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My Nephew Is Moving Out and It Has Me Thinking

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My Nephew Is Moving Out, and It Has Me Thinking Family reflections I can not have kids for medical reasons that I am not ready to share. Even if I could, I do not know that I would bring a child into this world right now. My health, my mental health, and my autistic challenges are real. It would not feel fair to them. I help raise my nephew and two nieces in our house with my mom and my grandma. I never planned this role, yet here I am. Their dad is gone. Their mom lives across town. I do what I can. I love them more than they know. Camren is moving out. In my mind he is still five, sprinting through leaves in the yard, both of us laughing while Mom shouts from the porch. Now he is taller than me. He works. He is finding his way. I am proud of him. If he leaves with one truth, let it be this. He will always have a home here. I do not understand how anyone can make home expire at eighteen. Love does not ...
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Why I No Longer Go to Church, Losing Faith in What Never Reflected Jesus

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Why I No Longer Go to Church, Losing Faith in What Never Reflected Jesus A personal reflection from my autistic point of view ✢ The reason I no longer go to church is simple. Most churches do not represent what Jesus stood for. I am not sure they ever did. The message was meant to be love, care, and mercy. What I felt was judgment, noise, and control. I tried to find God in rows of pews. Instead I found rules that asked me to hide who I am. I am autistic. My senses take in everything. Lights, microphones, side talk, perfume, a baby crying, shoes on tile, all of it stacks up. My body starts buzzing and my chest tightens. People say smile. People say shake hands. People say talk to your neighbor. It feels like a script I did not write. If I miss a cue, the looks tell me I missed it. They say come as you are. What they mean is come if you can blend in. Come if you can sit sti...
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The Words I Needed When I Was Young

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The Words I Needed When I Was Young Sometimes, I stay up late writing the words I needed when I was young. The world goes quiet, and for a few hours, I can finally hear myself think. I imagine a kid, an autistic kid sitting on the floor with a tablet or at the table next to their parent. They stumble onto my blog, scroll for a bit, and whisper, Hey… they’re just like me. That’s who I write for. The kid who feels everything too deeply. The one who tries to fit in but always ends up standing out. The one who’s told they’re “too sensitive,” “too honest,” “too much.” When I write, I pour everything out the confusion, the sensory overload, the loneliness, the beauty I see in details other people miss. At night, my mask is gone. I don’t have to filter it. I just let it spill out the way it really feels. Some nights, it’s messy. Some nights, it hurts. But every time I let those words out, I feel lighter. Like I’m making room for something softer. If my writ...
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Grace in the Hard Places: Helping Mom Care for an Emotionally Abusive Parent

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Grace in the Hard Places, Helping Mom with Grandma Quiet truth, family tension, and the practice of care There are days when helping my mom care for Grandma feels like walking through thick mud. Every step takes effort. Every memory of what she said or did still clings to me. Yet here we are, helping her eat, helping her sit, helping her live. It is strange, the way love and pain can live in the same house. Grandma was not gentle. She said things that cut deep and kept cutting long after the moment passed. She hurt my mom for years, and I watched it happen. I wanted to shout. I wanted to run. I stayed because Mom stayed. Grace is not pretending the past did not happen. Grace is how we choose to move forward anyway. Now when I help Mom, it is not forgiveness exactly. It is quieter. Maybe it is mercy. Maybe it is the choice to stop carrying bitterness today. Mom stil...
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Two Friends, One Therapist: A Funny and Heartfelt Look at Shared Healing

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When You And Your Friend Have The Same Therapist Healing can be shared, but each story still deserves its own space. ••• Today brought a small twist. My friend Kenneth and I realized we share the same therapist. I had my appointment with Jennifer at one o’clock, and he met her for the first time at three. She had an hour between us, which felt merciful. Two of us in one day might test anyone’s clinical stamina. Before I left, I told her she would be meeting one of my friends later. She asked who. I said, “Kenneth.” She smiled and said, “Don’t tell me anything about him. I want to meet him with an unbiased mind.” That made sense to me. Therapy works best when each person gets a clean slate—no backstory, no influence, just truth meeting truth. On the way home, I couldn’t help laughing. Same therapist. Same couch. Same box of tissues. Different lives being unpacked in ...
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A Song in a Weary Throat

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A Song in a Weary Throat 🍂🍁🍂 🍂🍁🍂 Tonight at work, a coin caught my eye before I even realized why. I was counting down the register when I noticed the word HOPE stamped across a face I did not recognize at first. The letters stood bold over gentle lines, A Song in a Weary Throat. I turned it over in my hand, and for a second the noise around me faded. Just me, the hum of the store, and this quiet symbol that felt like it had something to say. The Reverend Dr. Pauli Murray. A name carved beneath hope itself. Someone who fought for equality, for identity, for justice, long before people had the words we use now. The phrase stayed with me. A song in a weary throat. That is what it feels like some days, to keep showing up, to keep speaking, even when your body and mind are tired of fighting to be understood. Yet somehow, there is still a song left. Still a reason to count the next coin, finish the shift, and keep believing that ...
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Sundays Not So Fun Days

