The autistic trait I resonated with the least before better understanding its dimensions was monotropism. Sure, I've always had deep interests often labeled as "obsessive," and inertia has always impaired my ability to switch from task to task to some degree. Because I never do just one thing at a time, though, I assumed my ADHD's "distractibility" trait just overrode my monotropism. At the same time though, I never really identified with "multitasking" because I thought it implied an ability...

I sat down to write a blog post about body gratitude. After stumbling into what felt like a genuine sense of appreciation for my body recently, I thought I had a new, edgy idea that might help other disabled folks access the elusive concept sans the toxic positivity usually used to lead us to the conclusion that our bodies aren't actually as bad as we thought they were. Since I didn't have to repeat a bunch of affirmations in the mirror or work particularly hard to find this specific,...

Has your nervous system experienced enough agency today? Autonomy may be something you lose when someone tells you what to do, but that's really only half the story. An individual's felt sense of autonomy slowly drains away over the course of an ordinary day. This happens even in the absence of demands poking holes in the bottom of our cups; when we face more demands, we're drained more quickly. But we're never without demands: almost everything we do is in response to necessity, expectation,...