If I came up to you and told you in a very matter of fact tone that my arm hurt so much I thought it might be broken but I wasn’t crying or appearing distressed, would you believe me? Would my lack of visible emotion make you doubt my pain? What if it were something harder to objectively measure, like a migraine. And it’s lights or fragrance that is causing my migraine due to my sensory sensitivities, but you don’t perceive them as bothersome. Would you believe me? Now imagine that instead of physical pain we are talking about emotional pain or abuse.

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People often ask what is the point of an autism diagnosis. I cannot answer this for you, but I can tell you how understanding my brain has helped me and how it has helped others I know with similar wiring. For most of my life I was pathologized. I was told that something was wrong with me and that if I did some kind of therapy or took some kind of medication I could fix the thing. I was wrongly labeled, wrongly medicated and traumatized by the professionals I went to for help. Had I been taught earlier about how my brain worked, my life would have been profoundly different. The result could have been a more protective, less traumatizing path. This is true for many autistic people.

I want to speak specifically about why autism can be important to understand in the context of abusive relationship dynamics. Almost 90% of autistic women have reported experiencing sexual violence. NINETY PERCENT. This statistic should give every parent, every teacher, every professional bound by mandatory reporting laws, and every human who cares pause. There are many factors that I believe contribute to this. Below I want to name a few significant ones and explain how understanding autism at a systemic level can be protective, or even lifesaving.

Communication Barriers and Masking

Autism is a developmental disability. Many of us who are female presenting with high IQ are not identified as autistic until much later in life (if at all). This means that we go through much of our life using our intelligence to compensate, to mask or camouflage. This takes an enormous amount of energy and comes at a great cost. It is almost impossible for me to articulate what this feels like from the inside. You don’t see “developmental disability” on the outside, you may see “quirky” or “slow” or someone who looks tired. However, this is not what we are experiencing on the inside. We may experience great distress. We may be many years behind our peers as far as understanding subtle social cues or nuance. We may not be able to name or regulate emotions well. But we aren’t identified or supported properly because we get straight As. Instead we are shamed and told to try harder. Over time, we internalize the belief that something is fundamentally wrong with us.

Bullying and Social Isolation

We may become isolated from our peers and picked on because we feel different. Still, we keep trying to figure it out. We want so desperately to belong. This can make us particularly vulnerable to abuse. We are often so misunderstood, but we spend a lot of our time trying so hard to understand everyone around us. Many of us are hyper empathetic. We are not only overly sensitive to lights, smells, and sounds, we are also overly sensitive to emotions. Not just ours. Yours too.

For some of us, that desire to belong can become a very intense attachment around one person that feels intense, consuming, and hard to regulate. When you consider all of these factors together, it is not difficult to understand how autistic people can end up in abusive relationship dynamics. We see a wounded person, animal, a noble cause, and we want to help. Often at our own expense. We typically aren’t taught proper boundaries or how to prioritize our own needs and safety. Without that education, our empathy can become a liability rather than a strength. It can be exploited.

Better Professional Training and Earlier Identification

Autistic people need to understand how our brain works, and we need others to understand it too. Professionals, especially, must learn how to support us properly so we stop being mislabeled, misidentified, misunderstood, and retraumatized.

Professionals need better training on how to identify and support autism even in the absence of a formal diagnosis. Professionals need to understand that not everyone can identify feelings, rate pain on a scale of 1-10, and that flat affect does not mean lack of distress. Professionals need to learn how to honor and accommodate sensory needs (not minimize or dismiss them) and not automatically pathologize someone who experiences the world differently. Teach professionals about delayed processing. Normalize that we need time to understand things. Circling back to add information or ask clarifying questions isn’t a defect, it’s just how our brain works.

Sex Education for the Autistic Brain

We need sex education specific for the autistic brain. We are literal thinkers, we are generally honest and we expect others to be honest too. When that assumption is violated, the consequences can be devastating, especially in sexual contexts.

Neurotypical sexual education is vague. Autistic people don’t do well with vagueness or metaphors. We need clarity and detail. What is consent? What is coercion? When can I say no? What if I change my mind? How do I get out of a situation? We need concrete and specific examples. Give us scripts to use. Teach us about subtle manipulation tactics (love bombing, blame shifting, gaslighting, silent treatment) so we can recognize abuse when it is happening and not after the fact, often decades later.

Real Inclusion and Acceptance

Real inclusion is not kindness weeks or token gestures. It is year-round understanding that reduces isolation and vulnerability. When autistic people are genuinely included and respected for who we are, we are less likely to become targets in the first place.

Actual Accountability for Abusers

Finally, Believe Autistic Survivors. When we are believed, abusers can be held accountable. Include our lived experiences in research. Let us help guide policy and best practices. This is the most basic step, and it is often the most violated. Listen to us. Believe us. Stop gaslighting and dismissing us. We are here. Our stories and our lives matter.

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College admissions decisions are not about you.

The school is filling a class and managing institutional needs. Many schools turn away thousands of amazing and qualified students every year. Rather than rejection, consider it a redirection. You don’t know what is waiting for you at the place where you ultimately may end up.

You are allowed to feel however you feel.

Disappointed, angry, confused, happy, excited, numb, it’s all allowed. Feel your feelings. You may feel several of them. You may cycle through them. You may want to talk about them or not. There is no right or wrong way, and all I ask is that you not judge yourself in the process. Some of us are very sensitive to rejection or perceived rejection (common for neurodivergent brains) and any kind of “no” can touch on that. It’s ok if your reaction feels disproportionate. It’s ok if you don’t feel anything. Just getting to this point is a long process and you may feel numb from the stress of it all. If you feel like talking, find a safe person to talk to. If you don’t, nature is a good place to be, or perhaps your favorite sport or hobby. I can assure you that what you are feeling is temporary, but it is a good idea to be with it and not push it away.

There is no best school or option, but there may be a best option for you.

There is a lot of hype about top schools and prestige, and there is absolutely zero guarantee that you will be happy or successful if you get in and go to one of those schools. The best school is not always the one that is the “hardest” to get into or the one that sounds the most impressive to other people. Speaking of impressive to other people, this seems like a good opportunity to remind you that what you see in group chats and on social media are highlight reels and an incomplete picture of someone else’s life. The comparison game is a trap, always.

The best school may be the one where you feel most at home, the one where you can find a supportive community, and the one where you can be yourself without burning out. Accessibility for neurodivergent students is a real need. What is the sensory environment and living space like? What about class sizes? These are the things that matter way more than name recognition or rankings.

This isn’t final.

I know this feels big. You have worked so hard to get to this place. And a “no” may feel like a door closing on a dream. It isn’t. Things change. People take gap years, people transfer, the world is full of surprises, sometimes really good ones. This process feels really big and it is a big one because it is likely the first big one, but it is only a chapter. There are many. Most of us adults did not get to where we are from this one decision. In fact, many of us are still figuring it out. Most of us don’t actually have it figured out. Which is why you are ultimately your own best authority.

Your worth comes from you.

When we define our worth by external things, achievements, grades, college admissions, we give our power away. Your power is inside of you. Your wisdom is inside of you. Your unique characteristics, your inner world, your feelings, everything that makes you YOU, that is all inside of you. And that would be impossible to condense into an application. Please do not let anyone outside of you define who or what you are. You are still becoming. Take your time, and do your best to find the place that will support your becoming. If you land somewhere that does not feel like the right fit, you can change. Look at how often adults change jobs and careers. You have agency and autonomy. That includes the ability to change your mind, at any time.

To those applying to colleges: I’m proud of you for making it through a process that asks you to turn your whole life into a packet.

To the adults supporting them: Please remember that your calm will matter more than your advice right now.

And to everyone: This one decision is not a measure of your life. It’s simply one fork in your road. Take the next step from where you are, keep breathing, and do your best to trust in your innate ability to navigate the path ahead.