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Sundays Not So Fun Days Sunday is supposed to be a slow day, a day of rest. Somehow it never is. I wonder what happened to people keeping the Sabbath holy. When I was a kid the town felt calm on Sunday. Stores closed early. Families slowed down. The day had a soft rhythm. It felt like the world took a long breath before Monday. Now Sunday feels like chaos in a different outfit. Folks rush to church. Then they rush out of church. Ten minutes later they rush into the parts store and act like the sky is falling because a battery died. By the end of the night some come in drunk and loud. The contrast is hard to miss. I am not part of a church anymore. I will share why in another post when I am ready. I still remember the talk about living your faith every day. Not only in a pew. I see people who say they follow that path. Their actions do not match the talk. Maybe they forget. Maybe the week grinds them down. Maybe it is easier to speak faith than to live it w...
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🎃 When My Brain Just Can’t Let It Go

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🎃 When My Brain Just Can’t Let It Go Today at work we had a customer come in with a jeep that he had turned into a rock crawler. He said he had a code for a downstream O2 sensor, then told us he had removed his catalytic converters. I explained that he would need someone to reprogram his ECM to work without them. He didn’t want to hear it and said, “Well, it didn’t have a code for months after I did it.” I tried to tell him that you have to drive enough miles before the ECM even realizes something is wrong, but he just brushed it off and left. Thirty minutes later, I was still talking about it with John. He finally asked, “Why do you and Miranda not leave stuff in the past? You both just keep talking about people or things that happened for days instead of letting it go.” I stopped for a second and said, “I can’t speak for Miranda, but for me, my brain loops when something bugs me.” That’s the truth. When something doesn’t make sense, ...
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When Time and Money Slip Away 🎃

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🎃 When Time and Money Slip Away 🎃 Some days it feels like time and money just vanish without warning. I’ll check my bank account and realize I’ve spent more than I thought. Or I’ll glance at my calendar and realize I’ve missed a week, forgetting when my appointments were supposed to be. It’s not because I don’t care or because I’m careless. It’s because my autistic brain struggles with executive dysfunction. Executive dysfunction makes it hard for me to keep track of things that seem simple to others. My brain doesn’t always remember time the same way. Hours can slip away while I’m trying to get ready for work or finish one small task. I can plan ahead the night before, wake up early, and still somehow be late. It’s frustrating because I know I’m trying my best. That’s why I’ve learned to rely on reminders, alarms, and notes for nearly everything. My phone has become my external brain. I use timers to keep me on track when get...
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Working with Miranda, teamwork and autism support

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Working with Miranda Friendship at work, autism awareness, and small moments that keep me steady. I work with my friend Miranda. We move through busy days together, one small moment at a time. Some days I am the helper. Some days she is. Most days we trade places without saying a word. That is what trust looks like for me at work. How we team up Miranda knows my patterns. When the store gets loud, she checks on me. When I get lost in a task, she gives me a simple cue. Sometimes it is a soft beep sound to help me shift attention. Sometimes it is a gentle look that says breathe. I do the same for her in my way. I grab parts, I keep things moving, I crack a joke when we both need a reset. When change hits hard Updates to the system can throw me off. My breath gets shallow. My body feels tight. When that happens, Miranda crouches so we are eye to eye and says breathe with me. One bre...
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Goodbye September, Hello October | Reflection, Mental Health, and Autism Awareness

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Goodbye September, Hello October A quiet recap, a gentle reset, and a steady vow for care 🍁🍂✨🍂🍁 September in a few breaths September brought small wins and a few hard days. I kept writing. I kept learning how to pace my body and my mind. Some plans changed. Some stayed the same. I am proud that I asked for help when I needed it. I am also proud that I rested when my energy ran low. That was real growth. I had moments of joy with friends. I made progress on creative work. I had heavy moments too. I named them. I tracked them. I moved through them one step at a time. That is the story I want to carry forward. October intention October begins with a calm breath. I choose simple routines. I choose clear steps. I choose soft edges around hard days. I will keep my focus on what I can control. I will let go of what I cannot. I will measure progress by kindness, not by speed. Advocacy...
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I Am Not a Failure for Needing

