The Benefits of Being an Autistic Dog Lady

 

There are many ways I feel like I fail to fit autism stereotypes. I am a woman. I socialize well with the general population. I can't code or comprehend math and science. I couldn't care less about trains or dinosaurs. But for the purposes of this post, I don't relate to cats and I like dogs.

The cat thing is not by choice. I grew up with cats as a child. Then when my family's cat died, I tested positive for cat allergies. I didn't have it before but since then I'm unable to be around or touch a cat without my eyes watering and sneezing uncontrollably. It's a tragedy of great proportions because I do generally like cats. And I understand why the online autistic community likes cats - they can be aloof and antisocial unless they decide to form a bond with you. Cats get a bad reputation because of this and autistic people can relate. However, I don't often see myself in a cat - I am very sociable when need be while also enjoying my down time away from others. And because of that balance, I've found myself more and more attracted to dogs.

Finding Joy in the Small Things

People always say that in order to enjoy life you have to find pleasure in the smallest things. I have long been skeptical of that mindset. As a naturally depressive person, I am used to being swallowed up in the big picture and neglecting the trees in the forest. What difference do the small things make when the world is clouded in fog and misery? I'm used to focusing on the big picture and all the minor details blur together in a cloud of meaningless nothing.

Then November 2024 came.

The Autistic Yogi

 I don't love exercise. I know it's good for you but the idea of exerting a ton of energy to get stinky and sweaty is not something I particularly enjoy. I do it begrudgingly and because I have to if I want to maintain some sort of healthy facade. I have a physical trainer I see twice a week. I hike on and off like an Angeleno stereotype. I use the elliptical and machine bike at my local gym. And like any millennial woman worth her salt, I go to yoga.

I've practiced yoga ever since I was a teenager. I was introduced to it by an acting coach when he'd lead my class through the Sun Salutation as warm up before acting exercises and rehearsals. It's a fairly simple set of stretching exercises that don't require that much strength but it would get us physically in tune before we worked. In college I tried a variety of yoga classes and since then I've done yoga at multiple studios and at home. During the pandemic I relied heavily on youtube to get my fix, particularly one channel that has routines for almost any mood and any physical issue that could be addressed. I currently go to a class that combines the Barre Method with yoga. Part of the reason I go to that class is that it's taught by a former coworker of mine, a fact I learned after she commented on a Facebook post I made complaining about how hard Barre was on my flat feet. My calves want to kill me every time I'm in class, but by the end I feel like I've accomplished something.

Decision 2024 and That Particular Neurodivergent Despair

The last few posts on this blog have been political because I'm a political person. Politics is probably the worst special interest an autistic person can have because it leaves one stressed and depressed all the time. It hurts to know what is going on in the world but feels good to be informed. So naturally I had a lot of hopes and fears riding on the 2024 American election because it felt like a critical choice between keeping the democratic experiment alive and a total destruction of it with the rights I and other Americans pulled out from under our feet. I wanted democracy to prevail and I worked hard to phone bank, write postcards, and voted for it. I was terrified that it wouldn't hold.

Unfortunately, my fears were validated. Americans voted to kill democracy and our rights as we know them.

I'm writing this feeling hollow to my core. My family and friends feel the same and we try to offer condolences to each other as we fear the future. My social media is littered with anger, despair, pointing fingers, and hopelessness. None of this helps my mood, much less my entire being. And all this is compounded by my neurodivergence amplifying every dark thought and feeling that I have.

Voting Is A Spectrum

I may have mentioned this, but I'm a political person. I grew up in a family that regularly discussed politics, encouraged me to form my own opinions and be able to defend them. The idea of politics not being something you don't discuss in polite conversation is foreign to me and something I often have to check myself for. It can be punishing to be so hyper aware of the world around me but I often feel better for being informed. And feeling informed means I really value voting in elections.

As an American, I'm glad I have the right to vote and have a say in how my government works. It's an action not granted around the world and gives people power to dictate how they want their country run. I believe that if someone has the right to vote, it is behooving of them to exercise that right as often as they can. It's no use complaining about the world you live in if you aren't going to the ballot box to make your frustration known. So I want to break down how voting works, how to choose your battles at the ballot, and how to approach voting in general.

Can Genetic Curiosity Kill the Autistic Cat?