Youth Mental Wellness Alliance

Youth Mental Wellness Alliance (You.Me.We.All) is a parent-led nonprofit that serves as a community resource hub advancing initiatives that support the mental wellness of youth in schools and homes. Through partnerships among families, youth, educators, mental health professionals, and community members, they focus on empowering families with evidence-based resources, meaningful engagement, and collaborative solutions to improve student well-being.​

Keira Bradley Foundation

The Keira Bradley Foundation (Live Like Keira) is a nonprofit created to carry forward Keira Bradley’s legacy of caring for children and families in need. Its mission is to provide heartfelt support through material items, financial assistance, and mental health resources, inspired by Keira’s passion for helping others live fully and with hope.​

The Speedy Foundation

The Speedy Foundation is dedicated to preventing suicide and ending the stigma around mental health challenges through advocacy, education, and open conversations. Rooted in the legacy of three-time Olympian Jeret “Speedy” Peterson, the organization offers training, community workshops, and resources that equip teens, athletes, and community members to recognize warning signs and connect people to help.​

DarkSky International

DarkSky International (formerly the International Dark-Sky Association) is a global nonprofit focused on protecting the night sky and reducing light pollution for present and future generations. By promoting responsible outdoor lighting, education, and advocacy, DarkSky works to preserve natural darkness, safeguard ecosystems, and ensure that more communities can experience star-filled skies.​

Endurant Movement

EndurANT Movement was created by parents in honor of their son, Anthony (“Ant”), whose life and loss now guide the organization’s mission. The nonprofit supports grief healing, mental health, autism awareness, and suicide prevention by helping individuals and families transform pain into purpose through community, storytelling, and post-traumatic growth. Rooted in love, compassion, and spirituality, EndurANT bridges the often-separate conversations around autism and mental health, working to ensure that neurodivergent individuals and those who love them do not suffer alone.

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Gratitude to the Maisa Space Community

These gifts were only possible because of the generosity of Maisa Space subscribers and the flexibility of the Maisa Space DAF to channel those contributions into impactful work. Thank you for helping support youth mental health, vulnerable families, autism and suicide awareness, and the protection of our shared night sky. Your care and contribution extends far beyond this space.

I have been thinking about how this pattern repeats across time: It is rarely the people in charge who recognize a new consciousness arriving and who are brave enough to listen. It is the ones on the outskirts. The sensitive ones. The ones who feel outcast or misunderstood. The ones who are paying attention in ways that cannot be measured by institutions or systems in power.

As I move quietly through this season that holds so much memory and longing, I think of Maisa. My own stargazer.

She was a child who liked to look up, really look. Not as entertainment, but as orientation. As if the night sky was a language she was learning to read. As if some part of her remembered that guidance rarely comes from the centers of power or the loudest ones in the room, but from the quiet places above and the knowledge within. She took any opportunity available to sleep outside under the stars. Being energetically embraced by the Milky Way felt more natural to her than being under a blanket.

Maisa was always an outsider in the way the world defines it, though I don’t think she ever really saw herself that way. She was sensitive to injustice before she even had the vocabulary for it. She defended the small, the overlooked, the animals, the kids who never quite fit in. She felt things intensely: truth, joy, love, unfairness, and she responded with instinctive empathy, kindness, and compassion.

In another era she might have been one of the sky-watchers. One of the ones who sensed the shift before others. One of the ones who noticed the star or subtle changes in the sky. And so, this season, the story of the Magi feels different to me.

The birth that happened far from palaces. The message carried not by those holding power, but by wanderers. The life of a teacher who aligned himself with the people pushed to the margins. Others who were outcast. On the fringe. The death at the hands of a system threatened by compassion. And the later centuries where the message was reshaped, institutionalized, and eventually wrapped in tinsel, commerce, and flashing holiday light displays.

This seems to be what human systems do. They take something wild and luminous and try to contain it. Take something meaningful and try to monetize it. But underneath all of that, the original story is still there: A star appears. A child is born in a place no one expects. And the first to notice are the outsiders, the ones who can see light in the dark.

This year, I’m choosing to honor that version of the story.

The version where truth arrives quietly. Where sensitivity is a compass. Where the ones who don’t fit are the ones who understand. Where following a flicker of light and the calling of your heart is sometimes the most faithful act a person can make.

When I think of Maisa, I think of that kind of light. Something bright enough to notice the world’s pain and brave enough to love it anyway. Something that still guides me, not from a place of power, but from the outskirts where real wisdom tends to live.

So this holiday, I am remembering this simple truth:

The light comes quietly.
And the outsiders see it first.

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She was always observing, and like me, often confused by human behavior. Why do people say one thing and do another? Why do words and energy not match? Why are people not honest, even with themselves?

It took me decades to understand that I have always been very accurate at reading energy, and that our culture trains this sensitivity out of us. Maisa was even more accurate and was always pointing out that we live in a world where words and energy rarely align. Most people don’t even notice the mismatch because they have lost contact with themselves.

We learn to translate statements like:

Hope to see you soon.

= I probably won’t call or text.

This was great.

= I had an ok time but don’t want to be rude.

How are you?

= Please say fine because I actually want you to listen to me.

I’m not mad.

= I am very mad but don’t know how to handle my emotions or conflict.

For intuitive and sensitive children, it creates a kind of spiritual injury when you can sense the truth in the room, when you can read the energy with your body, but you are told repeatedly that you are wrong. It causes microtraumas. It disconnects you from your intuition. My mother would often tell me she was “fine” when I could clearly feel that her entire nervous system was not fine. “Happy” when everything I could sense in her face and body contradicted that. I could feel the truth, but my truth was denied. This fractures children. And it doesn’t happen in a sudden, dramatic way. It is a slow, daily, invisible erasure of their inner knowing.

Most of the time, it isn’t malicious. Most people are so disconnected from themselves, so culturally conditioned to override their own inner signals, that they genuinely do not know what is happening in their own bodies. They learn the programming, and they repeat it.

But our children know. They come in connected, clear and wise. And we train them out of it. How can we stop this?

We have this cultural idea that it is the elders who hold the wisdom. And yes, those of us with lived experience on Earth do have one kind of wisdom. But it’s not the only kind. Many children come in with a knowing from somewhere else.

Maisa had this knowing. She knew things about justice. Sensitivity. Truth. How to treat others and work together. How to treat the earth. Things she did not learn in just the short time she was here. And she is not the only one.

When we gather in groups, around tables, living rooms, during holiday rituals, many of us will sit with children and young adults who are extraordinarily perceptive. Youth who feel and know the truth beneath the surface and in between the spaces. We may call them children or teens, but they are wise beings and we have a lot to learn from them. Let’s listen. Give them our heartfelt presence. Let them speak, but only if they feel ready. Don’t pressure them. Ask what they need, gently. Ask what they think the world needs. Be curious about their inner world. See them as equals, or guides. Because many of them are.

Consider what we might learn from them. Don’t try to mold them according to our expectations, but allow their knowing and clarity to soften and recalibrate us. We have so much to learn from them. This world needs a lot of help. And they might be the ones who can actually save it.

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Over the past two years I’ve met so many mothers whose brilliant, sensitive, intuitive children couldn’t stay. Mothers so much like me. With children so much like Maisa. They were pattern-recognizers, truth-tellers. Healers. Kids who gave away their birthday money and loved the earth, people and animals more than they felt loved in return. They saw too much and were told they were wrong. They had loving families, yet felt unseen and misunderstood outside of their homes. They could not envision a kinder future that included people like them.

I’ve spent most of my life feeling unseen and trying to translate myself for a world that doesn’t quite speak my language. It’s like living in a foreign country where you can kind of communicate to get your basic needs met, but it is exhausting to do so and you never fully belong. This is what autistic masking feels like: contorting yourself over and over just to be partially understood, while still being misread. It’s a hard way to live. We try so hard to understand everyone else, and to fit in, but it rarely feels like others are doing the same.

