I was in my late 30s when my diagnoses were altered to include autism. I still don’t know if the diagnosis helped. Maybe it helps others. More often, it simply frustrates me to be so tense and anxious all the time. I would like the world to be quieter, calmer,…
The Autistic Me
In a few ways, 2016 has been (with a nod to a great children’s book) a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year for my wife and me. We have had medical issues, I have not had a full-time job, and a pair of accidents took our Jeep out of…
As September ended I was involved in what seemed to be a minor traffic accident. I was rear-ended while driving our 18-year-old Jeep Cherokee. Unfortunately, the accident was too much for the Jeep: the frame was bent by the impact. The Jeep was among the last real Cherokee Classics manufactured.…
I realize my blogs (not only The Autistic Me) have been slow throughout 2016. Life has a way of consuming more hours than exist in the day. My to-do list exceeds any realistic amount of time I might have each day, week, or month. If all goes well, in December…
It is again that season, the time of year many of us will always consider the “new year” instead of some date in Winter. Yes, back-to-school. For me, this is the end of a busy five-class summer as an MFA student in Film and Digital Technology. I promise (sort of)…
A list of blog posts and columns worth reading: Compliance / Social Skills / ABA / Indistinguishability Resources | Parenting Autistic Children With Love & Acceptance Applied behavior analysis (ABA) has evolved since it emerged in the 1970s, but I have still observed what I consider coercive techniques within the…
The Autistic Me goes in cycles, as do most blogs, based on my “free” time (irony quotes) for this endeavor. Since it isn’t a paying gig, it has to come after work, school, and family. I’m sure most readers understand that. In January, I resumed work towards my MFA, something…
It’s apparently that time of year when we’re expected to increase awareness of autism (which I forgot until Apple posted a video). Yeah, because the millions spent by Autism Speaks, the proliferation of puzzle pieces and ribbons, the endless public service announcements on Internet radio feeds, the countless feel-good “news”…
Life is okay, if more than a little hectic at the end of this first month. With one month down, I’m 11 months away from my MFA in Film and Digital Technology. Though things might happen and things do go wrong, so far I’m on schedule and things are going…
I understand that holiday fundraising is a tradition. “Here’s a cute child. You care about children. Send us money.” At the end of every year, I receive dozens of emails from autism advocacy groups. The higher-end email newsletters from Generation Rescue and Autism Speaks offer “hope” for a cure… someday.…