NOTE: Eugenics, physical abuse, and depression will be discussed.

Public knowledge of autism is...let's call it a mixed bag. There are people who see autism as a blow to a human development and a burden to those around them that needs "curing". There are people who see autism as a unique gift that gives them a different perspective of the world they can share and shouldn't be "cured". There are people who argue that autism is far more complicated than either of those binaries. I don't want to litigate what perspective is "correct" but needless to say it's a thorny issue. And I personally find the conversation so toxic that I just choose not to talk about it lest I subject myself to people yelling at me at how "wrong" I am. Besides, I've always stated from the outset that this blog is just my own opinion and I don't expect others to be the same but just to respect it.

Then I read about a big initiative that scared me so thoroughly that I need to weigh in.

A collaborative initiative between the University of Cambridge, the Autism Research Center, and University of Los Angeles called Spectrum 10K  launched as the biggest autism research project to examine environmental and biological factors impacting autistic people's well-being. Its stated goals is to look at and address physical and mental health issues autistic people can have to better address their needs and "alleviate unwanted symptoms and co-occurring conditions". It seems like the bulk of the research will be reliant on participants filling out online questionnaires and providing health records and DNA samples via salvia swabs. About 10,000 autistic people were set to participate in this project. The proponents of Spectrum 10K claim that this study will help improve the lives of autistic people and thus further the cause of neurodiversity (a celebration of brain diversity I talked about way long ago).

Why do I feel like this isn't so much championing for bettering the lives of autistic people but a sneaky way to "cure" people like me?

Gus Walz and Neurodivergent Emotional Response

As a political junkie, I watched the Democratic National Convention this week. A lot has happened in the past few months from a disastrous first presidential debate, an attempted assassination attempt on Republican nominee Donald Trump, a chaotic Republican National Convention, and President Biden dropping out of the race in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris. I watched as Democrats gave their speeches in support of Harris and on Wednesday night, her pick for Vice President Tim Walz spoke. In the middle of his speech, Walz gave a shout out to his family after speaking about his and his wife's struggles to start one and cameras cut to his supportive family. A close up of his son, Gus, particularly stood out with tears in his eyes he appeared to say, "That's my dad."

What was clearly a moment of joy and support from Walz's son gained traction as right wing social media (including conservative media pundit Ann Coulter) mocked him for his especially emotional display. They made fun of his tears as signaling male weakness and fodder for online meme culture. This ridicule of Gus felt especially cruel as people pointed out that Gus has a non-verbal learning disorder and the contempt could very well be ableist.

There's so much in this moment to unpack. I think there's a larger conversation to be had about conservatives embracing a particular brand of toxic masculinity that devalues expressions of love, support, and collaboration. Tim Walz himself is a popular subject for writers in talking about how he's an antithesis towards the right's idea of manhood. But for me, Gus' unabashed (and frankly warranted) emotional response hits home for me as notable because it felt bigger than what people are used to. As a neurodivergent person myself, I know what it feels like to have big emotions. And that's what I want to talk about.

Elsa, "Into the Unknown" Power of Not Being Normal

When Disney released Frozen in 2013, it was more than just a family-friendly box office hit. It created a firestorm about the stories we tell and the characters we value. And Elsa, the central character, became an instant icon of the Disney canon. While the Snow Queen of the original Hans Christen Anderson tale was a villain, Elsa in Frozen makes a powerful journey from shutting people out because she feared how she affected them to opening up to those she loves and accepting her inner nature. Even in the conception of the film, “Let It Go” transformed from a villain song to an empowerment anthem worthy of celebration. (Not to mention the go-to song for so many toddlers it created feelings of overkill on James Cameron’s Titanic-levels.) And in the end, the true villains were the fear and demonization of the different.

A lot has been said about Elsa as a character. A rare Disney female character without a love interest. A rare Disney female character who is defined by her relationship with family, particularly the women. An even rarer Disney female queen who isn’t some kind of evil. Many people have taken Elsa to heart as a personal heroine and power media figure. Google “Elsa Frozen thinkpieces” and there will be a bazillion articles about her being a stand in for the LGBTQ experience. I understand and respect that take, although the original didn’t affect me in some profound way upon its release.

The 2019 sequel though? That hit me to the core of my very being.

