Hi everyone, welcome back to my blog. I hope you enjoy reading posts about autism, and my crazy life. This weeks autism post is all about special interests. A special interest is more than a hobby. Sometimes, these interests can be very extreme to the point where you know literally everything about your interest, and devote your life, (and savings) to it. These special interests also mean a lot to a person with autism, so please don’t act like you aren’t interested. Just be patient, and maybe you’ll learn something new!
You guys are probably wondering what my special interests are, and you’re probably assuming I’ll be sharing that with you in this post. I will not be sharing my special interests. I share a lot with the world, but my special interests are something I’d like to keep private. If we’re being honest, hardly anyone knows what my special interests are. The only people who know are my mom, dad, sister, and a few friends, but only one of my friends knows the details because she’s interested in that type of stuff as well. No, they’re not inappropriate interests. I bet you all jumped to that conclusion, but I promise they’re not. It’s just something I don’t want to share with the world and I hope all of you can respect that. Special interests can either last forever or just be phases. My special interests are usually phases, so I can make room for new ones! People with autism go out of their way to manifest very detailed reasoning, large focus, and a stellar memory when it comes to facts about their special interest. People with autism may have little interest in things outside of their special interest. School for example. Even though people with autism are known as highly intelligent, but aren’t motivated to do their homework since their special interest takes up that much of their life. Some examples of special interests can be aircraft and transportation, animals, video games, and dolls! People with autism show lots of concentration, and dedication with their special interest. This trait can be a good thing, since it could lead them to being highly successful in the workforce, if they do a job related to their special interest. Sometimes it can be hard to bond with someone who has autism, so special interests are a really good way to connect with them, and get a better sense of their point of view. But it is also important for people with autism to talk about other things besides their special interest, and talk about what the other person wants to talk about. I always try to be extra conscious of this since I don’t want to be thought of as selfish and self absorbed. People with autism also need to be taught that sometimes it is not a good time to talk about their special interest, since that doesn’t come naturally to them. (Especially during a sad time, like a funeral). After you’ve read this post, I hope you have a better understanding about special interests. I’ll see you all next week! I’m attaching a reference so you can get more information about special interests, and how to encourage them! Thanks for reading and I’ll see you all next week! Email- [email protected] Instagram- @embracingmysuperpower Facebook- Embracing my Superpower https://autism.wikia.org/wiki/Special_interests
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Hey everyone! Welcome back to my blog. This weeks post will be my third part of my high school posts. This one is all about 11th grade. This intro is kinda lame, but anyways, let’s get into it!
Going into 11th grade, I was excited to be an upperclassmen. I felt good thinking about the fact that I was halfway done with high school. On the first day of school, I made my motto “I’m going to mature a lot this year”. My high school social worker wanted me to write that down on a sticky note and put it on her desk so I can see it, and obviously everyone who walked in her room could see it too. The beginning of 11th was a rocky start. Because of how amazing my 10th grade year was, (week 26), I was having a really hard time adjusting to the new changes. I went through a major depression that not a lot of people know about. After I got used to all the new changes, 11th grade got much, much better. I would for sure say that I followed through with that sticky note. I also made myself a promise that I would try harder to get good grades. I put more work in, and it showed. I started getting A’s and B’s in almost every class. Except World History. No matter how hard I tried, it never clicked for me. I got C’s, D’s, and E’s galore, but at least I tried, and put in my best effort. Other than that rough patch of grades, I did really well in my other classes. Especially English. My teacher was literally so amazing in every way possible. I had her 1st hour, and she did a great job at waking me up in the morning. Her positive energy and disposition made it so much easier to learn, and to stay awake. She made every lesson enjoyable, even if it was the most boring content ever. Shoutout to my incredible English 11 teacher, you’re an amazing person, and you and your class is what got me started on my pathway to good grades in English, and finding my passion in writing! In December 2017, I went to The Irreplaceable’s Tour with my friend. It was a tour with Dance Mom’s dancers Chloe Lukasiak, Kendall Vertes, Kalani Hilliker, and their moms. This was one of my favorite things I did junior year, and in high school in general. Actually, life in general. I had the most amazing night. They danced, answered questions, and I got to take a picture with them. I also got a picture with Kendall’s mom, Jill in the hallway as we were walking out. We stood in the second row so we got the perfect view, and I got so many pictures and videos. I think about this night everyday tbh. Take me back! Skipping ahead to prom, I took my friend to prom because he was graduating, I was going to miss him so much, and I thought I’d be a nice thing to do. It was an amazing night. I wore the prettiest burgundy dress, which looked AMAZING on me. My hair was done pretty, my makeup was great. I haven’t felt that happy and confident in a while. I felt SO pretty, and comfortable in my own skin. You could tell by the way I acted that night too. I wish I could look, and feel the way I did that night everyday. I was thriving. I miss that night soooooo much. At the end of 11th grade, I truly felt like I changed as a person. I never thought that ending my past school years. As crazy as this may sound, I think the visual of the sticky note really helped! It’s hard to explain why and how I think I changed for the better because of the many events that took place. I’d like to thank everyone so much for reading this post, and my blog in general. I love how I have an audience of mutuals and maybe some people I don’t even know! That’s wild! I’ll see you all next week for an autism related post! Email- [email protected] Instagram- @embracingmysuperpower Facebook- Embracing my Superpower Hello everyone, welcome back to my blog! I hope you liked my autism post two weeks ago. It really gave some of you a chance to get to know me, as a person in general, and as a person who has autism. I also hope it gave you a friendly reminder that autism is a spectrum, and it looks VERY different in every individual who has it. (Week 10). Now for this post, I will be writing, and elaborating on autism stereotypes that do NOT apply to me. In a way, I think this post is a little more important than the last one, since it really goes to show that not every stereotype is present in every individual with autism. Take a look below!
