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lifehacksTo tolerate places you don’t want to be at:

Take your glasses off

If you wear contacts or glasses, wear glasses that day.  If you are going somewhere that are dreading or think it will be kind of invasive like the dentist, eye doctor, or hair dresser, take your glasses off when you are able.  Blurred vision means less visual cues to take in and fully process.  It also means less cutting eye contact and less details of others’ facial expressions to hold on to and worry about (cuz you can’t really see it as clear!).  When already stressed or on alert mode, taking away even just one stressor can be very beneficial. Continue reading →

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When myself and the world are too much, I find myself back here. 

I’ve stayed away for a while.  Diving in too deep made life too heavy.  I’ve lived forever without a label and simply in “just existing.”  It was nice to just exist again without the labels and without the over-thinking.

Slowly, getting back on track, the skills I lost seem to be returning.  Continue reading →

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I started the post An Imperfect Science yesterday about a young girl I work with who has Asperger’s. My intent of posting was to share how challenging it is to do the right thing, respond the right way, and have all the right answers—no matter who you are and no matter how much perspective you have. It is hard.

But along the way in writing, I came across a crucial piece that I thought should entirely merit its own post. Throwing a lifeline. Continue reading →

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For all that I’ve started writing, all the thousands of words I’ve already written, and all the attempts to dive deeper, I feel like I just need to say that I fail too. I struggle to reach out to children with Asperger’s, I struggle to support them in the way they need to be, and I know I make mistakes. Life and humans are an imperfect science.

I work with a young child with Asperger’s syndrome. In being able to understand much of what she’s going through, she clings to me. I am able to speak to her in a tone she appreciates and, most importantly, treat her gently with kindness where others would have shown frustration, impatience, and picked her apart. Continue reading →

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This year, I’ve often been feeling as though I wish I didn’t exist.

This is a tough one to explain to anyone who doesn’t have Asperger’s; the immediate assumption is that you are speaking of suicide. I don’t wish to die, even if sometimes I feel like I want to. Dying is scary and too final. I refuse to intentionally inflict upon my family a loss like that for the rest of their years on Earth. For all they’ve done for me and how much I love them, I couldn’t ever knowingly do something like that to them. I’m also not sure how that fits in with God and my relationship with Him. I know He made me. I know He put me on this Earth. He’s been right about so many things that I’ve been wrong about in the past, I’m not sure if it would be right to just opt out on my own accord.

So please don’t call a suicide hotline and other emergency-intervention-stuff for me, there is a difference. Continue reading →

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This is a fantastic article from a fantastic website. Please take the time to read it first. The article brings about a lot of great points. The website where it is taken from, About Health, also has many other useful resources on autism as well. I suggest you check it out!

5 Reasons Why It May Take Years to Learn You Have High-Functioning Autism

Here is my take on the five reasons and how it fits into where I fall on the spectrum.  Continue reading →

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Sitting in class, at a meeting, with a church group, or at work, I’ve been amazed at how Sia’s performance on Ellen with Maddie Ziegler so encapsulates how I can sometimes feel having Aspergers in an organized group of people.  It hits on so many levels. Continue reading →