The last time a film did that to me was the 2016 Pixar movie Finding Dory. Like Finding Dory, I spent the entirety of Frozen 2 with tears streaking my face. Like Finding Dory, it spoke to my experience as an autistic person. And like Finding Dory, I felt the immediate urge to write about the millions of feels I had about what this movie meant to me.

So like Elsa, let us journey “Into the Unknown” together. (And of course, spoilers here on out.)

An Ode to Mentors - How A Compassionate LCSW Changed My Life

A lot has been said about the importance of mentors. Mentors are meant to guide you through life in personal, professional, and other means by setting an example and giving advice and a leg up on where you need to go. There are plenty of mentors who can get you through the basics, but the best mentors take you for who you are and help nurture and enhance you to become a better person to make an impact on the world.

I can't think of a better example of this than my own mentor through the social work and disability world than my first social work supervisor and boss, Linda. Linda's guidance and advocacy has not only given me professional consul and direction, she proved to be an amazing example of what a disability ally can be.

I'm a Complex Human Being, Dammit! or Identity- vs Person-First Language

Of all the things making up human beings, I'd say a strong identity is the most important. Psychologist Erik Erikson agrees, making that the crucial stage in his theory of psychosocial development. Erikson argues that while adolescents are growing and changing into physical adults, they have to grapple with what social roles they'll take and how they'll define themselves in the world. This leads to someone either developing a strong sense of self or causing major uncertainty of where they fit in, known as "role confusion", that could lead to an "identity crisis" of who they are. All of this is dependent on if that person is encouraged or discouraged by their family, peers, and society at large allowing them to explore different possible identities and accepting their conclusion.

I bring this up because there's a lot of controversy over what people call those on the autism spectrum. Autism is a neurological condition that affects social development, making Erikson's psychosocial development model a lot more complicated over how to recognize autism being a part of one's identity. It could be said autism as a concept is in the adolescent years of "identity vs role confusion", as people argue over whether it should be considered an social identity (aka "identity-first") or something separate from one's overall characteristics (aka "person-first").

Again, I would like to reiterate that my feelings on my use of language concerning autism are my own and I won't dictate what others should do. I'm only using these posts on autism language to express why I feel that way I do and why I do what I do. I'm not gonna tell anyone how they should talk about autism because it's not my place to do so and I don't want people angry with me over it. This is just how I personally feel.

With that in mind, let me explain why I prefer "autistic people" over "people with autism".

Practicing Self-Care in Stressful Times

It is a universally acknowledged truth that stress is an inescapable part of life. Stress can come from anywhere at any time, and it's always a pain in the ass. I don't know anyone who enjoys being stressed out, and anyone who says otherwise is flat-out lying. But what matters when it comes to stress is how you deal with it. You can either let it consume you or you can manage it in whatever way you find best de-escalates it. (You can also shrug off anything that might give you stress but that will tend to come back to haunt you.)

I've been trying to find out how to do that second part for all of my life. But I know one thing is always reliable - caring for myself is critical to ease stress and prevent it from consuming me. And nowadays, I feel the need to engage in self-care more than ever before to maintain my well-being.

Watching Myself On Screen, or The Current State of Autism in the Media

When I was young and was unaware of my autism diagnosis, I only knew about autism through a Baby-sitters Club book. The book, entitled Kristy and the Secret of Susan, was about one of the titular "baby-sitters" taking on a non-verbal autistic charge and I honestly don't remember much about it, except that the main character Kristy decides to leave her autistic charge Susan alone after unsuccessfully trying to force her to integrate with other kids. I didn't much care much for the book at the time despite being a big Baby-sitters Club fan, and I'm sure if I read it now I'd be appalled at how the characters were written and treated. Either way, I didn't have a reference point as to what autism was because I didn't really have that much exposure to it in media. I had characters that I liked and related to, but none that felt especially representative of me as an autistic girl.

I think it's safe to say that the days of autism being a non-entity in pop culture are coming to an end. Since diagnoses have risen in the last twenty years, movies and television have slowly come to recognize and insert autistic people as characters. Various television shows like Girl Meets World, Sesame Street, Parenthood, and Community have featured characters explicitly stated or implied to be on the autism spectrum. The 2016 crime thriller "The Accountant", starring Ben Affleck as an autistic accountant was a unexpected box office hit and is green-lighted for a sequel. And this August, Netflix will premiere a dramedy about an autistic teenager looking for love called "Atypical":

It looks as though we're getting to a place where there is real case for meaningful autism representation. So why do I feel that we could do better in portraying autism as a whole?