I have always known that change is an inside job. I have practiced this for decades and lived it as best I could, even prior to Maisa’s death. I have always tried to be kind and to meet the world with curiosity and grace. What’s changed over the past two years isn’t my awareness, it’s the depth of my embodiment. It’s the energy I am willing to put towards trying to get someone else to understand me. Grief has stripped away what was performative until only what was real could remain. It has resulted in several additional, painful losses, but left me with gifts of clarity and truth.

I used to believe words could fix things. If I could find the right argument, the right evidence, if I kept trying again and again, maybe people would finally understand, would see me. I even became a lawyer chasing that possibility. But no amount of explaining can fix a lack of curiosity. No words can make someone open when they’re not ready. Words alone can’t heal a nervous system that doesn’t feel safe.

So now my practice is simpler: to just focus on being what I was always trying to describe. To stop begging the world to change and keep embodying the kindness, curiosity, and unconditional love I once pleaded for. In the hope that I can create safety, first and foremost for myself, to feel, and then allow others to do the same. For it is in feeling everything that we find our true path to wholeness.

If you are someone who feels too much, who is tired from translating yourself, who wonders if you can survive the weight of feeling so much in a world that often refuses to feel, please know you’re not alone. I thought it would break me too. It hasn’t. Somewhere inside the devastation, the immense ache, through the ebb and flow of countless tears, I have been able to find a still center, like the eye of a hurricane, where love and peace live untouched. I believe you can find it, too.

Peace isn’t a single revelation. It’s the daily choice to stay open and curious, to find small and safe places to feel (next to a tree, an animal, or in the arms of your favorite human), to keep loving, and to surrender to the mystery, even when the world around you doesn’t seem to understand. Staying open, feeling the waves as they come, and continuing to love in spite of it all may be the most radical thing we can do.

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Parents who have lost children is a club that I wish had no members. I saw a post from a fellow child-loss Dad, who had been given a very cherished gift from his son. A simple but sweet coffee mug. Unfortunately, that cup tumbled from his grasp and shattered. With it the fragile veneer of OKness broke too. We pretend till we can’t, we erupt and quake until we don’t.

Every token gift, every art piece, photograph, and place you have gone with your child becomes sacred. But even sacred things and places follow the law. Laws of physics, gravity, and even entropy. The mug is a thing. And if it slips from your hands it accelerates toward earth following the laws. Things aren’t important, people are. But both can be broken, and even with the most meticulous level of kintsugi1, not all broken things are able to be made the same again. The thing becomes enmeshed with our memories, our feelings, and our hearts, but the physical state change permanently alters.

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Feelings are for Feeling

It is truly difficult to feel it all, or even a little bit of it some days. I appreciate everyone bringing Drew Petersen to Boise for his “Feel it all” screening. His calling, his raw and honest discussion on life, mental health challenges, hope, love, and the need for vulnerability is a state change that is so desperately needed. Clearly his story is evidence that we often climb the hardest mountains not because it’s fun, not because it feels good, and definitely not because you’re aiming to be liked, but because it needs to be climbed. Our soul needs to climb it. But also, that climbing the hill might not be enough. It might be a distraction from the change that is needed. The climb might be out of a sense of obligation, or a false sense of duty. We keep climbing because we are told that it is the path that society will reward you for climbing. Maybe it isn’t even the mountain we are meant to climb, maybe it is a path to a sense of achievement that we seek from others, and not one of fulfillment. It is very difficult in life to know when it is best to turn around from the hill we are climbing, and climb one more befitting of our own true selves.

The illuminated path of fulfillment is blocked by layered boulders of socially constructed “niceness.” Protected by institutional habits that defend the status quo, preserve funding streams, pathologize truth tellers, and silence the vulnerable. If you learned anything from Maisa, it’s that kindness doesn’t always come wrapped in sweet phrases or agreeable smiles. True kindness insists on truth, even when truth is the least agreeable guest at the table. Even with a healthy dose of snark. Kindness is often uncomfortable.

A little while back, I wrote about the lesson Maisa taught me about the difference between being nice and being kind in Follow the Money. “Nice” will keep things comfortable and compliant, but “kind” is willing to disrupt comfort for justice and change. Nice enables abusers and toxic systems. Institutions, especially government and public education, are notorious for wielding “nice” as a shield while simultaneously dodging hard conversations about disability, mental health, and institutional failures or crimes. The reflex seems to be to meet tragic loss with platitudes, memes, or silence. The price for that illusory comfort, too often, is paid in the currency of the suffering children who don’t fit the mold, or can’t keep up despite being told that they won’t be left behind. Worst of all, the price is paid not by those institutions that seek to cover totems of discomfort and failure in sand to avoid changing their default state. Just like the coffee mug must follow the law of physics on its path to the hard floor, I want our schools to follow the law that we have to guide our institutions to protect those that most need protecting. Change isn’t easy.

Using one Broken System to Kintsugi Another

It’s nice to have meetings, assemble committees, and post photos about “celebrating neurodiversity.” But real kindness means confronting the perverse monetary incentives, the budget-driven attendance formulas that push kids beyond their breaking point, and the deep-rooted aversion to identifying disabilities that don’t fit the budget. We have been marginalized, shunned, excluded and ignored. We have sent nice e-mails and letters. We have sent demand letters and requests for dispute resolution. They were all completely ignored.

Maisa’s sign as a Libra fits with her strong innate sense of justice. She often was seeking balance in the scales. I have a somewhat jaundiced eye toward litigation. It is difficult to cipher what can, and what cannot be fixed with litigation in the legal system. Filing a lawsuit isn’t “nice.” Litigation is agonizing. It is excruciatingly expensive, painful and retraumatizing. It means reliving every ignored warning, every unanswered cry for help, every bureaucratic sidestep. And there were a lot of them. Over many years.

A past version of myself, fresh from Twin Falls High School, was pretty decent at climbing hills. I decided to climb the hill all the way to law school at Duke, to keep climbing and climbing, but the bankruptcy lawyer suit never seemed to quite fit. I decided to make a change, and not practice law. I decided to go back to the farm, back to Idaho, to make farm loans. Maisa called me “Farmer Yams.” I surely had moments where I questioned the decision, the loan debt, and whether it was, in hindsight, a poor idea to have gone to law school. But I also knew it was my path, and that path is what led me here. To now. Maybe there were more reasons for me going to law school than I knew at the time. Perhaps it was to get me ready to climb another difficult hill.

If litigation is a hill, it is more like Mount Trashmore than Mount Justice. But sometimes it is the only path to use one broken system to try and reform another. The path toward justice, to change, to truth. That is why we decided, after much deliberation, soul searching, and research to pursue a lawsuit against the Boise School District and Idaho Department of Education. I wish it were different, but it appears that litigation is the only love language they are hearing right now. Our attempts to resolve our issues via other routes were completely ignored. I wish many things were different. I wish I had more help. If you are an attorney willing to help litigate, to advocate for the rights of disabled children, we would love the help. Just call for help right?

That’s why this federal complaint was filed; not as an act of grief or self-serving anger, but as an act of radical kindness and civil action to promote long overdue systemic change. The lawsuit screams in legal jargon, that the status quo is unacceptable. It harmed us, it continues to harm disabled and vulnerable children every moment until we collectively decide to make changes. It will take more than a t-shirt, a pithy sign filled with royalty puns to make this better. It takes all of us. To stop accepting the unacceptable so that we don’t have to bear the unbearable.

Hear thee, Hear thee the complaint alleges, in part

• Systematic and continuing refusal to identify, assess, or support disabled children, in direct violation of federal laws (Section 504, ADA, IDEA).

• Deliberate indifference from the school district and Idaho Department of Education toward students with disabilities and mental health needs, triggered by policies that punish the disabled and reward the compliant.

• Death, trauma, and exclusion are not each finite isolated tragedies, but are predictable outcomes of policies designed to maintain appearances and protect budgets.

• Destruction of records, silencing displays of grief, and retaliatory measures when families refuse to “play nice” and push for change.

