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Dietary Changes Part: 2

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  When I was in high school, during my second year, I found myself eating more fried foods and drinking more milk than usual. I thought it was okay, not the healthiest, but what school provides healthy food? They love promoting it, but they don’t necessarily enforce it. Everyone was fine eating it, so what could go wrong? I was eating spicy fried chicken sandwiches and cheese-stuffed pizza, and I learned that dipping them in ranch or blue cheese tasted good. I drink chocolate milk, and on Fridays, I treat myself to ice cream. The year before was exciting, my grades were great, and everything seemed new and exciting. Sophomore year became the opposite. I didn’t understand why, but it was like flipping a coin. Everything was exciting, but everything was boring; topics were not interesting, the teachers were even pissy and annoyingly difficult. On top of everything I was dragging. I felt so fogged up. As if I could sleep all day. My case manager saw what was going on with my cla...
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Book Recommendations

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  Hello Everyone! I hope everyone is doing well. To be honest with you, my schedule has been all over the place lately so this time I'm providing you with recommendations for books that I have found written by people on the spectrum. As a writer, I wanted to see who else on the spectrum is writing about autism. I have heard of a few people such as John Elder Robison with his book Look Me in the Eye, along with Dr. Temple Grandin who wrote multiple books on autism and animal rights as well as being a public speaker. Below I posted two of her books. I have a copy of her Thinking in Pictures . After doing some googling I was pleased to find even more books on autism written by authors that are on the spectrum themselves. I absolutely love that there are so many out there, and hope that one day mine will be out there as well. There can never be too many books on autism, and every writer is going to have their own thoughts and experiences with the autistic spectrum. ...
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Happy Autism Awareness Month!

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  Social Awareness / Social Difficulty Happy Autism Awareness Month!      Let’s talk about the enormous elephant in the room! The basis of autism is that it’s a social disorder. So it’s a given that there is going to be social awareness and social difficulty. No, I’m not talking about keeping up with the latest social trends, whatever that is. How do you even keep up with or even determine a social trend? I do understand that a trend is basically what people like the most, but how does that even get started?      Social awareness is being aware of your surroundings and others around you. When interacting with people, to be able to read body language and become aware of the individual’s intentions and feelings. This is something that I have gotten better at, but there are still times were certain things will go over my head. I sometimes get so stuck in my thoughts that I would lose track of where I have been.      This one t...
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Breaking Down the Spectrum

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  I want to talk more about the spectrum itself. In previous posts, I mentioned that autism is on a spectrum and that not everyone on the spectrum is the same as others. I found visual references that may help because just talking about it without visual references can become confusing mainly because there are multiple ways of looking at it. Before I begin I just want to say that I found these diagrams through google by searching “Autistic Spectrum”. There are many more if you are seeking more of an understanding. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Autistic-spectrum-disorders-adapted-from-17_fig1_343958142 This first one is the very first type of diagram that I was introduced to. When I was in middle school and high school the only way others described the spectrum to me is by describing, it as being on different levels, such as the diagram above. This makes me think of the different levels as different amounts. Higher functioning people with autism hav...
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Finding One Self Through Conflicts and Goals Part 2

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  As I continue from my last post, where I was commenting on how some filmmakers are complete snack junkies, and somehow become unaware of what is important to the project's budget.      There were times were someone would request that I get something from the grocery store such as sweet tea, I'll say gladly but won't be able to until next week and they will give me the "how dare you say no" look on their face. I'll be standing there thinking I was given a budget why will no one let me follow it? Eventually, I was sent out to help on set. It felt like a promotion to me except for more of a sideways shift. As much as I appreciate my experience in the office I would rather be on set where the action is and you can see everything working in unison. My goal was to become a Director of Photography, so being out on set was so exciting for me. Plus I found due to the overtime I got paid more than I did in the office. In the office they had me work 10-12 hours ...
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Finding One Self Through Conflicts and Goals Part 1

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  Happy New Year I want to say it's that time of the year again, but that's kind of a double entendre considering it's a new year. Point is that around this time every year, people reflect on what they went through and have this urge to throw it away just to start new. I wish it would be that easy. My question is why are we so eager to change? Do we really need to be so hard on ourselves by setting a goal that may never happen because they don't fall into our routine and then, later on, beating ourselves up about it? Or maybe you made choices that changed your life and you find yourself reflecting on why did I do that. Why are people so determined to change when we don't like change in the first place? Many people on the spectrum love to keep a routine. Change that routine and all hell breaks loose for us and everything falls apart. For a very long time, that is how it was for me. For 12 long years, I had a routine that was set up for me by my parents and...
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Holiday Treats

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  We all know how difficult the holidays can be when you have dietary restrictions especially when you discover your allergies later in life and develop cravings for foods that you no longer can eat. I discovered my allergies when I was 16 years almost 17 and grew up eating just about everything including my mom's German Christmas Cookies such as Butter Cookies, Vanillekipferl, Lebkuchen, Pfeffernüsse, Spritzgebäck, and the list can go on. There are so many and not just cookies. Potato casual, apple pie, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, biscuits and gravy, hash-brown caesural. I only had these once a year. These dishes have triggered the pleasure part of my brain for so long to where I can still taste them all making it so difficult to stay away and I've been gluten and cow dairy free sense 2009. Luckily for some of these dishes, my family and I were able to substitute the ingredients. For others did not have to. I even found new recipes as well. So instead of conti...
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