The Curious Case of Autistic Impostor Syndrome

When I first learned I have autism, it felt like a simultaneous blessing and a curse. As I have previously wrote, I spent most of my childhood feeling like an outsider due to things I couldn't control and figured I was slowly going mad because no one would give me a straight answer of why I was the way I was. So it's easy to imagine that the news of my diagnosis was a huge relief in the sense that all my questions were answered. It was, but it also came with the cost of learning that I was not and never will be "normal" because of all the challenges I had. And with not being "normal", my life would always be harder than most people's.

In spite of this, I'm often told I'm a "success story". I made my way through school being fully mainstreamed into honors and AP classes, graduated from college in four years, and received a Masters in Social Work from a prestigious university. I have a good steady job where people appreciate my contributions and have made headway into participating in the disability community of Los Angeles. I live on my own, I don't excessively struggle with money management, and I have good friends and family I can depend on. At the risk of sounding arrogant, it does seem like I am a "success".

So why do I constantly feel like I'm barely keeping it together and what I do isn't nearly enough?

The "Normal" Versus The "Worthy" Autistic - A Response to "The Autism Matrix"

My autism seems to be a shock to anyone I meet. When I tell people I'm autistic, the most common response I get is "Really? I never would've guessed!" I want to believe that it comes from a well-meaning place of surprise, but I can't shake the feeling that it's slightly condescending to me. Autism affects people in different ways and yet we as a society seem to only accept a narrow affect as being truly autistic - you must either be a "quirky" personality easily fixated on certain subjects and have little to no understanding of basic social interactions or be completely non-verbal completely isolating yourself from people with little to no control over your physical actions. I'm neither of these things and seem to project a certain sense of "normal" where only the most attentive would identify something is notably different about me. That doesn't mean that my diagnosis is invalid, but rather I don't easily appear to be what people seem to think autism looks like.

Case in point, the Autism Society of San Francisco president Jill Escher recently wrote a piece for The Times of Israel (a Jewish Times subsidiary) attempting to make identifying how autism affects people "easier" rather than relying on problematic "functioning labels". In it, she maps out via a "matrix" where different autistic people would be based on things like IQ, social skills, verbal language, support needs, and more. The article has since been taken down from the Jewish Times from what I can assume was a barrage of angry comments disagreeing with Escher, but it still can be viewed on the Autism Society of San Francisco website here. There are lots of reasons why people find this "matrix" format troubling (my favorite pieces on it are written by my friend Christine and prominent parent advocate Shannon Des Roches Rosa), but I want to talk about one particular criticism that affects me greatly: the notion of the "worthy" and "needy" autistic.

Am I Thirty, Flirty, and Thriving Yet?

Come the 8th of April, I will enter my fourth decade on this planet we call Earth. The closer I get to that fateful day, I find myself thinking of the 2004 movie "13 Going on 30". In that thirteen year-old movie (ha), an awkward burgeoning teenager wishes she could be "thirty and flirty and thriving" and through the power of magical realism finds herself in a future thirty year-old self only to find what she wants as a teen isn't all that's cracked up to be. It's never been a movie I particularly enjoyed, but as I get older, the theme of wanting something for your future self and ending up in a place you didn't expect has been especially relevant to my life. What I wanted as a child didn't pan out and what I have now leaves me wondering how I got there and if it's the right place for me.

I guess you could say that as a kid, I too hoped I would be "thirty, flirty, and thriving". And while I didn't quite get what I wanted as a kid, maybe I ended up with something better.

Autistic Language: What "Functioning" Even Mean?

It seems to be universally agreed that what makes humans different from other animals is our language. All animals communicate, but human language goes beyond non-verbal methods like body language and physical gestures to using spoken and written words. Unlike physical communication, words have the most value in how people communicate our thoughts, actions, feelings, and ideas. We have all decided that above everything else, words matter the most.

It's with this concept in mind that I want to talk about the language surrounding autism. There's lots of ways to describe autism and how it affects people and as many different viewpoints on how autism is discussed in language and tone. I don't want to get into the various tones of autism discussion because I know that'll cause nasty fights that I want to avoid at all costs. But I do want to talk about certain terms used and what they mean in how autism is seen by the world. This will take a couple of posts as there's a lot to go into, so bear with me and my thoughts.

