Mental Health
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I Found My People in Tennessee
This past weekend I attended the Southeastern Conference for Adults with Autism in Chattanooga, Tennessee. My parents attended a few years ago when I was in the hospital. I was excited about the community and the learning I would experience. I left Friday after work and drove two hours to Ocoee, Tennessee. I drove past…
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Where life began
I’ve wanted to write down what led to my mental health crisis in 2019. I’d graduated college and was working my second activity director job. I wasn’t meeting the expectations and going to work every day felt like I was reminded of how much of a failure I was. I had to change how I…
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Finding Peace & Balance
I’ve always been a planner. I always wanted to know what was next in the line of daily or weekly activities. Not knowing caused and still causes a good bit of anxiety. Adults were often frustrated by my question “What’s next?”. Most were not kind or patient. They didn’t understand what it was like for…
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Holding onto Your Rope
We all know the saying “I’m at the end of my rope.” This is often muttered after a particularly grueling day or just a difficult or trying experience. I’ve come to realize during my short life that everyone has different lengths of rope for different things. This has been on my mind because recently I…
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We Must Do Better
I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about the generations of those with autism spectrum disorder in my family, myself included. While life has gotten better with each subsequent generation, there is still so much work to do. I can only speak to what it’s like trying to navigate this world as an adult…
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Diagnosis At Last
My path to an autism diagnosis began after a series of mental health challenges caused the upheaval of my professional and private life. A relationship and job had ended. In the throes of self-loathing and depression, I wanted to understand why I operated in the world the way I did. It had been suggested by…
Living on the Spectrum 