End of another era

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It’s been exactly two months to the day since my last post (not counting a video repost). Since then, I’ve come out publicly as a transgender woman, preferring she/her pronouns, and with the name Juniper Kate Parkes (going by Kate), though that may shift a little bit (the name order was to preserve my initials, but as time has gone on that has become less important, and going by my middle name for no good reason when I’m changing all my names anyway is kinda confusing, so I might switch ’em; I haven’t decided yet). I’ve also started hormone replacement therapy, which I’ve been on for about a month now. It hasn’t done too much yet, but normally the first changes aren’t noticeable until about one to three months in anyway, so I’m not worried yet.

However, since this is such a huge change, I’ve decided to once again restart my blog. The last time I had such a huge life change (when I left the LDS church) I ended up restarting my blog as I felt like nearly a different person. This time, while the internal change is actually less than it was then, the external change is much more (also the current blog’s URL is my deadname, which isn’t great). I haven’t worked out all the details yet about the new site, but when it’s up I’ll edit this post to include the new URL.

I’ve posted a lot about my journey on Facebook in the past couple of months. I would’ve done it here instead, but until I was out publicly I needed to limit who could read my stuff, and that wasn’t possible here without passwording things, which is a huge headache. However, with the new site one of the first things I’d like to do is organize and recap a bunch of those posts (as well as the few I did here) to create a sort of timeline of the first couple of months of my gender journey. This is one of those huge life-changing things that isn’t just important to me, but may also help anyone reading who might be going on their own gender exploration journey, or is at least curious about how they might work, and I want it to be as simple as possible but also as comprehensive as possible, so it may take a bit of editing to get all those posts into something more concise.

Speaking of being concise, that’s where I’ll leave this post off. It’s been nice posting for a while here, but as Kate it’s time for me to move on. Thanks for reading!

EDIT: I’ve got the new site up and running: https://wildjuniperbush.wordpress.com/! Update your links!

This one I posted at the end of the previous gender post, but I thought I’d put it here too to be more accessible.
This one is new, and pretty raw. I do not look forward to nothing but these types of days until HRT starts working…

Trans vlogs #1 and #2

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The Third Gender Post: Signs

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When I was seven or eight years old, I was a big fan of the Disney Afternoon show Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers. Though I loved most of the episodes, one that stuck out to me and was near the top of my list was called “A Fly in the Ointment”.

In it, mad scientist Professor Norton Nimnul invents a device called the Modemizer, a helmet which allows people to travel via phone lines at, presumably 2400 baud or so (it was the 80’s, what can you do?) In a twist of fate, Zipper the fly ends up getting picked up by the device and he and Nimnul switch heads, a la The Fly. The rest of the episode is spent following the Rescue Rangers trying to reverse this problem, and at one point the whole team has to use the Modemizer to get into a secure government facility where Zipper with Nimnul’s body is being held. This, in wacky kids’ show form, gets all the Rangers re-arranged: Chip switches heads with Monterey Jack, and Gadget switches heads with Dale:

This results in a classic CnDRR scene, where Dale shrieks, “I always wanted to be close to Gadget, but not this close!” to which Gadget (after covering her lower half with a convenient paper cup) sternly warns Dale, “Keep the hands off the body!”

While this wasn’t the best Rescue Ranger episode (though it was really high up there for most fans), it always resonated with me in this weird way. Even as a child, I found this compelling energy to see Dale and Gadget switch bodies that I couldn’t explain or really even understand. I didn’t know if other people felt this way; the scene was a fan favorite, but it was smartly written and fun regardless, so of course people liked it. And, if I were older, maybe I would’ve chalked it up to some sort of attraction thing: like some other, more adult shows, where they have a bodyswap episode and the first thing the characters do in each other’s bodies is secretly examine their own privates, and it’s supposed to be titillating, I guess. But I was just a kid; I certainly hadn’t gone through puberty, or even really had a little kid crush on anyone, and the scene itself was pretty G-rated (Dale never even touches anything other than putting his hands on his(her?) hips). Still, there was something oddly attractive about this particular CnDRR scenario.