Please note that these posts only reflect my personal views on autism language. I'm not going to dictate how other people should talk about autism because A) I'm not the boss of everyone, and B) people can get really angry when they're told what to do. I just want to explain how I feel about these terms and I hope that I can be respected for feeling that way. I won't tell you what to do or feel, so please do me the courtesy of not telling me what to do or feel.

Got that?

Good. 

Now let's talk "functioning" labels.

Fishy Feels - How "Finding Dory" Does Disability Right

A few weeks ago, I wrote about disability in the media (or rather how disability is portrayed as a tragedy by media). In it, I said that stories about disability are mostly about how a disabled person affects others, and how all involved parties "struggle" with it and have to "persevere". And I wrote that the remedy to this is to tell stories from the disabled character's perspective and promote it like whoa.

I honestly didn't think that I'd see that kind of story would be done so soon. Nor would that story be hugely successful. And nor that that story would come from, of all places, Pixar.

My first thought upon hearing "Finding Nemo" would spawn a sequel called "Finding Dory" was the same as everyone else's - "Really? A sequel? Can't Hollywood come up with anything original?" It doesn't help that most sequels to movies tend to do nothing but spout the same story as the original without the original's magic and with nothing new to say. Even Pixar isn't immune to this rule: the sequels for "Cars" and "Monsters Inc." fell flat in comparison to their predecessors. And whenever a sequel happens to be good, it's because it expands on the first film and has its own story to tell.

"Finding Dory" succeeds for those reasons indeed, but it does something more. It tells of living with a disability and all the complications and strengths within it. And it did something that very few movies do - it made me profoundly relate to it and sob by the closing credits.

Why? To explain, there will be spoilers from here on out.

Me Before "Me Before You", Or Disability Doesn't Always Need to be Tragic

I'm not a big fan of sappy romantic dramas. While I will admit to being among the many who sobbed at the end "The Notebook" when I first saw it as a teenager, stories of people falling in love while something "greater" than themselves try to keep them from being together just feels tired to me. There aren't many ways to make this Romeo and Juliet narrative new and innovative, and the onslaught of these films in recent years (more often than not adapted from Nicholas Sparks books) just reinforce how tired this trope has become.

The recent entry into this genre, "Me Before You", initially looks the same. Boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, but will their love survive something neither of them can control? And like its contemporaries, it received mixed reviews upon release. But what makes this film different from its boring, tepid ilk is the "tragic" thing that complicates the boring couple's love:

The boy is a recent quadriplegic, and the girl is trying to prevent him from pursuing assisted suicide through the power of love.

*le sigh*

How Do You Handle Autism, Anxiety, and Depression?

Earlier this week, one of my favorite actors Kristen Bell revealed that she suffers from depression and anxiety. In an interview with "Off Camera with Sam Jones", she talked about how her mother told her at a young age about a hereditary serotonin imbalance in her family and taking medication to help ease the hormone. You can watch the interview here:



It was shocking to me to hear this from Bell. She's known for being a very bubbly and positive personality, which makes her one of the most likable personalities in Hollywood. To hear she apparently has purposely worked to cultivate this to compensate for her mental illness is something I would've never expected. But it ultimately made me love her more for her honesty and willingness to be open about herself.

And it particularly hit home for me because aside from being autistic, I too suffer from chronic depression and anxiety.

Despite Everything, I Don't Hate April

The month of April has always held a special place in my heart. Spring is fresh in the air, it's still early in the year but not too much so, and the weather is pretty cooperative in the not-too-hot-but-not-too-cold way. But it's most likely due to the fact that it's my birth month, as I was born on the eighth. In fact, April holds a lot of birthdays of people I love - one of my closest friends' birthday is four days before mine, my father's is towards the end of the month, and my late grandmother's was six days after mine. It's always been a month of celebration in my life, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

But since becoming more involved in the autism world, I see people who don't like April as much as I have. That's because April has somehow been deigned "Autism Awareness Month" and with it comes a lot of feelings on how it's handled. But in spite of all the issues that come with the concept of "autism awareness", I honestly can't bring myself to hate April because of it.

I know that looks like a controversial statement from an autistic person. Just hear me out.