“Lack of empathy”. Anyone who knows me well knows that I have loads of empathy. You can even tell by some of my blog posts. Sometimes people with autism can feel emotions much stronger than neurotypicals. Especially girls, which is why autism is misdiagnosed in so many of us until we’re teens or older (week 17). Unlike me, I was diagnosed at almost 4 years old! This stereotype is false for the majority of people I know with autism. Boys and girls. People with autism are some of the kindest, most genuine friends you could ever have. Whenever I was upset at school, my peers with autism were the first ones to check on me. They were there for me, and wanted nothing but for me to be happy. Even now a lot of them text me every so often just to say hi. It’s so sweet! People with autism care about you like there’s no tomorrow, no matter what role you played in their lives. Ok I know I said that this post is going to be all about me, but I just had to get that out of the way because of all the dumb, annoying misconceptions. “People with autism are good at math, and bad at English”. This couldn’t be more false for me. Math has been my worst subject for as long as I can remember. I’ve had math tutors growing up, and even now as a college student. I took an extra math support class in 6th and 7th grade, and I failed algebra 1 semester 1 in 9th grade, so I had to take it again online, which put me in online math for 10th and 11th grade..... Worst. Experience. Ever. I hate math so much. Now for English, lots of people with autism struggle with reading, and writing. But for me, English is my best subject. I always get good grades. I’m not a big reader by any means, but I LOVE to write! It’s one of my favorite hobbies, and I really want to continue writing things like this as I grow older. “Lack of eye contact”. I’m not a fan of this stereotype, as I’m not a fan of any autism stereotypes, but this one gets under my skin a little bit extra because of my masking (week 19). Sometimes people with autism make eye contact too much, because we know that it’s a social norm, and us maskers, we sometimes work even harder on picking up social cues than our schoolwork and things like that. I hope my intense amount of eye contact doesn’t freak people out! Of course, there are times where I have a hard time making eye contact when I’m nervous, or not being 100% honest about something, but everyone does that! So according to societal norms, I have somewhat normal eye contact behaviors. Even though there’s much more stereotypes that I don’t match up to, I’m going to leave it at these three for now. Another friendly reminder that AUTISM IS A SPECTRUM!!!!! (Week 10). Meaning, you could have me, and another individual with autism standing side by side, and the other person could love math, as I don’t like it. It seriously means the entire freaking world to me that you take time to read my posts, and how I have an audience. I love all my blog readers so so so much, and thank you all so so so much! I’ll see you next week! Email- [email protected] Instagram- @embracingmysuperpower Facebook- Embracing my Superpower Hey friends! Welcome back to my blog! I hope you’re all doing well. Happy new year! 2020 was one to remember for lots of reasons. I’ll never forget 2020. It’s literally impossible to forget, haha. I’m really looking forward to see what 2021 will bring me. I have many great blog posts about important topics coming for you guys this year. One of my goals for 2021 is to have my blog grow. So I hope you as my readers would be able to help me, and make that happen!
This weeks not autism post is all about 10th grade. 10th grade was my favorite year of high school, so I’m extra excited to write this one! But I’m also extra sad because I made amazing memories, and met lots of amazing people, and a lot of them aren’t in my life anymore, and I wish they were. Due to that, this post will be shorter than the others for personal reasons. As much as I share on here, I like to keep parts of my life private too! I was so excited to be a 10th grader. I wasn’t the youngest grade at school, and all my friends a year younger than me were coming to high school, so I had lots more friends in school with me! I was so excited to help them find their way around, and help them get used to the high school groove. My parents divorced was finalized in the beginning of the year, so my dad moved out. It was hard the first couple months, but all these amazing memories outshine the divorce BIG time!!!! I remember always being so exhausted in the mornings. In 9th, 11th and 12th grade, I had teachers who were loud, and energetic, so they did a good job at waking me up in the morning. I was never tired going into 2nd hour. However, in 10th grade, I had a teacher who is more quiet, and monotoned, so I was always so tired going to 2nd hour. I didn’t have any friends in my 2nd hour, so I was still exhausted from going to 2nd-3rd hour. But in my 3rd hour, one of my friends was in it, so I talked to her, and I had the most AMAZING TEACHER EVER!!!!! (Shoutout to “Mrs. Brown”. I love you forever. Week 7). My social life was really good in 10th grade. I talked to all my camp friends who I went to camp with in summer 2016. I had my school friends too, so I had lots of fun people to hangout with. I felt “popular” in 10th grade because of this. I hungout with lots of different people on the weekends which is always super fun for me! This was the year that Peer to Peer moved miles. It went from being a club at school, to doing outside of school events. We got to go to Camp Tamarack for a weekend, and we got to do an amazing mural for the library at school. These were some of the best memories! I got to go to prom with Peer to Peer as a helper since I wasn’t old enough to go yet. Because of that, I didn’t want to get a new dress or get my hair done since it wasn’t my “official prom”, so I wore the dress I wore to Ella’s bat mitzvah service, and she did my makeup. I wasn’t even planning on wearing makeup but she offered, so I couldn’t pass it up! I loved everything about this night. The theme was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory so they had so much candy and a chocolate fountain! That was by far my favorite theme of the three proms I went to. I have so much to say about sophomore year, but I’m going to leave this post short and sweet since my freshman year post was really long, and my junior year and senior year post will be long too. I’m really excited to post about my other two years of high school, so I hope you’ll be on the lookout for those. I’ll see you next week! Email- [email protected] Instagram- @embracingmysuperpower Facebook- Embracing my Superpower |
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