Looking back, I think this was the earliest indication that I was, in fact, trans, even as a child who had no idea what the word even meant (and in the 1980’s, boy, did it mean something different anyway).

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The Second Gender Post: Miss Master Hollow Knight Gamer

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Damn.

Guys.

I think I might be trans after all, or at least genderfluid.

So here’s the story. I recently did a twitch stream of Hollow Knight. For about half of it I didn’t have any viewers, but then a random raid gave me like seven or so, and one or two of them were actively chatting. At one point we were talking about hours played or something (the topic doesn’t really matter), and one of them said:

“I believe in you miss master hollow knight gamer”

…and I almost started crying.

Not in a bad way, either. It wasn’t tears of “oh no, this person misidentified me and I feel bad.” Quite the opposite in fact. Because this person was watching a stream I was doing in Chara’s persona, with that voice and that face, without knowing who I really am, and identified me as such, calling me “miss”, and…

…it felt right.

In a way I can’t really explain, it felt right.

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The (First?) Gender Post

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So I took a gender test a couple of months ago on one of those sites that has, like, a million quizzes: some fun ones, and some based on studies by PhD people (however you interpret “based on”). The result was…interesting:

At the time, I didn’t know what to make of this. I wasn’t in the masculine or feminine quadrants, but presumably a non-binary person would be deeper into the “androgynous” quadrant. But I wasn’t really deep into any quadrant. I was pretty close to the center. So is my gender…centrist? I…don’t know what that means!

I took the test a couple more times (after waiting a few weeks so I wouldn’t remember my answers the first time). A couple of times it plopped me into the androgynous quadrant, and more than once I ended up slightly in the feminine quadrant, but I never landed in the masculine quadrant, and I was always very close to the center.

I posted my results on Facebook to get some opinions on it, which was somewhat enlightening, but said more about the respondents or the test itself than it did about me. About half of them were like, “I took it and got a mix of both genders too, but I’m still 100% cis. It’s just a silly Internet test; don’t take it as gospel.” Which, while true, tends to say something about what they thought I wanted to hear (“you’re still manly no matter what anyone else says”). I even had one guy trot out the ol’ “Look at your chromosomes! XX is girl, XY is boy!” which, well…let’s just say that the most charitable reading of that is that he’s never had to do gender research himself.

The other half was more helpful, asking questions like, “How does seeing those results make you feel? Do you think it’s wrong, and you should just ignore it, or does it feel like it fits you better? Explore whatever works for you.” This opinion tended to come from people who had more personal positive interaction with trans people and the trans community. Both of these sides are valid (well, except for the “chromosome” answer, screw that response), but I felt myself leaning more in the direction of the second group in terms of which answers felt more relevant to my situation. As I replied there, “I think the reason I’m hung up on this is because it’s caused me to ask some questions about myself, and I don’t think my authentic answers are the ones I assumed they’d be.”

So, since one silly Internet test was hardly proof of anything, I tried a few other tests to hopefully start building a consensus, or see some patterns start to develop. A lot of them were both helpful and frustrating at the same time, as they just asked questions like “Do you feel a connection to your gender, or between your gender and the one assigned to you at birth?” and stuff like that. Which, well, if I knew the answers to those questions I wouldn’t have to take the tests! I guess gender is still such a subjective concept these days (especially outside of the binary) that it’s more about how you identify than what identity is assigned to you by a quiz, but it doesn’t help someone who tries to explain his feelings and their causes logically (see: this entire blog).

Still, even with that caveat, I never got anything strongly masculine, or strongly feminine, or strongly anything. Most of the time I got stuff like this:

You have a 56% likelihood of being agender.
56%
You are leaning agender. Awesome! That means that your connection to gender is faint. You understand gender at least partly and know that you feel it, sort of, anyways.

Are you agender?

56% agender? So, half-gender? Like, what does this even mean? I do feel the “sort of, anyways” part of it, I guess. Sort of. Anyway, even though these were based on informal internet quizzes, I felt like this was something I needed to look into a little more, even if it were just to put my mind at ease.

