Madison @madisonlmc@social.theliturgists.com

A question for academics! Feel free to boost to the outside world 😂

I’m planning on taking the GRE no later than October which means I need to start studying ASAP!

So my question is: how? 😂 Did you fork over the hundreds of dollars for the official online practice tests? Or fork over a smaller amount of hundreds for books? Or try to borrow books from gracious friends? Help a first gen college student out. This girl is lost.

A short toot to thank the internet for having spaces where I’m not on the outside. The community of a/Autistics online that I’m new to has offered me such a expansive, cushioned place to rest on top of the already lovely Liturgists community that I’ve been interacting with for years, and it all has me feeling all sorts of gratitude.

3/3

Lastly:
I have an appointment next Tuesday with a clinical neuropsychologist that I’ve been on a waitlist to see for 8 months. I have a lot of feelings about this, namely anxiety and trepidation. I so hope it’s good and helpful.

A few weeks ago, one night, one phone call, changed my life in a positive way. I’m going to leave it at that, but say that people need other people and I am deeply in awe of the experiential knowledge of healing in affiliation to others.

💛

2/3
The best thing I did for myself this last quarter was to listen to myself and my needs and pull out of therapy which wasn’t helpful (and had gotten harmful). This feels weird, because I always say how much I believe in therapy, but I think what I mean to say is that I believe in *good* and *helpful* therapy.

In other news I’m the most likely candidate to manage the research lab I’m a part of for 2019-2020 school year and this makes me SO EXCITED! The lab is a profound gift to me.

A positive update, 1/3

I not only survived my academic quarter, I finished it with all 4.0s/As in every class. I’ll be starting my last year of undergrad in the fall, but starting next Monday will be beginning my senior capstone.

I kept going, stayed alive, asked for help a thousand and one times, and feel abundantly grateful for all of y’all’s interactions with me over the last 10 weeks or so. It’s been a mess, and an incredibly scary mess, but I’m slowly but surely clawing my way through.

@mike came out” with his Dx on patreon a few days before I was unexpectedly Dx-ed (long story), and his representation made such a wild difference.

Someone I respect highly, care about deeply, and have had the voice of in my ears for 5+ years through my heavy deconstruction, personal trauma, and family death carried me through the initial shock of my Dx and helped do the initial breaking of my pre-existing construct on what autism is.

I cannot believe it’s been a year 💛

Yesterday was my 1 year autistic-anniversary, which isn’t an actual thing, but I’m making it one

One year of learning and of riding the waves of the joy and the grief of adult diagnosis. So many moments of pure elation as something finally made sense and so many moments of pure terror when something else made even less sense.

I’m here now, in good company.

Listening to @mike on the Unspoken podcast and y’all: take a listen. (And Mike: I am the most broken record but wow do I echo what you’re sharing in so many ways)

(Also that should say *deepening* sorry y’all)

A small update: taking courageous steps everyday. Signed up for studio hours at a ceramics studio and I feel like I got a massive part of myself back. I’m nearing finals and being able to see my checklist go down is a relief. I stopped going to therapy and it’s been massively helpful (it’s okay to listen to your body when it says it needs to take breaks; do consult with your therapist about this). Depending relationships. Breathing. Slowly, but surely, crawling out of the hole of despair.

Deleted a bunch of posts regarding things that I need to have better boundaries talking about online. Thank you for the continued support, all.

Spending some much needed time with my tablet tonight and drew up this little thing. Thinking a lot about kindness lately, and being on the receiving end of it and not knowing what to do (all the while being incredibly grateful).

Image description: digital artwork with cursive lettering that fits within a circle which reads “it is marvelous to be shattered by kindness” - Tennessee Williams

I “came out” on IG (on my story) as autistic yesterday for a number of reasons I won’t go into, but 200 of my 1100 friends+followers now know, which I feel okay about? I think??? It’s been a whirlwind couple of weeks and I’m still very much trying to sort through it all.

Essentially, thank you to you all being a secure base to come back to

4/3 (whoops)

Showing “obvious” autistic traits has been catastrophically bad in the past, and he really understands how fearful and (likely) traumatized I am from all of that and how different situations have made me vulnerable to threat, social isolation, ridicule, etc.

There’s a lot to work through there, but I’m glad he exists, and that my brain knows there’s someone on campus that wouldn’t misinterpret my “odd” behavior as something they needed to interfere with in harmful ways.

3/3

SO: thank you for your responses the other day (and the continued support from the autistic folks on here) about your experiences telling people about you being autistic.

It helped me not feel so alone and much more courageous, knowing I had a safe homebase of y’all to come back to if it blew up in my face.

Instead, it created new safeness and openness with a professor I have a close relationship to scholastically and personally as well and I am SO GRATEFUL for that.

2/3

I could go on and on, but it was a truly healing interaction and one that gave me a lot of hope going forward facing school and otherwise.

I emailed him thanking him and he said he was honored and pleased that I felt safe to share with him and that he’s happy to welcome me exactly as I am. He said he’d encourage me to let the others on the research team know as well, which I’m debating, but as time goes on, I think would be a really helpful and healthy thing to do as well.