It’s tempting to think that waving a protest sign, sending a heartfelt email, or posting a hashtag might break down institutional silos. Unfortunately, institutions have immune systems built to repel discomfort and insulate authority. The fight for kindness sometimes requires the sharp tool of litigation. Maybe we can use one branch of judicial power to force another branch to do what the legislative branch already has told it to do.

And let’s be clear, this isn’t war on teachers, staff, or even most administrators as individuals. They need more support too. The system itself, built around perverse incentives and survival reflexes, is what stands between our kids and the support they deserve. Litigation is the kind thing to do, not because it’s easy, but because it forces accountability, compels introspection, and rips off the bandage of denial. Lady justice is blind, but not powerless, and she stands as the legal right and obligation to seek accommodation for her, and our children’s disabilities. Sometimes the kindest act is to disrupt, to challenge, to speak truth to power, and to refuse to pretend. Sometimes the justice Maisa loved means stepping into the courtroom, not the principal’s office, because only then can institutions be forced to remember the children they left behind.

It’s past time for Idaho to be more kind and less nice, for the sake of every child who deserved more than just pretending, and every truth-teller who paid dearly for the privilege of refusing to shut up and sit down.

Call to action

If you are a litigator and willing to help, please reach out. If you know a litigator that is willing to help, please reach out. If you are a good communicator, good with media, or educating through social media we would love the support. Contact us through direct message or call 208 550 8216 and ask for farmer yams.

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The human mind likes to categorize things. This can be useful in that it can give us a language framework to help us understand something. However, when used for quick judgment and othering, labels can harm.

Take race for example. If you look into the history of how we have classified and sorted people, you will find that it is actually pretty racist. (I wrote an entire paper on this if you have insomnia. Look at p. 27 for the part on race history.)

Maisa referred to this kind of categorization as “stupid social constructs.” She had an uncanny ability to see right through the illusion, and she was not afraid to call out the nonsense.

So, let’s talk about autism. And the DSM. Otherwise known as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or the so-called Bible of Psychiatry.

Did you know that homosexuality was not removed from the DSM until 1973? And even after that they still included a diagnosis called “ego-dystonic homosexuality” for individuals distressed by their sexual orientation until 1987.

Who is “they”? The DSM is created by a taskforce of mental health experts and stakeholders. Who are these stakeholders?

My entire life I have been labeled, and not necessarily in ways that have helped me understand myself. I have been called many things: dramatic, sensitive, difficult, weird, depressed, anxious, treatment resistant, etc, etc, etc, etc. When trying to help my daughter I found descriptions of how autism presents in high masking females and it resonated with me. It explained things that I have been trying to make sense of my entire life. The label gave me language and a framework for understanding myself, my brain, and my struggles in a way that none of these other labels had and also gave me language to help her. This is why I identify with it and use it currently.

That being said, I am not overly attached to the label, as I think the system is completely flawed and broken. It is a word that I currently use because it is the best one I have for understanding my experience, and it gives me a current language framework for my advocacy. If I lived in the forest in a tribal community somewhere I most likely would not call myself autistic or AuDHD or whatever diagnostic label some other person gave me, I would just be ME. In other words, I would not be subjected to these “stupid social constructs.” Thank you, Maisa.

Now, when I hear many others (including our government officials) use the word autism it does not feel to me like they are using this word to understand anything or to truly help anyone. It feels like separation. It feels like categorization and hierarchical sorting. It feels like othering. It feels dehumanizing.

So I will ask you to please consider, when you see labels and when you use them: Who created this label and its definition? Who benefits from it and who doesn’t? Is this label being used as a tool or is it being used as a cage?

In my law journal paper linked above I was talking about diversity, and specifically diversity of thought. The need for variation in brains. Neurodiversity. When we talk about neurodiversity, I think it is important to talk about what it is exactly that we are diverging from? What is normal? And who gets to decide what is normal? Are our political leaders the definition of normal? Well then I will gladly deviate from that.

The truth is, we are all uniquely HUMAN. And we are all diverse. There is no normal, in my opinion. And the sooner we try to stop cramming (and medicating) each other into a false paradigm of normal that does not exist, the better off we will be. In most cases, it is not the individual that needs to change. It is the system that is pathologizing the individual.

Maisa saw what most of us forget: that humanity is meant to be diverse, not divided.

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We won’t lower deaths by suicide with catchy phrases, ribbons, or awareness months. We will do it by truly listening, shifting how we talk, dismantling harmful systems, and building communities where people don’t have to fight so hard to stay alive. Below are some of the ways current messaging misses the mark, and what we can do differently.

1. Oversimplifying the Causes

So much of the conversation frames suicide as if it’s caused by one thing: bullying, a breakup, job loss. Reality is far more complex. Suicide risk builds at the intersections of trauma, neurodivergence, systemic oppression, chronic stress, and environments that don’t meet our needs.

Instead: Acknowledge layered realities. Suicide is not just about “mental illness” or “depression.” It’s about cumulative trauma and exhaustion from trying to exist in systems that don’t fit. There is also a physiological component. Body and mind go together. The brain is an organ.

2. Harmful Language

We still hear phrases like “committed suicide,” language rooted in crime and sin. Or worse: people describing suicide as selfish, cowardly, or a choice. This doesn’t save lives; it drives silence and shame.

Instead: Use neutral, compassionate words: “died by suicide,” “died of suicide,” “suicide loss,” or “suicide death.” Normalize that suicide is a disease or a human response to unbearable pain, and not a conscious choice or moral failing.

3. Unrealistic Narratives of “Prevention”

“Just reach out.” That’s the line we’re given. But when someone is drowning in despair, the ability to reach out is often gone. Telling friends or family they’re responsible for “saving” a loved one is overwhelming, unrealistic and unfair.

Instead: Prevention should be a collective effort. Ask: How can we notice, adapt, and show up consistently so people don’t get to that edge alone? What societal systems may have led to this and how can we collectively work to change them? It’s about creating stronger safety nets, not placing impossible expectations on individuals.

4. Overemphasis on Crisis Hotlines

Hotlines can save some lives, but they aren’t a cure-all. Many can’t or won’t use them: autistic people who struggle with phone calls, minority groups who fear law enforcement ties, or anyone for whom talking to a stranger in crisis just doesn’t feel safe or accessible.

Instead: Offer multiple access points: text, chat, peer support, in-person or online safe and identity-affirming spaces. And remember: real prevention is the daily and proactive work of making entire communities safer and more inclusive, not just reacting in the moment of crisis.

5. Erasing Neurodiversity

One of the biggest blind spots in suicide prevention is neurodiversity. Autistic burnout, sensory overwhelm, and the crushing weight of masking are major risk factors, but often misread as depression or laziness. Parents may see a child collapse after school and assume defiance, when in fact it’s restraint collapse and nervous system exhaustion.

Instead: Teach the difference between autistic burnout and depression. Validate rest. If a kid spends the weekend in bed, it might be saving their life. Respect their needs instead of forcing constant productivity.

6. Alienating Survivors

Campaigns often center abstract “awareness” while erasing two critical groups: people who have survived attempts, and those grieving suicide loss. Both carry hard-earned wisdom about what helps and what harms.

Instead: Put lived experience voices at the center of prevention and awareness efforts. Survivors deserve more than silence and implicit judgment that harms; they deserve to shape the solutions.

7. Misuse of Statistics & Awareness Days

We see numbers everywhere: “X people die by suicide every year.” But without context, meaningful research, and action, stats can feel hollow. Awareness days and months too often turn into performative gestures instead of commitments.

Instead: Pair statistics with action steps. “Here are three things schools can do today, this week, and this year.” Make awareness months about building change, not just repeating numbers.

8. The One-Size-Fits-All Trap

Prevention messaging often assumes therapy, meds, or prayer is “the” answer. But healing is not linear and never one-size-fits-all. For many, what saves us isn’t clinical at all. They are the things that create a life worth living: friends, music, nature, places where we’re allowed to truly rest.