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Effective Autistic Communication! Also Ineffective Autistic Burnout

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Before I begin, this particular post is about two nearly completely separate topics, though one bleeds into the other. The first half is about a particular issue I struggle with when it comes to communication, mostly due to my autism, and how you can better understand and help both me and people like me express themselves. The second part is a more general life lament venting session. I don’t blame you if you skip that part, but at least read the first bit: it’s important!

Recently I’ve been feeling…let’s say…a bit down. As a result, at a recent get-together I was a bit quieter than usual. One person noticed, and, a few days later, called me up to see if I was feeling OK. This was a conversation I was not anticipating, however, and my brain decided to short-circuit, saying at first that I was just tired. This was true, but it wasn’t the whole truth. The whole truth was complicated, messy, and had to be extremely carefully worded in order to get across exactly what my issues have been recently. I tried making a few stabs at explaining myself, but before I could really get a conversation going, I was cut off with, essentially, “Well, you know how to contact me if you need help. Bye!”

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Not Turning 40 Alone

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http://clipart-library.com/clipart/161907.htm

This past Saturday I turned 40. Usually this is a time for people to take a moment and reflect on their life, where they’ve been and where they want to go, that sort of thing. I’ve already mostly covered the past two decades, however: both my 20’s and my 30’s (mostly; offset by two years, but close enough). Funny thing about that last post, however; it was made in January of 2020, and near the end there’s this line:

“Honestly, both these past years have kind of run together, and I don’t know if the next years will be similar, but they very well might be.”

Turns out that, well, 2020 was not similar. Not similar at all. If you’re reading this in the far future then you may not know this, but there was a worldwide pandemic that year that upended most people’s lives, mine included. I got furloughed from Little America Hotel, spent several months indoors trying to figure things out, ended up taking a tech job at Hale Centre Theatre and not returning to the hotel job once they eliminated my position (but they said I could reapply to try to land a job with twice the workload and no pay raise!). I’ve documented the salient points of that journey in recent posts, and I’ve no wish to repeat myself. Long story short: I’m still in financial trouble and am often scrambling to make ends meet, and am working through a whole host of mental health issues on top of it.

However!

While those situations haven’t been resolved yet (and at least the financial one has worsened) since the last time I posted anything here, mentally I feel like I’m doing quite a bit better. I’m not top-notch, granted, but most days are pretty decent. This isn’t really due to anything I’ve decided or done, at least not on my own, but due to a group of friends that has evolved over the past couple of months that has really helped out. I don’t want to mention any of their names here, as I haven’t asked their permission, but I do want to tell the story.

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Mental Health and the Difficulty of Constant No-Death Runs

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So the job search has not been going too well. I may do a post in the near future about the specifics, but this post will be a little different. I’ll be making a fair amount of references to a certain previous post where I talked about why this blog is called what it is called, so if you haven’t read that (or played the game Celeste) then some of this may not make sense (also there are spoilers for the game), but here we go.

In Celeste there are seven chapters (not counting bonus levels). The final chapter, where the protagonist Madeline has to climb an entire mountain, is long, arduous, and difficult, but at this point she has started to work together with that Part of Her who was antagonistic before, and with them supporting each other they succeed in the end and crest the summit of Mt. Celeste.

In some ways I can relate this particular job search (and honestly, probably a lot of life’s issues) to this Chapter 7 story. It might be long, difficult, and overwhelming at first, but if you take it one step at a time, with enough planning, skill, and perseverance, eventually you’ll prevail and accomplish your goals. Inspiring, right?

Except this whole time I haven’t actually been on Chapter 7, ready to tackle that mountain.

I’m on Chapter 6.

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My Career Crossroads: a Pandemic-forced Mid-Life Crisis. Part 8: Broad Strokes

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In the last post I covered my current job situation (long story short: if I continue doing what I have been doing for nearly the past two years, I will be out of money before the end of August). So it’s time once again to examine my options and forge a path. But before I do, I need to get one thing off my chest: the main reason I’m doing this in a set of public blog posts is because I live alone. There’s not really anyone I can discuss this with privately (such as a spouse or partner) who is invested enough in my success to put in the effort to make sure I can make the best decision, so I’m hoping that, through the Internet hive mind of people who at least mildly or moderately care, I will reach a good path forward. (And if you don’t at least mildly care, there’s probably not a lot for you here. Here, go read that prosaic post I made years ago about religion. People seemed to like that one.)

