Productivity Has Taken A Back Seat

I have a paper due next Friday, an assignment due Thursday, plus I've been sick (and lazy) this week so I have a lot of schoolwork to catch up on.

I'd like to think I'm being productive, but that's absolutely not true.

I've got some stuff to write about (as always) but I'm trying to hold off on that until I can feel comfortable with my school situation.

Will be back!

A Good Update

I am in a "good" place right now.

I have a lot of schoolwork to do, as well as work and personal commitments.  I miss my friends from back home and kind of want some social time, but I'm also really comfortable, just sitting here in my pajamas in my bedroom, drinking my soda and eating peanut butter cups.  I went to the doctor today, went to class, and also went to the gym.  I am feeling really relaxed and I'm pretty happy.  I want to go to the gym more because I'm trying to train for an 8K run and I'm so far unable to run that distance without stopping, but for now, I've been to the gym and now I'm feeling good.

I haven't "blogged" about either my own life or anything autism-related recently, so I felt the need to post a quick update.

I'm planning some posts about
- my autism and my relationship with my fiance
- an autism-related school debacle with a professor last semester (that caused me a lot of stress)
- my recent sensory struggles
- what I'm eating (trying to eat healthy but food stresses me out a lot)
- my medication changes
- autism in the media
- autistic parents

But for now, I'm going to "sign off" and go work on writing a paper for school.

I hope everyone is doing well.

You are all amazing.

100th Post on Young Autistic Female

Years ago, I came up with the idea to blog about my life as a young woman with autism.  I was in the ninth or tenth grade at the time; I had just started at a new school and, frankly, I was in a pretty dark time in my life.  Those early years of high school were very difficult for me.  I had a lot of anxiety problems in those years, a lot of social issues, no friends, and was going through a phase where I was often considering self-harm.  I had a very troubled relationship with my family at the time and, for whatever reason, every difficulty I ever had seemed to be attributed to autism.  I had tons of doctors at the time and my parents would seek them out complaining that they didn't know how to handle me and my autism.

I started this blog exactly 100 posts ago - last December.  I was going through a rough time then as well and blogging about ASD made me feel better about the relationships I had lost due to my then-recent difficulty in social situations.

100 posts later, here I am.

This is definitely not the most-read blog -- nor do I imagine it ever will be -- but that's all right with me.  The purpose of this blog is not to accumulate thousands of views a day.  Instead, what I endeavor to do here is share pieces of myself as I am able.  I try to share how I live as an Autistic individual and the struggles I face and how I overcome them.  This is kind of a cathartic thing for me, actually; it definitely helps me through some of my challenges.  I also like to share some issues I see in the Autistic community here.  I like to share news stories and advocacy issues and as much as I can about the little things I see in the news and other sources.  I want to connect with other Autistics online; I want to find mentors.  I want to discover and provide insight.

I am proud of myself as a Young Autistic Female and, frankly, I think that's the most important thing to me about this blog.  This is where I share my Autistic pride.  This is where I share that I'm OK with my quirks and, for the most part, I see my Autistic differences as having made me a better person.  I am pretty content with my life right now and I enjoy sharing it.

Happy 100 posts, you guys!  I've enjoyed being here as a tiny little part of the Autistic blogging community and I can't wait to continue blogging, meeting new people, and connecting with you all.

And, as always, THANK YOU for reading!  

Labels

Over today and yesterday, I added "labels" to the blog.  It's pretty exciting to me because now even the blog is much more organized.  Or, at least, it feels a bit more organized.  I love search engines and tags and stuff like that, so having these labels is making my life a lot easier, because when I look at my blog I can see what I've talked about recently and organize my past posts easier.  I have over 80 posts and I can't remember them all off the top of my head, so labels are a useful tool.

I will figure out how to add some sort of search option and something so that you can click on a label and see everything under that label.