Wow, it's been a while since I've posted anything! To start off, here is a brief autism disclosure story because disclosing that I'm Autistic is essential for my wellbeing when I do any sort of work outside of my house: A few years ago I was volunteering at a large event and I told a … Continue reading Volunteering, Work, and Self-Care
emotions
Reckoning with Last Year’s Abuse
I'm going to write about something that feels shameful, but I'm not going to let the feeling of shame stop me from speaking out. Because I know I'm not the only Autistic person this has been done to. This isn't even the first time I've had it done to me, which adds to the feeling … Continue reading Reckoning with Last Year’s Abuse
Broken But Building Back
My words are starting to return a little bit. It's been months. Goodness only knows how long it'll take for them to be back to any kind of "normal" (for me) level. I think I wrote the quoted bit below about being wordless around a week ago. ____________________________ It's funny how wonky time goes. Buried, … Continue reading Broken But Building Back
That Fleeing Feeling
I started thinking about writing this post soon after my child had almost died in the hospital and I was routinely having meltdowns like clockwork every single week. By about two weeks after my child nearly died my weekly meltdowns had morphed into twice-weekly meltdowns -- Tuesdays and Thursdays, every single one. I was in … Continue reading That Fleeing Feeling
Internalized Ableism, Others, and Reassurances
Honestly, I've not given all that much thought to internalized ableism. I've read about it, yes. I've even written a little bit about it, but it has never topped my list of "things I need to personally work on." Until now. It has, rather abruptly, come to my attention that I have internalized way more … Continue reading Internalized Ableism, Others, and Reassurances
How (Not) to Disappear
Disappearing is a word that is used, primarily by my local circle of friends, to describe when one of us stops communicating for a while and stops visiting social media either mostly or completely. We've all done it from time to time, some more than others and each to varying degrees. So what does this … Continue reading How (Not) to Disappear
Communication is Hard
In going through my saved links recently for a different post, I came across this post from Cynthia Kim --Echolalia and Scripting: Straddling the Border of Functional Language. I've read it before, of course, that's why it's in my saved links; but today this quote from it felt really familiar. It describes a recent experience … Continue reading Communication is Hard
Emotional Containment Failure
I usually can't name my emotions. This is not an optimal thing, of course, because emotions can affect all kinds of things and it's difficult to control or understand such things when I'm unaware of what they even are. So I somehow developed a containment system over the years. I have this ability to lock … Continue reading Emotional Containment Failure
Work, Energy, & Autistic Inertia
CW: some internalized ableism regarding productivity and energy levels. I was (text) chatting with an Autistic friend a while back about how some of our abilities can make us appear to be far more functional to others than we actually are because we do some things that most people would find difficult to do, but … Continue reading Work, Energy, & Autistic Inertia
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
Mamautistic 