To begin, I want to lay out what, as far as I see, are my broad choices going forward. Some of these choices are more plausible than others, if you take into account my current trajectory as well as how difficult it is for me to make long-term changes in my life (thanks, autism) and how much effort it will take to make it happen. These aren’t necessarily exclusive either; making a multi-pronged attack plan will probably be necessary.

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My Career Crossroads: a Pandemic-forced Mid-Life Crisis. Part 7: Dreams Unclaimed and Unclaimable

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Well, here we are again. It’s been nearly two years since my last official post on this subject, and while things have changed quite a bit since then, I’m very nearly back to square one, and it’s once again decision time. In this post and the next one or two (or five; however many it takes) I want to lay out where I’m at career-wise and hopefully come up with a tenable path for the next bit o’ life at least.

Shortly after that last post two years ago I ended up landing a job at a local theater (I’m not going to name it just so Google won’t pick this post up if anyone there searches for it and interprets anything here negatively). I was initially put on the deck crew, but I made it clear then that what I ultimately wanted was a transfer to the audio department. I was told that there were very few openings in that department, but I was free to apply if one ever came up.

At the time I still had a pretty decent nest egg saved up from the unemployment/stimulus packages that had come about thanks to the pandemic, and I figured that with the position at the theater I’d be able to either survive long enough until my previous hotel A/V job opened back up and I could go back there, or I’d get that transfer into the audio department where I wanted to be in the first place. The pay wasn’t great, the work was strictly part-time, and at first I only worked in a swing position (i.e. I filled in for the person working the primary position so they’d have a few shows off per week), but at least it was something related to my field.

And the fact of the matter is that working in live theatrical audio wasn’t just a job, but a fairly ideal career path for me. I’d been doing it off and on ever since fifth grade, when our elementary school did Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and I didn’t want to be an Oompa-Loompa so I passed out microphones instead. It was the degree I was ostensibly pursuing during my time at BYU-Idaho, running a few shows up there and working an internship under Omar Hansen, and the only real reason I didn’t finish that degree is that, well, technically, it didn’t exist (at the time, and possibly still — I haven’t checked — BYU-I only offered theatrical education degrees), and at the time I was still interested in a music degree regardless. I’d also run audio for Hunt Mysteries, Poison Ivy Mysteries, a few various community theatre gigs as well as some light DJ work and probably some other live shows I’ve forgotten about. And that’s not even getting into the studio work I’d done as part of my Media Music/Synthesizer degree and brief stint afterward working at a video marketing group before my sound equipment got stolen.

Plus, you know, nearly ten years of A/V work, specializing as the audio guy in our four-man department at the hotel.

The point is, I think I’ve got a pretty impressive resume when it comes to audio, and I thought that, once they had an opening, I’d be a shoo-in for at least an interview.

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Coming out as Allo-Aro: A Q&A

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It's a little odd to make a heart the shape on an aro shirt, but whatever.

It’s Pride Month! Which also means that it’s coming-out time for those who feel comfortable doing so. A few months back I made a post about the start of a journey: discovering I’m on the aromantic spectrum. Since then I’ve been doing research and a whole lot of self-reflection, and while aromantic is certainly a general way to describe me, something more specific and helpful is needed.

Hence, I’d like to declare now that I identify as allo-aro! (Not to be confused with the British sitcom ‘Allo ‘Allo!) For those of you who have no idea what the heck that is (the term, not the sitcom) and want to learn more, this post is for you! For those of you who just think it sounds like one of those “woke LGBTQIA+ terms” that mean that it’s OK to discriminate against me or those like me because my morality is different from yours or something, this post is not for you! Go stick your head in a bucket of ice water!

Please note: I will be talking somewhat candidly about my sexuality. There won’t be anything explicit or NSFW, but if the subject alone makes you uncomfortable, or you prefer to think of me as some sort of childlike sexless imp, then maybe you should stop here. No judgment. Just think of me as you always have, with the additional fact that you might see me wearing that shirt up there sometimes.