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I Am Not a Failure for Needing Help Chronicles of a Quiet Fighter A+ A A− Some days it hits me hard. The thought that I must be a failure because I need so much support. My mom reminds me to eat, Miranda grounds me when I start to spiral, and John helps me stay on track with food and health. Without them, I know I would have ended up in the hospital more than once. For a long time, I have carried the weight of believing this made me weak. That needing help somehow erased all the things I have accomplished. But lately I have started to see it differently. Needing support does not mean failure. It means I am human. Humans are not meant to live this life completely alone. Support systems are the safety nets that keep us going when our own strength runs thin. When I look at what I have done, writing a 70,000 word novel in just two weeks, holding down a job that overwhelms my senses, and still finding the courage to share my story ...
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Shadows, Stories, and New Chapters

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Shadows, Stories, and New Chapters There are nights when the world feels heavy, almost like the shadows themselves lean closer to see if I will break. I have carried words like armor and like chains, sometimes both in the same breath. My writing has always been more than stories, it is survival, it is defiance, it is the quiet way I say I am still here . People attack with words, sometimes sharp, sometimes subtle. They assume silence means weakness. What they never realize is silence can also be strategy. While others waste their breath on cruelty, I gather my strength in pages and chapters. Every insult becomes fuel, every doubt becomes ink. This is where storytelling and reality meet. Because my battles off the page slip into my fiction, and my fiction teaches me how to fight the battles off the page. There is no clean line. It is all tangled together, messy but alive. Sorry about not posting regularly lately. I have been so hyper focus...
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When Customers Become Friends

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When Customers Become Friends 🧡 Working at O’Reilly’s, I meet a lot of people every day. Most come in just looking for a part, an answer, or a little bit of guidance. But every so often, something bigger happens—someone walks in as a customer and, over time, becomes a friend. Those are the moments that remind me that connection can show up in the most ordinary places. As an autistic person, building friendships isn’t always easy for me. Social rules can feel confusing, and I don’t always know the “right” way to connect. But when kindness is genuine, it cuts through all the awkwardness. Some of my favorite friendships started at the parts counter—over shared laughs, stories about old cars, or even just a small conversation about life outside of repairs. Friendship doesn’t have to be complicated. It can start with a smile, a simple “How are you really doing today?” or remembering someone’s name. Those little things add up. Over time, customers who were once strangers have become...
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Ashes in the River & Bloodline: Latest Writing Update + Sneak Peek

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📚 Writing Update: Big Things Coming! Hey everyone, I wanted to take a moment to share some exciting updates about my writing journey. A lot has been happening behind the scenes, and I’m really looking forward to letting you all in on it. First, Ashes in the River has grown—what started as a 12-chapter plan is now shaping up to be 13 chapters . This psychological horror novel keeps surprising me as I write, and I want to make sure the story is told the way it deserves to be. My goal is to have it finished by spring, with a summer release next year . I can’t wait for you to dive into this story—it’s dark, emotional, and full of twists that even caught me off guard. On top of that, I’m still expanding Bloodline , which started as a short story but is now being developed into a full novella . The world and characters are really opening up, and it feels like the story is finally reaching its true depth. I’ve also been working on special edition details—lik...
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Stepping Forward Quietly: Reflections on Life as an Autistic Person

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Stepping Forward, Quietly but Strongly Jump to Section: • Life Lately • Learning to Listen to Myself • The Quiet Battles • What’s Helping Right Now ▶ Life Lately Life lately has been a mix of stillness and storms. As an autistic person, the world often feels too loud, too bright, and too fast. I carry those moments of overwhelm in my body and mind, but I’m also learning how to honor them instead of fighting against them. There are days when I feel drained just from existing. The sound of voices overlapping, the pressure of expectations, or the weight of unspoken feelings can leave me buzzing inside — like my nervous system is running on high voltage. In the past, I tried to push through, but I’m realizing that survival isn’t the same thing as living. On the other side, there are days filled with small but powerful victorie...
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Catching Up: New Chapters & New Stores

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Chronicles of a Quiet Fighter Catching Up: New Chapters & New Stores It’s been a busy couple of weeks, and I realized I haven’t shared an update here in a little while. Life has been moving quickly, but I’ve got some exciting things to share. First, my debut book Bloodline is officially out in the world! Holding it in my hands for the first time was surreal, and I’m so grateful to everyone who has supported me on this journey. If you haven’t picked up your copy yet, you can find it here: 📖 Get Bloodline on Lulu I’ve also started working on book two, Bloodline: Towerkeeper , which will dive deeper into the legacy, secrets, and shadows introduced in the first story. I can’t wait to share more about that soon. On top of writing, I’ve been building spaces where readers can connect with my work beyond the page. 🛍️ Visit My Merch Store 🎵 Shop on TikTok It hasn’t been without challenges—balancing ...
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The Sound of Silence: Finding Friends Who Truly Understand Autism, Anxiety & Depression