Instead: Offer a menu of supports: identity-affirming therapy, yes, but also rest, safe peer connection, body-based regulation, creative expression, cultural and spiritual practices. Healing is as diverse and unique as we are.

Suicide prevention is not a slogan. It’s not a single hotline number. It’s not a poster on a wall.

It’s the daily work of noticing. Of understanding and respecting differences. It’s the hard work of dismantling systems that harm. Of building communities where rest, curiosity, and creativity are honored, survival is not pathologized, and no one has to feel invisible. Of creating a world, together, where people want to stay.

That’s what actually saves lives.

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Of course I was also thinking about Maisa walking down those same stairs two years ago. I never imagined that her first day of eighth grade would be her last first day of school. We usually know what the first firsts are, but the last firsts? Those often slip past us.

I have seen many posts this week from other parents in similar positions sending off their seniors: many expressing gratitude and joy, and some expressing sadness. All feelings are valid. I do notice, however, that the meaning we attach to these moments can impact how we feel about them. If I tell myself that the passage of time means that I have missed something I might feel differently than if I tell myself I am grateful to be experiencing this or to have had the experience in the first place.

Because nothing is really certain except for this moment. Right now, I am sitting at my computer, typing these words. My body is heavy in the chair, and my breath is filling my lungs. I can feel the warmth of the tea in my mug. Outside, the sky is turning orange and purple as the sun sets.

This. This is presence. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. Not the moment I think I “should” be in, or how I wish it were. Just this one.

It’s easier said than done. I caught myself handing my son the sign saying “Last First Day” and snapping another photo as he rushed out the door so as not to miss it - and then, the moment was gone. What did the air feel like? How did he smell? I can’t tell you, but I have a photo.

We don’t teach our kids presence. My son’s high school has a five-minute passing period, three separate buildings, and a constant undercurrent of Hurry. Don’t be late. Don’t get a tardy. Presence in your seat is valued over presence in your body.

For some of us, especially those of us with neurodivergent brains, presence is complicated. We may time-travel constantly, ruminating about the past or scripting future conversations. We may fall so deeply into noticing details of a moment that the rest of the world disappears. Staying here takes practice. Especially when my mind constantly wants to visit the alternate universe where Maisa is still a teenager.

My friend phrased it well when she said Maisa *would* be starting her sophomore year if she were here in her body (as opposed to should be). While the human part of me very much aches and will always ache to have these earthly experiences with her, my soul knows there is something bigger happening. Maisa is still here, just not in a form I can hug or send off to school.

She lives on in:

• The teacher who quietly checks on the “perfect” student masking a firestorm inside.

• The friend who sits under a tree with another student who just wants to read at break.

• Her brother’s smile that lights up the entire classroom.

• The music that keeps playing.

• The art her friends create.

The truth is, last firsts are happening all the time. We only ever experience this moment once. And the only way to really experience the moment is, as Ram Dass said, to “Be Here Now.” Not just in the room physically, but by truly inhabiting our bodies via all of our human senses.

If you want to try it right now, take a minute or two and try what’s known as the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding method. Feel free to modify this in any way that works for you and your unique brain and body.

• Notice five things you can see.

• Four things you can feel.

• Three things you can hear.

• Two things you can smell.

• One thing you can taste.

That’s it. You’re here, present in your moment. It’s as simple as that! Every last first begins here, in the now.

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For those of you who know me personally, it may surprise you to hear me say that I often experience my AuDHD1 as disabling. I do an excellent job at hiding it (A+ masker! Like Daughter, Like Mother!). But not really. Because for decades I have sat in a therapist’s office trying to resolve “treatment resistant depression” or some other “disorder.” What no therapist was able to help identify for me (nor any neurologist that treated my migraines) is that what I was actually experiencing was autistic burnout. Due to masking. And sensory overload.

You may see me and think “She is fine. Look at her. She has a family. She is an attorney, a marathon runner or [fill in the blank with whatever external accomplishment you want to look at.]” And I will tell you that I almost killed myself doing these things. Many times. What you see on the outside is not what is happening on the inside. Please read that again.

It is true for me. It was certainly true for Maisa. I bet it is true for you - and every other human being fumbling their way around on this planet. We don’t know what anyone else is dealing with. So can we please stop making assumptions about someone’s internal world based on what we can observe on the outside? Can we be more curious about each other’s internal experiences?

Assumptions are killing people. Maisa is proof of that.

I share my experiences so that others might gain insight, a new perspective, or perhaps feel less alone. I share my experiences in the hope that it might save lives.

For as long as I can remember, I have had a fragrance sensitivity. I am extremely sensitive to perfumes, cologne, and synthetic fragrances. The worst offenders seem to be fragranced laundry detergent, fabric softener and dryer sheets. If you use it, I can smell it. Fragranced laundry fumes emanating from a dryer during a run can trigger instant nausea. It can cause a migraine that will last for days.

I have seen neurologists for my migraines for almost 30 years. At every appointment I talk about how these scents cause migraines for me. And at every appointment the doctors will ask me if I have tried eliminating certain foods from my diet. I have felt invalidated, gaslit and dismissed by every doctor with whom I have tried to discuss this connection between scent and migraine.

A quick Google search just now revealed this study from 2018 about fragranced products and autism. The study found that “autistic individuals are profoundly, adversely, and disproportionately affected by exposure to fragranced consumer products.” Included in the health problems caused are migraines. There are many studies showing a link between autism and migraine. There are also many other co-occurring medical conditions that are common with AuDHD, and yet most doctors don’t seem to recognize these patterns.

Now that I understand this (no thanks to the many doctors and therapists I have paid), I can confidently say that most of my migraines are caused by sensory overwhelm, not food. I am sensitive to fragrance, that is a huge trigger, which I already knew, but my sensitivity is compounded by other things - like light, noise, and stress. This explains why I get so many migraines when traveling. So many different and overwhelming environments. Now that I know this, I can try to reduce as much sensory input as possible. I use noise canceling headphones, Vicks VapoRub, I wear a mask if there is fragrance around me, and I wear sunglasses, even indoors sometimes. Even in a world that doesn’t typically accommodate these needs, I can still do small things to try to accommodate myself.

However, this is invisible work. Invisible self-accommodations for an invisible disability. The same disability that contributed to my daughter’s death. Ideally, I would live in a world that was more understanding, accepting and accommodating.

And I could. With some curiosity. And three words.

I have emailed hotels and Airbnbs to ask about fragrances. I have gotten some kind responses and some dismissive responses. Recently a potential host responded with a sentence that started with “Can you help me understand…?” He probably didn’t get why I was asking the questions that I was asking. But he didn’t ignore me or dismiss me as a potential high maintenance guest either. He was curious. Kind. And that made all the difference in the world. Just three words.

Help me understand.

So the next time you find yourself starting to feel confused, perhaps defensive or irritated. Maybe you see a behavior or receive a request that doesn’t make sense on the surface. Instead of making assumptions, I invite you to dig deeper. To see if you might find room for these three words also. Help me understand. They foster connection, learning, and growth. Something this world could use a lot more of.

What does this phrase mean to you? I invite you to pause and check in with yourself. When was the last time you said those words? What were you really feeling underneath them?

I’ve been thinking about what the phrase “I’m spiraling” generally means in the English language versus what the spiral means in nature or spiritually.

When we say “I’m spiraling” to each other, it’s generally not a good thing. It means my mind is spinning. It connotes anxious thoughts, looping, loss of control.

In nature and sacred geometry however, a spiral is associated with growth, expansion, and the interconnectedness of all things. Nature is not afraid to lose control. Nature is messy. Nature is not afraid of death, rebirth, or cycles. Nature knows that progress is not linear. It turns out that we can learn a lot from nature. We are nature too. Like the seasons, we contract and expand. Like the moon, we wax and wane. We are allowed to fall apart and come back together again. The spiral reminds us there’s no shame in returning to the same place again and again with deeper wisdom and embodiment.