I know that a significant portion of my readers are friends or family members who are LDS. If this applies to you, know that a lot of what I’m going to say does not align with things that that church teaches. Please don’t try to preach to me, or quote scripture or doctrine, or tell me you’ll pray for my soul, or any of that. As I am no longer a member of that faith, it doesn’t apply to me any more, and any attempt to steer the discussion in that direction will be fruitless.

I’m going to be writing this post in a Q&A format. Hopefully this will cover most of the basics, regarding me at least. If you want to know more in general about allo-aros, there are resources online (some of which I’ll be linking to). If you want to know more specifically about my experience, feel free to message me!

This is going to be a long one: I’ve been writing and editing it for basically an entire week! But keep with it; if you read to the end there will be a reward! (No cheating!) So without any further adieu, let’s dive in!

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Autism Acceptance: April 2022 (pt. 3)

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The following is part 3 (of 3) of a series of Facebook posts I made in April 2022 (or at least the second half) as part of Autism Acceptance Month; specifically, the #AutisticComicTakeover hashtag that was trending then. While I didn’t create any comics, I posted a bunch that I found and added my own thoughts to them, and I wanted to keep them in an organized place before they were consigned to the depths of Facebook hell. Please click through and read the comics, and support the artists if you like what you see. Enjoy!

April 24, 2022

This comic is about ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis) therapy. I’m no psychologist nor teacher, so I don’t have a lot to say about it except that it sounds terrible, and in a way society does this anyway (especially a shame culture like the predominant Utah one), just not to such a formalized degree.

I do want to take this moment, however, to give a shout-out to my wonderful mom, who, despite being frustrated by crazy lil’ Jeff, didn’t ever try to squeeze this out of me, or take me to places like the one this comic describes. The only therapies I even remember from when I was a kid were a speech therapist (because I couldn’t say my R’s right for forever) and a course about improving self-esteem (it had some video series that went along with it that had something to do with freeing the horses? I don’t remember exactly). From her it was almost never “You are wrong and need to change,” it was “You are special; let me help you cope,” which is technically the same idea but phrased in the opposite way. Granted, it did lead to a little bit of toxic positivity (it took me a very long time to realize that, in fact, it was me that needed to change in order to start making friends), but I’d much rather have had that than being shamed or belittled. I got enough of that from virtually everyone else, but never from her.

So thanks Mom! I know Mother’s Day isn’t for a few weeks yet, but have this anyway!

(Note: after I posted this on Facebook, my brother, who has a non-verbal autistic child, commented to say that his experience with ABA has been far more positive. I don’t know whether that’s due to a difference in perspective between an allistic parent putting their child through it vs. actually going through it oneself, or if this particular artist happened to be in an ABA program that was executed incorrectly, but either way go do your own research if you’re considering going down this route for yourself or a loved one, especially seeking out viewpoints from those who’ve gone through it.)

(Also note: according to the Twitter conversation related to this comic, the creator of the ABA method was also the creator of gay conversion therapy, so take that as you will.)

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Autism Acceptance: April 2022 (pt. 2)

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The following is part 2 of a series of Facebook posts I made in April 2022 (or at least the second half) as part of Autism Acceptance Month; specifically, the #AutisticComicTakeover hashtag that was trending then. While I didn’t create any comics, I posted a bunch that I found and added my own thoughts to them, and I wanted to keep them in an organized place before they were consigned to the depths of Facebook hell. Please click through and read the comics, and support the artists if you like what you see. Enjoy!

April 17, 2022

Wanna hear something interesting about me? One of my biggest hobbies is explaining things.

Seriously.

I actually think it’s fun.

I love taking an issue and picking it apart, figuring out how it ticks, and then going on and on about it in lengthy, overly wordy explanations. I enjoy it, as much as someone enjoys their own hobbies, like reading books, or traveling, or playing golf or whatever. Sometimes I explain things to myself, often just pacing around my apartment or driving somewhere talking to myself about a particular issue for an hour or more. Anyone who’s ever read my blog probably knows this already.

