I’ve mentioned this before, so I’m sorry if I’m repeating myself, but I never really developed much of an ability to use or understand body language. I thought words were the thing, and so I missed out on a lot of what other people were actually saying and everything kind of sucked. Childhood was no fun. I couldn’t connect with the other kids. Our social languages were too different.
Autism, Depression and Therapy
On Twitter, Anonymous asked, “How did you find a good therapist?”
gathering the midnight wool
A day from 2008:
10 Autism Interviews: a collection
I recently guest-posted two interviews at Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism. I thought I would share links to those here, along with every interview/conversation I’ve been part of over the years. The topics all converge around autism, but I’m grateful for the huge variety of insights and perspectives these discussions made possible.
sketching aether
I.
Every now and then, when I was very young, I could sense this shape coalescing within my thoughts. I would find myself…not so much visualizing it, as feeling it.
Noh World
I.
As a little one, you didn’t understand facial expression. You didn’t even know it meant something…you just knew faces shifted and moved and you couldn’t make sense of that.
sketching roots: the improvers
“Sketching Roots” is an ongoing series featuring family memories and all of the fun awkwardness that that implies.
the indefinite, luminous curve
I don’t know. I suppose there is a theme here. Possibly.
I.
I’ve never been able to remember what I look like. I can look in a mirror and think, Oh yeah, that’s me. For a split second, it’s always kind of a shock to see my reflection, but then I understand, it’s just me.
a night out (stories from the autism spectrum)
Being at a social event…it never feels like you’ve simply entered a space with other people. It feels more like waking up in another person’s dream…like being thrown there. You find yourself in an unfamiliar space. The context and reality are inscrutable, cryptic. Nothing works the way it’s supposed to. At a basic level, you don’t know how to be.
Sketching Roots: the beekeeper (stories from the autism spectrum)
I.
After I meet with a psychologist for a few sessions, she begins to mention the possibility of an autism spectrum diagnosis. I bristle, insist I’m just there to talk about depression.