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These aren't just abstract ideas to me. The spiral lives in my real life, in my memories, and in the way my daughter still speaks to me across the veil. Maisa loved talking about the Fibonacci sequence and would often entertain herself (and us) in the car by reciting a long string of it. She had a beautiful blue spiral glass necklace that we purchased at our local Art in the Park right after my second cancer surgery in 2022. She wore it most days until it broke towards the end of her life. She left it on her dresser, and when I held it again I could feel its energetic significance. It felt like both an ending and a beginning. I recently found the artist who made it and purchased a replica for myself.

I wore it on a recent multi-day hike where I was able to connect with nature, with Maisa, with parts of myself and something greater. Spiraling. Descending in order to ascend. Grief is a spiral too. Just when you think you’ve healed something, you loop back. But you’re not in the same place. You’re deeper, softer, wiser. We live in a world that tends to teach us that progress is linear. Go to school. Go to college. Get a job. Get 2.5 kids and a house in the suburbs. Live happily ever after. Retire. It doesn’t work that way. We have been sold a linear lie. One that has asked us to disconnect from our inner wisdom in order to become something else for someone else.

Maisa sends me messages in various ways. Through signs, music, people, and nature. She’s very creative. Several months ago, I received a detailed message about a snail. A spiral. The snail is fine on its own. It carries its home on its back. Like a backpack. It has everything it needs. It moves slowly, deliberately. It teaches us that we don’t have to rush to arrive. We just have to be. In this moment. The snail shows us that our pace is just right. That we are already whole, just as we are.

I see a lot of slugs around our house (and Maisa loved to pick those up!), but I don’t see a lot of snails in their shells. On the last day of my hike, in the last couple of miles, there it was. The snail. The one I had received the message about several months earlier. Parked there on a tree. If I had been rushing, if I had not been honoring my own pace, I might have missed it. It was just sitting there in the sun. Enjoying the tree and the beauty of the forest. Spiraling. Reminding me. I am here. You are here. Right where you are supposed to be. We have everything we need. Here. Within us. Around us. You are enough. Right now. Always. Spiraling.

So yes, I’m spiraling. But I am not falling apart. I am not constricting. I am circling back to myself. I am expanding. I am healing in waves, not lines. I am remembering that what looks like chaos is actually a pattern.

I’m spiraling.

Not punny at all. Anyways, a somewhat nontraditional post about an upcoming camping trip in Southeastern Idaho and a thank you to all the lovely people that follow our story and Maisa…..

Join Us for a Special Camping Trip Honoring Maisa and Maisa Space!

Let's gather under the stars to celebrate and remember Maisa or just commune with the dirt!

We've reserved a fantastic group campsite (we think it is fantastic, but actually haven’t been there) at the beautiful East Shore Mountain Fawn Campground (Site #101) on the stunning shores of Bear Lake, and we'd love for you to be there. Or not. We love you either way.

Where: East Shore Mountain Fawn Campground, Site #101 Bear Lake State Park, Idaho

This will be a wonderful opportunity to connect, share stories, see stars, enjoy the great outdoors, and honor the spirit of Maisa and the community fostered by Maisa Space. Imagine lakeside views, evenings around the campfire, and creating new memories together (or alone).

Campsite Details: Our group site, #101, offers a great base for our gathering. The campground typically provides amenities such as restrooms, picnic tables, and fire rings. We have room for a few more RV’s and around 9 vehicles at this group site for tent camping.

What to Bring: Please come prepared with your own camping gear (tent, sleeping bag, etc.), food, and personal supplies. Though we might have a few extra items. We encourage a collaborative spirit, so feel free to coordinate with others on shared items if you wish!

RSVP: Kindly let us know if you can make it by so we can get a headcount and share any further details or coordination plans. You can reply to this invitation or contact here on Substack. Or let us know that you are thinking about it.

We anticipate a weekend filled with warmth, remembrance, and the joy of community in a beautiful natural setting. Come for a night or the whole time. Or just think about Maisa. That is cool too.

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Maisa would tease me for my job, and connection to the world of agricultural finance. She would call me farmer Yams, and loved that I had this weird background where I know a few things about farming, having grown up on a farm. My Dad was the citizen farmer and rancher in the family. We joked that he was born a 100 years too late. Here he is checking out the cows with Conor and Maisa. I remember how funny he thought it was that the kids had stepped in cow pies and how surprised Samia would be. Cow pies are an occupational hazard on the farm, which is why it is nice to have a shower a few steps from the door.

The funny thing (probably only to me) is that before ai was universally accepted as short for artificial intelligence, it was something different in the agricultural world, artificial insemination. An ai guy in agriculture is a different job entirely. We humans have been trying to eek out a few more efficiencies since Norman Bourlag set off the green revolution. Natural vs Artificial will always be a heated debate, but the hand of natural selection can be really cruel as well. As science fiction becomes science, we struggle to balance the moral, ethical and societal implications of these advancements. Whether it is ai or farmer ai.

Institutions also have a form of institutional Darwinism. They grow and grow and end up with many of their own maladaptive parts and mutations. How to reform and remake these? From my last post 127 hours, it is clear that our systems can and should do a better job helping those in mental health distress and those at obvious risk of mental health distress. Institutional evolution has become bloated, maladaptive to those it is intended to help, and in need of some reformation that would make Martin Luther blush.

To ignore an IDEA

Many parents don’t know about IDEA, or the duties that schools have to find, assess, and accommodate school age children with disabilities. Some parents have to go to war with the schools to try and get their kids properly assessed, and accommodated. The process grinds on for years and even if the parents “win”, they still lose. They lose time. Years of time for their child in their formative years. And the kids accumulate damage the whole way through. These hurts are often psychic. Out of sight and out of mind. Or at least out of the mind of the schools. Schools aren’t monolithic. They are an amalgamation of the many who do an absolutely amazing job for kids under their purview. But I bet many feel they have to fight the system in order to so.

This treatment is in abrogation of legal duties that school systems have to children in their district. IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) mandates schools identify, locate, and evaluate all children with disabilities from birth to age 21 who are in need of special education and related services. An example is that it is possible to be both gifted and disabled or what is often termed as “twice-exceptional.” Twice exceptional (2e) children are those who are considered “gifted or talented” in one or more areas while simultaneously having one or more learning disabilities, ADHD, autism, emotional or behavioral issues, or other disabilities. Samia wrote beautifully about the curses of so called “giftedness.”

Luckily Idaho State Department of Education recently revised their special education manual. The previous versions of the manual helpfully, but poorly define twice exceptional as the following:

Which even if poorly defined, it might still be useful if they ever provided a morsel of guidance in how to identify, accommodate, support twice-exceptional kids in the manual. A simple word search indicates that the term is only defined, and never used again. Helpful! The state department of education refused to fix any of this, or even typos, when I brought it to their attention. Good thing they are setting standards for what our children should learn in school.

Schools have a Legal Duty to “Child Find”

Identification:

• School’s ‘Child Find’ responsibility under IDEA is an affirmative mandate for schools to identify all children with disability, including twice-exceptional students by identifying, accommodating and recognizing both their giftedness and their disability.

• I have seen principals and administrators and others argue that it is not applicable, but it is actually settled that they have this affirmative duty.

  • The OSEP Memo 15-08, referencing the Letter to Delisle (December 20, 2013), emphasizes that IDEA requires local educational agencies (LEAs) to evaluate all children suspected of having a disability, including those with high cognition (2e students), as outlined in 34 CFR §300.8. This includes children with specific learning disabilities, emotional disturbance, or other mental health conditions, regardless of their intellectual gifts. Don’t take my word for it, read the letter from the US Dept. of Education here.

I suppose that the Idaho Dept. of Education and school districts could plead ignorance. Which is difficult to plead as the letter went out to them all. Their ability to plead ignorance evaporates with the fact that the Idaho Department of Education wrote an entire manual on the importance of identifying and supporting 2e kids in Idaho. Even has Tom Luna’s name on it.