Thing is, most people don’t really want that. My “having a good time sharing something I’ve been thinking a lot about or know a lot about” turns into “being a know-it-all who wants to lord my knowledge over the ignorant plebs I’m surrounded by.” But this just ain’t true! I don’t find pleasure being better than anyone else; in fact, I would much rather be accepted by people as a voice in the group rather than exalted above it. And so this disconnect between the joy I feel talking about and explaining things I love often gets smothered by people reacting to it as though I just spit on them, and I end up with teasing nicknames about how much I want to win/be right or how competitive I am, when really I just want things to be fair and for everyone to completely understand the situation.

My point is that this particular comic hits home pretty well. People replacing hostility (this includes teasing) with curiosity when dealing with me would go a long way toward making me, and others like me, feel like we’re in a safe space.

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Autism Acceptance: April 2022 (pt. 1)

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The following is part 1 of a series of Facebook posts I made in April 2022 (or at least the second half) as part of Autism Acceptance Month; specifically, the #AutisticComicTakeover hashtag that was trending then. While I didn’t create any comics, I posted a bunch that I found and added my own thoughts to them, and I wanted to keep them in an organized place before they were consigned to the depths of Facebook hell. Please click through and read the comics, and support the artists if you like what you see. Enjoy!

April 1, 2022

It’s Day 1 of #AutismAcceptance month! Why Acceptance and not Awareness? Because Autism isn’t a disease like cancer! It’s at worst a disorder, and at best just another way of experiencing the world, and either way is part of our identity. You wouldn’t name a month “Women Awareness Month” without some seeeeriously bad and demeaning implications.

I’m going to try to post some positive resources throughout this month on the subject. It probably won’t be daily, but hopefully it’ll help anyone who’s interested to learn more. Due to the nature of Facebook’s algorithm I’ll probably just be preaching to the choir and/or people who don’t really care, but whatever; it’s worth a shot.

In any case, if you do want to learn more, make sure you’re learning from self-advocacy groups, not groups that mainly consist of non-autistic people “doing what’s best” for autistic people. One such self-advocacy group wrote a book not too long ago that’s free on their website (https://autismacceptance.com/). While it’s a little long, it’s a pretty easy read, and if you’re not autistic, you can at least skip to the chapter on allies if you don’t want to read the rest. It’d be helpful if you ever have to deal with any autistic people in the future. And hey, since you all know me (presumably), I’m at least one autistic person who’d benefit from you knowing more!

Also it’s kind of funny that, despite the book mostly being written in a positive and affirming manner, sometimes it straight up says, “Some people say/believe X about autism. Those people are WRONG!” You could make a drinking game out of it!

April 7, 2022

I haven’t posted much about #AutismAcceptance beyond my original post yet, mostly because I want to help make a difference but I’m far from the expert on the subject; all I can do really is share personal experiences, which is nice and all but not a call to action or helpful for people to understand autism in general. However, there are some activists and community members who are way better at it than I am, so instead of personalizing everything I’m going to share some of their work instead, hoping it will be more effective. This particular artist makes some good comics explaining various aspects in some easy-to-understand ways, I believe.

Or, to explain like a non-autistic person instead of an autistic person: Love this! Sooo relevant! ❤️❤️❤️

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Guys, I’m pretty sure I’m aromantic

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This is using a slightly older version of the aromantic flag colors, but c'mon: if you know where this character is from and what they mean to me you know I had to use it.
This is using a slightly older version of the aromantic flag colors, but c’mon: if you know where this character is from and what they mean to me you know I had to use it.

I haven’t written about relationship stuff on this blog in quite some time. Partly because I’ve learned to be a bit more discreet, partly because there hasn’t really been a lot going on in that department recently (well, OK, mostly the latter one). But recently I’ve had cause to reflect on past relationships, and why they just have never worked out, and I ended up diving down a rabbit hole that I think I need to share.

I’m 99.9% sure I’m on the aromantic spectrum.

