The Thread I Did Not See Until Now Today something small happened at work, and somehow it opened a door to a much bigger realization. A customer came in who was a veteran and a member of the American Legion. He asked for the veterans discount, which I gave him. When he thanked me, he said something that caught me off guard. He thanked me for my service. Then he invited me to come to the American Legion anytime and play bingo with them for free. I have never served in the military. So my brain immediately went, wait, that is not accurate. At first it felt awkward. Confusing. Like a sentence that did not line up with reality. But instead of brushing it off, I sat with it. And the more I thought about it, the more a pattern started to appear. When I was in middle school, I received an American Legion school award for patriotism, courage, and academic achievement. I was also offered a scholarship from them if I went to college. I never ended up going, but the offer itself mattere...

I just had a customer come in and buy some oil for his transmission. I do not remember what kind or anything else about the transaction. What I do remember is how he jarred me out of my inner world so suddenly that I completely forgot what I was doing. Now I am fighting to keep from spiraling and trying to stay grounded in the moment. This is one of those invisible moments people do not see. Life with autism can be both a blessing and a curse. And when you add dissociation, anxiety, and depression into the mix, it can get really hard, really fast. Sometimes the hardest part is not the customer. It is trying to find your way back to yourself afterward.

Boundaries Are a Belief Reflection Something unsettling happened at work right before closing. A stranger came in and started talking at me, not with me. He launched into conspiracy stories about secret camps, governments, aliens, and needing weapons to prepare. I did not believe a word of it, but that did not stop my body from reacting. It was loud. It was intrusive. It was scary in the way sudden chaos is scary. I removed myself, got food, came home, and went straight under my blanket. That part matters. Regulation came first. When I told him I was an atheist and did not believe any of it, he replied that it must be nice to not believe in anything. That comment stuck with me, because it was wrong. I do believe in things. I believe in the golden rule. I believe people deserve respect. I believe consent matters. I believe boundaries are real and should be honored. I believe no one has the right to dump fear into someone else without permission. Those bel...

Chronicles of a Quiet Fighter, Life Update, Projects, and a Hard Day I Need to Share It has been a minute since I have written a new post. Life got loud. Work got wild. And my brain has been juggling about four big projects at once. So I wanted to sit down today and give everyone a full update on what is happening with the website, my books, and my life in general. Website Project Update The website redo is coming together. I have been rebuilding pages, updating the layout, and adding new features that make it easier for people to read my stories and follow my projects. I want people to step onto my site and feel like they walked into a calm space. A place that feels like me. The redesign is almost finished and I am excited to show everyone the final version soon. Publishing News Roxy and the Storm Inside is officially published. This one means a lot to me. It is the first in the Quiet Fighter therapy style series and it is built to help autistic kids and famili...

When “Simple” Things Are Not So Simple People often think tasks like laundry, cleaning, or paying bills are just part of being an adult. For many, that is true. For some of us, those simple things come with an invisible cost. It is not that we cannot do them. Each task pulls from the same small well of energy that also fuels focus, emotions, and the ability to stay calm. When that well runs dry, everything else starts to fall apart. Sometimes what looks like procrastination is someone trying to decide which part of their day they can afford to let drop. Do they fold the laundry and spend the rest of the night overstimulated. Or do they rest and face guilt for not keeping up. True support is not about stepping in to fix everything. It is about noticing that easy is not universal. It is about offering grace, and steady help, when the world demands more than a body and mind can give. If you have felt like you are failing ...

When Burnout Wears a Smile People keep asking me why I have been so grumpy lately. Coworkers, even customers. One of them asked if I was aggravated or just ready to go home. The truth is, I am both, and neither. I am tired in a way that sleep does not fix. Lately, I have been burning both ends of the candle. Work, writing my books, helping my mom with my grandma. I tell people I am fine because it is easier than explaining that I feel like I am disappearing. That my mask is slipping and I cannot keep it in place anymore. When people see me quiet or withdrawn, they think I am upset. But really, I am trying to hold myself together. Trying not to shut down. Trying to stay present when every part of me wants to find a dark corner and stop existing for a while. Burnout does not always look like tears or collapse. Sometimes it looks like irritation, blank stares, or snapping at the wrong moment. It looks like someone who is still standing, but ...

Chicken, Cravings, and Comfort: My Zaxby’s Ritual I’ve been eating at Zaxby’s every day for about four months now, both lunch and dinner. I always get the same thing a six-finger plate with double fries. I go big with a large sweet tea, one Zax sauce, and one Tongue Torch sauce. Seven days a week, no changes. My mom, Miranda, and John all get on to me for it, mostly because of how much it costs. I spend over two hundred dollars a week eating there. But honestly, I’m willing to spend that much because it’s become my comfort food. Right now, it’s the only thing I can eat without feeling physically sick. I’ve tried other foods, but nothing else sits right. I’ve also gotten used to the staff that work there. They’re always patient and kind, taking their time when I order and making things easier for me. They know that I’m autistic, and that small bit of understanding means more than most people realize. Visit the Quiet Fighter Shop If...

A Lesson From Papa: Why We Lift Each Other Up When I sat down with my therapist, Jennifer, she gave me a simple assignment or at least, it sounded simple. She told me to name three things I like about myself. She even took writing off the table, since that one was a given. But that left me staring at the wall for a bit, wondering what I could honestly say. Eventually, I realized that what I like about myself isn’t something I built alone. It’s something that runs deeper something Papa planted in me long before I knew to call it a strength. Papa always told me, “You shouldn’t have to pick yourself up by your bootstraps when your neighbor’s standing right there beside you.” He’d say, “All it takes is for one person to reach down, help lift you up, and then you do the same for the next person. Before long, the whole world’s standing on even ground.” That stayed with me. I’ve always believed people should be seen for their compassion, not their wealth. I ...

One Day at a Time This past year in therapy has taught me more than I ever expected. I have learned that it is okay to be me. I am autistic. I have depression, anxiety, and a handful of health problems. I can still take life one day at a time. I have learned that needing help is not failure. I can rely on my supports without guilt, my mom, my friends, my therapist. I can have meltdowns or shutdowns and know they will pass. I can use the tools I have built to keep them from spinning out of control. Here is the deeper truth that I found. I could lose the job, the books, or the blog, and I would still be okay if I had my people. My mom and my friends are the reason I am still standing. The rest is the bonus. I am still depressed. I am also here. I am still trying. I am still learning. I am still me. For once, that feels enough. Written by Caleb Powers, Chronicles of a Quiet Fighter End note. If this helped you, you can join my Q...

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 ...

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...

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...

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...

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 ...

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 ...

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...

🎃 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, ...

🎃 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...

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...

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...

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 ...

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...

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...

📚 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...

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...