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
work
Volunteering
Over the years I've tried to pay attention to my ability to do various things. However, I don't always manage to notice the relevant patterns until I've ended up in (multiple) difficult and/or embarrassing situations. Volunteering was one of the patternless things in my life until this month. From the time I was 12 years old, … Continue reading Volunteering
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
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
My Children’s Role
Content warning: pregnancy loss/miscarriage, no explicit details given Having children played an instrumental role in my awareness of autism. Many parents discover that they're Autistic after a child or children are diagnosed, but in my case, the reverse was true. It was brought to my attention and I suspected it of myself before my child was diagnosed. … Continue reading My Children’s Role
Negative Memories and Confusion
So, I mentioned in my previous post, that it's easier for me to access my positive memories than my negative memories. I've spent some time since writing that (it was scheduled several days ahead of publishing, this post is not) in thinking about why that might be and I believe the answer partially lies in … Continue reading Negative Memories and Confusion
Being in Nature
This is the third section from the journal entry I began commenting on here. I had been spending a great deal of time being introspective and wrote about more of my memories - mainly those having to do with being in nature: I used to spend lunchtime every day in the woods when I worked at … Continue reading Being in Nature
Controlling?
Moving on to elaborate about the "controlling person" bit that was briefly introduced in last Saturday's post, from my journaling ~4 years ago: The accusation that I was controlling has always baffled me. More than a couple of people have had that opinion and yet... in order to be controlling, one would actually need to … Continue reading Controlling?
Mamautistic 