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The Sound of Silence: Finding Friends Who Get It There have been so many times where I’ve been in a room full of people and still felt completely alone. It’s like everyone else is on the same frequency, and I’m just stuck on static. The world feels loud—too many voices, too many expectations, too much pressure to “fit in.” And I try. I mask. I laugh when I don’t feel like it, I force myself into small talk even though it drains me, and I walk away with nothing left in the tank. That’s the hard part about living with autism, depression, and anxiety—connection doesn’t come easy. It’s not that I don’t want it, it’s just that it costs me something. After some interactions, I go home feeling like I’ve run a marathon with no medal at the end. But then there are the people who make it different. The ones who let me sit in silence without making it awkward. The ones who don’t demand I be “on” all the time. For me, that’s Miranda and John. With Miranda, ...
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The “Beep Beep” Cue

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The “Beep Beep” Cue Work story · Short · Autistic-perspective Working at the counter with Miranda has turned into its own kind of comedy routine. Sometimes, if I’m stimming or scrolling on my phone, I get completely lost in my own little world. A customer will walk in, and Miranda will say, “Caleb, move.” But I don’t hear her. It’s like the words don’t even register. Here’s the funny part though—if she just says “beep beep,” like I’m a car blocking the way, I move instantly without even thinking. And every time, I respond with a quick “Okay, Miranda” . She cracks up every time, and honestly, I kind of love it. What could be a frustrating moment just turns into a lighthearted inside joke between us. Why it works For me, this is also a very autistic thing. Sometimes full words and instructions just don’t cut through when my brain is busy processing other things. But a short, playful sound like “beep beep” hits...
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The Honda Mix-Up

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The Honda Mix-Up Today at O’Reilly I managed to stick my foot in my mouth without even meaning to. A customer pulled into the parking lot driving a Honda. Miranda asked if I wanted to restock or deal with them, and I—without thinking—said, “Yeah, I don’t like Hondas anyway.” Then she looked at me and reminded me… her car is a Honda. Oops. I scrambled, tried to backtrack with, “Well, I like yours,” but then of course she pointed out, “But mine’s a Honda.” At that point I was stuck in a loop, so I gave up and went to put things on the shelf. When I came back, I thought I was in the clear. She was laughing, so I figured the moment passed. Nope. She snuck up on me while I was on the phone and scared the daylights out of me. I nearly lost my ability to speak, caught between laughing and crying. P.S. Miranda, if you’re reading this—I officially declare for the record: your Honda is cool, and I’m really, really sorry for the mix-up. Please don’t sneak up on me again whil...
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When I Was Ignored for Being Autistic

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scan me When I Was Ignored for Being Autistic Chronicles of a Quiet Fighter Today at work, I had a moment that left me both hurt and seen. An older man came in trying to return a brake hose. The part was right, but he had installed it on the wrong side of his car. When he explained it, it didn’t make sense to me—his words got jumbled, and I told him plainly: “I’m autistic, and you’re confusing me.” Instead of slowing down or respecting that, he turned his attention to my coworker John. He even said, “He said he’s autistic, maybe you can help me,” like I wasn’t standing right there anymore. Then he added that he had a granddaughter who is autistic. That stung even more. I thought, I hope he treats her better than he treated me. In that moment, I started to feel myself nearing shutdown. What bothers me is not knowing exactly what signs I was giving off that made it obvious. John later told me he noticed it happening—that’s why he hung up on his own cus...
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End of August Update

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End of August Update August always weighs on me. My birthday sits in the same week as the memory of my grandfather’s passing, and that combination pulls me between joy and grief in a way that my body can’t always process. It feels like buzzing under my skin—like my nerves are carrying too much information at once. Sometimes I sweat when no one else is hot, or everything sounds like it’s happening at the same volume, and my body just says, enough. Turning 36 brought mixed emotions. I don’t feel like I’ve “arrived” anywhere in life, and my brain often tells me I should be further ahead. But when I look at the reality, I’ve survived so much. My autistic brain and body make everyday things harder—like interruptions at work that completely throw me off, or noise in the store that makes me lose my focus instantly. Even something as simple as trying to reset after being pulled away feels impossible some days. Still, I made it through, and that counts for more...
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Banana Pudding Tears: Honoring Papa’s Memory

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Today, I’m sharing a deeply personal moment of grief and memory. It’s about Papa, his favorite dessert, and how I experienced a wave of emotions I wasn’t ready for. This is written from my autistic perspective, and I hope it gives insight into the ways love, loss, and support show up in my life. Note for neurotypical readers: This post shares the deep sensory and emotional experience of an autistic person remembering a loved one. The intensity may be unfamiliar if you haven’t experienced grief in this way. Another Bite, Another Wave Jennifer gave me this banana pudding at my therapy session today. I only managed four bites before I started crying. Why does this taste so much like him? Miranda had to get my spoon and help me calm down while I sat there, trying to eat. She stayed by my side, quietly supporting me, helping me breathe through the overwhelming mix of grief and memory. Each bite felt heavier than the last, yet somehow comforting...
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