about how my own movement affects and reflects my emotions. I get a little sweary at the very end when talking about getting rid of the allistic … Continue reading Autistic Body Language and Emotion
Flashback Friday – Depression
TW: depression, eating disorder, self-harm, sexual assault (very brief mention), and suicidal thoughts/actions. CW: Higher education, therapy. My first official psychological diagnosis was Major Depression nearly 15 years ago. I was in college and, although I'd been extremely excited about attending college at first, my experience had rapidly gone downhill ever since I'd first arrived … Continue reading Flashback Friday – Depression
Burned Bridges
For most of my life, my experiences were confusing and inexplicable. I could not explain, even to myself, most of what happened to me, others' reactions, or my own reactions to what was happening. In a post earlier this year I wrote: In the past I’ve run away from these events. I’d never return to … Continue reading Burned Bridges
Old Writings
I was going through some of my old writings the other day and I discovered a few common themes woven throughout it all. For context, these notebooks were post-college and pre-mother: mainly 2003-2005. I wrote a lot during those 2 years and I didn't have the time or motivation to read them thoroughly, but I skimmed … Continue reading Old Writings
Messing Up Such a Simple Thing
Sometimes I'll be going along, doing fairly well, and then I'll mess up again. In a big way. Patterns in my life often emerge from new situations and experiences because they aren't really new. These are things that have been happening my entire life, but that I never had the ability to describe or explain … Continue reading Messing Up Such a Simple Thing
When the Unexpected Happens at the Dentist
CW: Dental work discussed in passing after the first paragraph. Medical professional belittling a patient mentioned briefly, as well. Sometimes the unexpected is enough to cause a complete melt down or shut down. Other times, it can be okay. It seems to primarily depend on how unknown the unexpected event is to me, how it's handled by … Continue reading When the Unexpected Happens at the Dentist
Truth, Emotions, and Potential Evaluation Outcomes
To prepare for my evaluation I had spent nearly two months searching through my memories, talking to people from my past, and writing things down. Mostly I was looking through the lens of likely being Autistic, but I was aware that there could potentially be another explanation that I hadn't considered or didn't know about. … Continue reading Truth, Emotions, and Potential Evaluation Outcomes
Preparing for My Evaluation
I've been somewhat putting off writing about my evaluation and the process of getting diagnosed. This is partly because I wanted to give some background about myself to start with and I've now done that. Also, the evaluation process ended up being much more difficult for me than I had anticipated and I needed to recover … Continue reading Preparing for My Evaluation
Body Language – When the Knowledge Doesn’t Transfer
Sometimes I say, rather hyperbolically, that I didn't know about non-verbal communication until I was nearly 29 years old. It's a nice sound-bite, but like most nice sound-bites, it's not strictly true. I did know about some types of non-verbal communication before then. I knew that shrugging meant "I don't know." I knew that nodding meant … Continue reading Body Language – When the Knowledge Doesn’t Transfer
Mamautistic 