Here is the original manual in the dustbin of historical special education half measures. Writing it and following it are not the same. This 2e specific manual has a much better definition of 2e.

It often appears to me that school districts perversely focus more on which ribbon of the month they should bandy around for the perception of caring, rather than waste a scintilla of energy actually doing what they are supposed to do. Token gestures are cheaper than actions I guess. Cheaper, for them, not for my family or other families predictably being harmed by their willful disregard and blind indifference for the law. What I have painfully realized is that they aren’t going to listen to me or my wife. No matter how persuasively and diligently we advocate for our kids. They will only listen if we channel our inner Hooville and harmonize our voices so that our children’s needs can not be ignored.

Time to AI an Idea

Grok is a bunch of Nvidia chips sitting in a warehouse in Memphis Tennessee that have linked up in a hive mind. Trained on the same information available to us, yet perhaps, better at synthesizing it without ego interfering, I often feel more empathy care and support from this amalgamation of silicon, copper, and metal than I do from the institutions that are ostensibly there to help. Maybe rather than trying to weaponize an ai bot to harangue parents and children over their attendance, they should use these tools to ask some questions about IDEA, ADA (“American with Disabilities Act”), child find, autism, special education. Really anything. I am using some of these tools to do legal research, as there comes a time when the only way to enact change in the school system is to litigate. They say justice is blind, but of course that would probably be a disability they would also find a way to ignore.

Child Find to Prevent Another Lost Generation

School districts have an affirmative duty under federal law to “child find.” This duty would entail a comprehensive assessment of a child in the full range of disability. This duty is affirmatively on the school districts, whether or not parents raise formal concerns or ask for a comprehensive assessment for disabilities. It makes sense that the affirmative duty is on the schools as schools should be the experts and are obviously in the best position to recognize disability in the children under their purview. It is also obvious that they are failing this duty. So, if you have any concerns over your children, formally raise them with a written letter. I had Grok assist me. If any parents have gone through the process, please let us know how to make it better and more effective.

Below is a letter (or email) template can be adapted to your specific situation. It incorporates the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) Child Find mandate and emphasizes the risks of failing to identify and support a child with a disability. If I get 5 shares of this post we will put the form letter on our webpage for people to use. Let’s see who is better at coordinating. Nvidia servers or us?

This has been a rough week for the autistic community. A prominent government official made the claim yesterday that autism destroys families and perpetuated the false myth that autism is a disease which needs to be cured. Autism is not a disease. Autism is a neurological condition. This kind of rhetoric is dangerous and is the exact thing that fuels the systemic ignorance and ableism that failed Maisa, that failed me, that destroyed our family and many others.

Perhaps even more insidious is the implication that our government believes that an individual citizen’s value is directly tied to that individual’s productivity.1

The government is basically pointing a grim reaper finger at disabled and vulnerable populations and calling them a burden on society. This has profound negative impacts, as it contributes to a thwarted sense of belongingness.2 Maisa felt this very acutely. And it is part of the reason she is not here. From an early age, she learned that the public school system (which last time I checked is part of the government machine) wanted her to achieve, achieve, achieve—even if it meant doing so at the expense of her mental health.

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I have a stack of emails about two inches thick of correspondence to her schools throughout the entirety of her academic career trying to support her social and emotional needs. She constantly struggled to fit in, a hallmark trait of autism, but because she excelled academically and was not “disruptive,” her social and emotional needs were not supported. It was not the autism that was destructive (or social anxiety as they mislabeled it), it was the ignorance. It was the lack of support. It was the refusal of a system to believe that a girl who gets As might actually be self destructing in order to get those As. It is a culture that puts success and achievement before well being. It is a system that pretends to care while its actions show the opposite. It says it cares with its words, but in reality requires our neurodivergent kids to ignore their pain.

Just this week I received an email from my child’s school that was inaccessible to me due to its visual presentation. I asked to receive the information in a different way. I have not received a response. The kids at school were also told this week that if they exceeded a certain number of absences they would be required to write an appeal in order to receive class credit—regardless of whether they have completed their work in the class. Funding is tied to attendance. The system is not built for accommodation or understanding. It is a machine, and one that is fueled by both covert and overt ableism. Ableism destroys families. Autism does not.

It is not autism that needs curing. It is ableism. It is the system that pathologizes and criminalizes distress or sensory needs. That dehumanizes and incarcerates people instead of offering compassion and healing. It’s a society that treats autistic people as burdens instead of human beings with sacred ways of being.

This is not about RFK Jr. While his words were harmful and ignorant, he is not the source of the problem—he is a mirror of it. These ideas did not start with him. They are symptoms of a system that fears difference, suppresses discomfort, demands conformity, and dehumanizes the “other.” Whether it’s RFK, Trump, or anyone else in the spotlight, focusing only on the individual keeps us from seeing the machinery behind the message. We all swim in these waters. And we all—especially those of us who know better—have a responsibility to call out the deeper current. And then to correct it.

The cure is a radical culture shift. The cure is in dismantling systems and ways of being that do not work for a majority of the population. The cure is in challenging beliefs, listening to lived experiences, accommodating needs and believing people. The cure is in how we care for each other—and that starts with how we care for ourselves. When we adopt the belief that our worth is tied to productivity, nobody wins. Every human being is inherently worthy. Maisa will never hold a job, and she will never pay taxes—but her contributions to the world and her life matter, and will continue to matter deeply.

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Charles Trepany from USA Today wrote this recent article that highlights some of our struggles in trying to find help for Maisa. If you haven’t read it, it would mean a lot if you did — and even more if you shared it. Because, heartbreakingly, our story isn’t rare. Many autistic kids and adults are in crisis. Not only are systems unequipped to care for us, we are too often dismissed, misdiagnosed, and gaslit. There’s a massive gap in both research and understanding. And that gap is costing lives.

After Maisa’s suicide attempt, James and I spent every spare moment researching — trying to make sense of what happened and how to help our child. James uncovered research showing a strong link between autism/ADHD (particularly in people without intellectual disabilities) and suicide. We brought that research, and our theories, to multiple mental health professionals. I discussed it with my own therapist. Instead of being met with curiosity, we were ignored, dismissed, or worse, told that no such link existed. This happened even when we handed over peer-reviewed studies. To be met with that kind of denial from professionals who claim to value open-mindedness, professionals who preach curiosity, was infuriating. Devastating. Deadly.

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In June 2023, I read Unmasking Autism by Devon Price. It was a lightbulb moment. I didn’t just see Maisa in those pages, I saw myself. Social anxiety? Check. Preference for predictable environments? Check. Highly educated but often feels like a social chameleon? Difficulty knowing when to speak in groups? Trouble disagreeing in real time? Passionate but shy? Check, check, check. And that was before I even got to the sensory profiles or compensatory behaviors used to survive in a neurotypical world.

I brought all of this to the therapist I’d been seeing for years. She chuckled incredulously. “You? Autistic? ADHD?” Even after I received a formal AuDHD diagnosis (many months after Maisa’s death) she did not include it in my chart.

I’ve been engaged with the mental health system since I was 16. I’ve been pathologized, medicated, and labeled “treatment-resistant” when medications failed — because no one considered the possibility that I was simply wired differently. I’ve been judged by how I present on the outside, while my internal experience was ignored or minimized because it didn’t fit into the expected paradigm. Ironically, my ability to “function” has often made it harder for people to believe how much I’ve struggled, or how deeply Maisa struggled. The human mind wants things to fit neatly into boxes. But we don’t.

I’m not telling this story for pity. I’m telling it because I believe Maisa would want for us to speak out. To be catalysts for change. To shine light in the places where ignorance still causes harm. When people, especially professionals, refuse to question what they think they know, when curiosity is replaced with certainty, people suffer. People die.

If you hold fixed ideas about what autism is, I implore you: listen to autistic people. Really listen. Ask questions with genuine curiosity. Because I have questions, too — questions we all need to be asking:

• Why are we still framing autism as a deficit or “disorder” rather than a difference?