I’ve literally never had a serious long-term relationship ever, and the relationships that I have had have almost never been fulfilling for me, even in the early days when you’re supposed to be lovestruck and smitten with each other. During my time in the LDS church I thought I was just not trying hard enough or hadn’t met the right girl or, like, I was maybe too much of a sinner or whatever, but even after I left and I’ve been able to explore other options it still never clicked.

It surprised me that in basically every romantic interaction I had since leaving, whether it was dating someone for one night or a few months, I was almost always the one that wasn’t as invested as the other person was. I thought maybe for a while that I was demisexual or somewhere on the asexual spectrum, but that label never quite seemed to fit, as I’m attracted to women all the time without any emotional connection to them.

So what was it? Was it just the “you haven’t met the right girl” narrative? I mean, that’s what all the songs and movies and stories seem to imply: meet the right person and that lightning strikes! Or get to know someone and those feelings will blossom! And that’s always been in the back of my mind, so I kept trying.

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The Bottom Rung

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(Note: I’m bringing up some jobs I’ve had here, but this post is not meant to dunk on any particular place I’ve worked in the past, but to point out some trends that have little to do with any particular employer or company. I’m also attempting to be as vague and circumspect as possible when discussing these jobs, just in case they could affect future employment, because capitalism stifles open critique, but that’s a topic for another time.)

A few years ago at a previous job, the department I was working in was offered an incentive by upper management: if we, as a department, met a certain sales quota, a commission would be added to our paychecks. There were four of us in the department at the time, and this offer was extended to 1) our supervisor, 2) the guy who was previously our supervisor but was only a few years away from retirement so was winding back his duties, 3) my co-worker who had been there a year and a half less than me, and…that’s it. I wasn’t offered the chance to make any extra money, no matter how well our department did.

I was obviously confused and a little hurt by this, but determined to be a good employee, so I asked both my supervisor and his boss what I could do to qualify for this program. It obviously wasn’t just a matter of seniority, as my co-worker who had been there for a shorter time was able to take advantage of the program. It wasn’t a matter of sales numbers or similar metrics; our department didn’t measure sales or performance on an individual employee basis (in fact, our department had almost no influence on sales at all, which I’ll come back to in a bit). I asked my bosses if my performance had been unsatisfactory, and no, it hadn’t. I performed my job to the letter, and rarely, if ever, got complaints (certainly none that my bosses could bring up or remember). In fact, many times our department got glowing reviews from clients, as we worked quite well together and were always professional, competent, and friendly. Sometimes the team members were mentioned by name in customer reviews, sometimes it was just the entire team, but either way we almost never got anything negative.

So why then, I asked? Why was I specifically the only person left out of this incentive program, if I had done literally nothing wrong, had done everything I was asked to do, and often more (for example, I volunteered to help with some office work after my old supervisor had his responsibilities scaled back). And more importantly, what, specifically, did I need to do in order to qualify?

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Autism Issues: Babies I am Told to Eat

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(source: https://youtu.be/CYLxg9bqKZY)

It’s been almost a year since my official autism diagnosis (with a side order of social anxiety), and in that time I’ve had the chance to use that diagnosis to more clearly define some of my particular obstacles and difficulties. I’ve come up with three issues that, in particular, have come to dominate my approach to social interactions, and I’d like to get those out here in writing, both so they’re more clearly defined for my own sake, and so those who care to can understand me a bit more, and perhaps make some accommodations that they otherwise wouldn’t think of.

However, before I get into the meat of that exercise, I want to take a moment to address the neurotypicals that might be reading this. I don’t really like the term “neurotypical”, as it basically means “normal person” and normalcy is usually a social construct, but in this case I especially mean to address those who don’t have the same issues I or those similar to me do, and can’t understand why we just can’t get over these things, either by sheer force of will or by the magical “go to therapy” button (therapy is good to build coping skills and form plans to deal with a difficult or hostile social/emotional environment, but it’s rarely a catch-all cure for mental health issues).

