The most frequent question I’ve received after deciding to leave a job has been, “How could walk away without another job?” That’s a good question and reflects real concerns people have. Autistics struggle with employment without any additional challenges. Now that I have severe spinal pain and my Erb’s palsy…
Tag: pain
Because I want to contribute to our family, I value work. Even if I weren’t married with children, I would want to be employed and take care of myself financially. However, the emotional need to be productive often runs up against my physical limitations. If I could earn a living sitting…
Good people in relatively good workplaces might still fail to understand or appreciate the traits of an individual Neurodiverse person. Tangent: I have addressed why I prefer to “misuse” Neurodiverse instead of using Neurodivergent. I might shift to “Neurominority” in the future; “Autistic” remains the best way to describe my…
Work-from-home (WFH) during the COVID-19 pandemic was the greatest accommodation for differences ever offered. For those of us with physical differences and Neurodiverse minds, the WFH years allowed us to recharge and work whenever we were personally most productive. We did 40 hours or more of work weekly, but not…
Offering excuses for not keeping up with The Autistic Me frustrates me, but life has a tendency to get in the way of personal projects. I failed to release podcast episodes for most of 2024. I blamed an overloaded teaching schedule and a two- to three-hour commute (each way, 115…
Overnight Wednesday my left eye’s cornea suffered a tear or abrasion. It was a surprise. An extremely painful surprise. Unfortunately, I am familiar with the pain. In 2008 and 2009, I suffered several corneal tears in Minnesota’s cold, dry weather. It’s a pain you do not forget. For the last…
Podcast 0051; Season 04, Episode 15; December 29, 2020 This episode features reflections on being an Autistic Podcaster and Blogger. Every blog post and podcast episode takes a great deal of effort. I know it takes me more effort than it should. I know writers who manage to post daily…
The lumbar radiculopathy, which sounds too much like “ridiculously” for me, hasn’t faded completely. My left leg still cramps, tingles, and hurts with sharp pains. My mind remains cloudy, too, even as I stop taking painkillers for the back pain and a recent surgery. Efforts to reboot and get back…
Trying to reboot as 2017 begins, I attempted physical therapy for my pinched spinal nerve. The therapy appointment lasted only 30 minutes as I discovered the horror that is electrical stimulation and heat on an inflamed spinal cord. Diagnosed with radiculopathy, a pinched and inflamed nerve root in my lumbar…
Today, December 15, 2008, I went to yet another neurological exam. Actually, it was a psychological exam, supposedly screening for seizure disorders (complex partial seizures). However, it was simply another bad experience with that vague semi-science we call psychology. I think about 20 to 30 percent of psychology / psychiatry…