You have to love yourself first, they say. Have you ever been asked if you love yourself? Since the beginning of my healing journey over a decade ago, I have interacted with more than ten counselors, therapists, and coaches. Every single one has asked me if I love myself. Or,…
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How Autism Blends With the World
Do you love yourself? I know, it’s an extremely personal question. When a counselor first asked me this question I was taken aback. It’s offensive and puts one in a defensive position. And who likes feeling defensive? But therapy is about healing and I answered as best I could. Again,…
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The Purpose of Growth – Embracing Neurodiversity
The Purpose of Growth Embracing neurodiversity Have you ever felt like everyone understands the rules except for you? Me, too. And I’ve spent over a decade in therapy trying to figure it out. The main reason I sought help from therapists, counselors, and coaches is because I have always felt different….
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Autism is Fitness in Darwin’s Language
Are you a religious person? An atheist? Agnostic? I consider myself to be agnostic. Mostly because I Don’t Know. If I had to choose any belief system to attach to, I would be a Darwinist. Natural Selection is the best explanation of the meaning of life I am aware of. When…
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An Autism Self-Diagnosis May Be Helpful
Have you ever felt like the only person who didn’t receive a ‘How to Live Life’ handbook? Did you think everyone else understood what was going on except you? I’ve felt like that my whole life. And it isn’t that I don’t like myself. I love myself. Everything breaks down…
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When Autism Feels Better Than Therapy
If you are in therapy or considering psychoanalysis this episode is for you. This episode is also for you if you have been wondering about neurodivergence, autism, or ADHD. This is the beginning of what I think will be a long quest and potentially a new direction for this podcast…
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Pondering 50 Years of My Quirks
I used to think there was something wrong with me. AsI mull over my recent late self-diagnosis of Level 1 Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) I feel the need to document my thoughts. This is the third of many posts to come on the subject. I started telling my neurodivergent story here and here and…
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Is It Awesome to Be Autistic?
I ask this question as part of my journey to demonstrate that diversity is better than conformity. The idea, briefly, is that Life facilitates variety or diversity, yet we humans seem to resist this. We are all different, yet we do everything in our power to reduce this variation by…
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The Mind is a Splendid Thing
Have you ever thought about how complex our brains are? Or about how little we seem to really know about the way we think? Like, how can we simultaneously love our family but also they annoy us to no end? I think this dissonance, this capacity to hold to two seemingly oppositional…
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What Do You Do When Autism Feels Better than Therapy?
My raw, early stages of self-diagnosis Photo by Uday Mittal on Unsplash Do you know someone who is autistic? Do you picture someone like Rain Man? Or someone like me? I’m Chris. I’m a smart, smiley, eye-contact-making, happily married father of four. Do I seem autistic? The answer is no. I don’t think…