It’s difficult to properly convey how debilitating some mental blocks are. When a person with a mental illness says something like, for example, “I literally cannot make this phone call to the bank,” someone without that illness might be like, “Yeah, it sucks. I don’t like talking on the phone either. But man, you gotta call the bank, or your interest rate on your current loan will go up by 30%,” (or whatever; I’m not a banker). However, the first person isn’t saying, “Ugh, I don’t want to do this,” they are saying, “I cannot do this, and if you force me to try then my brain will shut down.” That’s something that is difficult to understand unless you’ve experienced it. But I’m going to try to express it anyway.

I came up with an analogy that is possibly tasteless, shocking, and maybe triggering, but it is the best way I can think of to properly convey the scale of the mental blocks that I have to deal with on a daily basis. This has been your content warning; buckle up!

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Autism and Perfect Pitch: An Analogy

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Last December I was finally able to see a professional psychologist and was officially diagnosed with both high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) (not to be confused with Seasonal Affective Disorder, which is also SAD. And also sad.). In addition to being a nightmare to distinguish between if I was also dyslexic (which I’m not), these diagnoses have coalesced a lot of who I am into recognizable patterns. I’ve wanted to write a blog post about it for some time now, but I’ve been a little nervous about it. Now that I’ve got labels for these things I have the responsibility to be a voice for others with the same condition, and I don’t want to accidentally misrepresent or cause difficulties for others due to my interpretation or experience. But, at the same time, I do wish to convey my experiences for those who don’t understand, and commiserate with those who do. So I decided to just kinda wing this post, with the caveat for the reader that ASD is a spectrum, and everything I say could be way off base for others with ASD.

Having these two conditions has been a weird mismash of social awkwardness on both ends of the scale. One of the issues with ASD is that it’s really hard to get outside of one’s own head. A lot of autistic people just assume that everyone sees the world in the same way they do, not because they’re narcissistic or self-focused, but because they’re literally incapable of seeing it otherwise, at least not without a lot of thought and active reminders. Avoiding others is just easier and less stressful, hence the SAD.

Also, one of the symptoms of ASD is the inability to read/predict social cues from others, but one of the symptoms of SAD is the abject fear of crossing social norms. So, in any given social situation, I’m deathly afraid of saying the wrong thing, but I don’t know what the wrong thing is until I can see people’s reactions. About 60% of the time, I say something that’s normal (or normal enough) that the conversation continues just fine. About 30% of the time, I say something that might be a little awkward, earning some mental side-eyes from others (or actual side-eyes), but I don’t realize it until I think about the conversation afterward (something I do constantly about virtually every interaction I have, from those with strangers to those with the closest friends and family members), analyze it from the other viewpoint, and come to the conclusion that it was probably a weird thing to say. And about 10% of the time, I say something so awkward or inappropriate that I get an immediate response from others (usually a big pause with an “Uhhhhh….so anyway”) and then I want to go die in the corner.

You might think that that 10% is the worst part of having these two conditions, and that’s probably true. But the 30% of times when I don’t know whether or not I’ve done something wrong until afterward is probably more agonizing in the long run, because people don’t give feedback on this kind of thing, or at least feedback in a way that would be recognizable to someone with ASD. It’s not that I can’t recognize social cues at all, but more that it takes a more conscious, active effort to do so, and that takes time, like learning any new skill does, only in this case I’m not mentally able to eventually do it subconsciously. It will always be like learning a new skill. This sounds weird, but I’d like to illustrate with an analogy.

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My Career Crossroads: a Pandemic-forced Mid-Life Crisis. Part 6: Answers?

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I found this on tumblr. I wish I knew the proper creator so I could credit them.

In my last post I talked about the first step in overcoming and/or integrating my weaknesses so that they become strengths. I also promised at the end of that post that I would soon make another one about the next steps, and while the answer is still probably “get a therapist”, since that’s not currently an option, I’ve been doing the best I can otherwise. I’ve been reading up, listening to podcasts and lectures, doing some research (layman research, granted, but still), and listening to feedback on the stuff I’ve written over the past month. And do you know what the true answer I’ve found is?

Nothing.

And I don’t mean nothing like, “I haven’t found it yet,” I think the actual answer isn’t out there. Or at least, it’s not something simple where I can say, “This are the things I need to do to find true happiness, and these are the obstacles in the way, now let’s tackle them all and that’s my life’s work.”

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