• Why are we using functioning labels without understanding the immense internal cost of “functioning”?

• Why are so many people only being identified once they reach complete burnout?

• What would our world look like if all kids were taught about neurodiversity from an early age — different brains, different ways of communicating, different sensory needs?

Everything I share comes from lived experience and research — and both should count for something. Of course, not every autistic or ADHD person will share my experience. We are not a monolith. But our stories matter. They must be part of the discussion.

And so must the truth that the research itself is evolving. For years, women and minorities have been excluded. Until 2013, autism and ADHD couldn’t even be diagnosed together. Asperger’s was a separate diagnosis. What we’re calling autism today is complex, multifaceted, and still being defined. In my opinion — and the opinion of many others — AuDHD (autism + ADHD) is its own distinct neurotype.

If you think you know what autism looks like, and you haven’t recently had a compassionate, open-hearted conversation with someone who actually lives it — I promise you, it’s not what you think it is. And those of us who appear to be “fine” may be the ones struggling the most in a world not designed for us.

We will keep telling our truth, even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard. Because change doesn’t happen in silence. It happens when we dare to question, when we listen deeply, when we speak even if our voices shake. Whether you’re a parent, a professional, someone navigating your own neurodivergence, or a fellow human being on this journey, I invite you to stay curious. Keep questioning. Keep learning. Keep listening. And most of all, keep telling your story.

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Virginia men’s basketball Coach Tony Bennett1 quoted the above after Virginia was the first number 1 seed to lose to a 16 seed in the 2018 men’s NCAA basketball tournament.

The quote is from Donald Davis’ Ted Talk entitled “How the story transforms the teller.” Tony Bennett played it for his team before they started practicing prior to the 2018-2019 season. It helped inspire their 2019 NCAA tournament redemption championship run. I highly recommend that you take the 20 minutes to watch this Ted Talk.2

A good friend of mine reminded me of this quote after my cancer diagnosis in 2022. It turns out that many of the things that Tony Bennett said apply not just to basketball, but to life. A good sports coach is often better than any life coach or therapist.

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I have this quote about adversity sitting to my left as I type. Like many things that Coach Tony Bennett said (or quoted), this wisdom has evolved over time for me. I look at these words frequently, and I think about the importance of telling my story, of Maisa’s story, and how I relate to the things that have happened in my life. When I heard Tony Bennett quote this I never thought I would be applying it to a cancer diagnosis or the traumatic death of my daughter. This was definitely not the type of adversity I was considering when I first heard these words.

We don’t get to choose the adversity we are given. If I have learned anything over the past three years it is that we have control of so very little in life. One thing we do have control over, however, is our response. How we tell our stories, and how we move forward.

For much of my life I attempted to tell my story to people who were not interested in hearing it. I tried in vain to convince people of things, failing to realize that that is not the point. As Mr. Davis points out, the story is not for others. The story is to transform the teller. “You are not telling the story to change what happened. You are telling the story to change you.”

Who are you in your story? Are you the perpetrator? The victim? The hero? A human navigating this wild and crazy human experience? A fractal of the divine learning how to embody unconditional love? Maybe we are all of it. Who do you want to be in your story? We all have a story to tell, and how we tell it matters. It shapes how we relate to what happened to us and who we become moving forward. It is through the process of telling the story that we can become who we are meant to be.

If we let it, the storytelling can be part of the metamorphosis, the transformation, a rebirth of sorts. Through telling our story, we can alchemize what has happened to us. We can make ourselves the hero in our own story, if we choose.

Maisa understood the need to be the hero in her story. So did Virginia basketball player Kyle Guy, one of the heroes of the 2019 Virginia basketball team. For those of you who are not Virginia basketball fans, I will give you a very brief summary.3

Kyle Guy was on the 2018 Virginia basketball team that lost as a number 1 seed to a 16 seed. In the 2019 tournament it looked like that might happen again. Virginia was down at half time, again as a number 1 seed to a 16 seed. Fortunately (for us), we came back in the second half and won. We made it to the Final Four that year for the first time since 1984. Tasked with making the game winning free throws in front of a crowd of 70,000+ to send his team to the championship game for the first time ever, Kyle Guy - a kid with a history of anxiety - told himself, “It doesn’t end this way.” He made all three free throws that night, and we went on to win our first ever men’s NCAA basketball national championship title in overtime two nights later.

We were lucky to see those Final Four games in person - at least, I thought so. Maisa, who did not like crowds at all, proudly wore my Virginia flag around Minneapolis like a cape. Perhaps she thought if she presented herself as a hero among the crowds she would become one. Even in difficult moments she carried herself with quiet strength and power. Maybe something in her already knew that she is a hero, as she continues to teach us about the importance of listening to each other, of learning from each other, of considering perceptions that are different, and of telling our stories. It doesn’t end this way.

With the 8 billion plus people on the planet, someone else probably needs to hear your story too, whether you tell it through writing, art, movement, music, words around a campfire or some other way. What are you waiting for? Maybe it’s messy, half finished, still in progress? Tell it anyway. Tell it now. Your story isn't just for you. Someone else out there needs it. And maybe, just maybe, telling your story will take you to a place you couldn’t have gone any other way.

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I also think we can intuitively understand not all time is experienced the same. Our perception of time also depends on how we move through mind space and the gravity of our situation. 127 Hours is 5.291666 earth revolutions or basically a school or work week. Most work/school weeks move both fast and slow at times. We get bored, or engaged and time slows down or speeds up. In fact, time blindness can be a trait of neurodivergence1.

We also perceive time differently when we are faced with heavy gravity, life situations that force us to confront tragedy, mortality, or other calamity. That said, I think many of us lionize or are drawn to stories where someone has managed to overcome something truly difficult and found a way to persevere and survive. We are all suckers for movies where people have to overcome that which we don’t really want to imagine. Unbroken, Sully, or of course the movie 127 Hours. 127 Hours is a grizzly tale with James Franco playing Aron Ralston, the real life outdoors aficionado, as he embarks on a solo canyoneering trip in Bluejohn Canyon.

Whilst navigating a narrow slot canyon, he is pinned down with a boulder that traps his right arm, leaving him trapped with limited supplies and little hope of outside rescue. He didn’t tell anyone on grid what his plan was or where he was hiking. Having an outsider discover his predicament was a slim chance at best, and slim just left town. Over 127 hours Aron Ralston battles dehydration, exhaustion, hallucinations and despair, recording his thoughts on a camcorder and reflecting on his life and his future dreams. Time was stretched. He must have felt he lived and suffered for an eternity in those 127 hours.

Facing imminent death, he had a vision where he saw his future self rushing to pick up his blond haired son with one arm, his other hand gone. This premonition of a son not yet born, not yet conceived inspired him to keep going through hell. To keep going through hell so that he doesn’t become Ralston Purina chow. To keep going through hell to try and fulfill his vision. He ultimately makes the harrowing decision to break and amputate his own arm with a dull multi-tool to free himself from his rock that was too heavy to move2. Aron Ralston made mistakes that he had to live (or die) with, he didn’t tell anyone where he was planning on going and when he was expected back. There was no 911. His only way out of that slot canyon was self rescue. He climbed out and stumbled through the landscape until he found someone that could get him help. Aron survived, but clearly for him, he was never the same. The pain, transcendence and loss, clearly etched onto his soul. He emerged on a different timeline than the society that he disembarked from 127 hours earlier.

His vision came true. Seven years later, he welcomed a son into this world. Lost an arm, gained a child. Who wouldn’t make that trade? An older version of myself would have just assumed that his vision was a coincidence. Now I am unsure, how many coincidences does it take to believe in more?

Uncivilization

If Aron Ralston were injured with a broken arm closer to civilization, 911 would call in a cavalry of paramedics, an ambulance, and he would be rushed to a comprehensive team of specialists for healing. An emergency team of health professionals ready to triage the situation would be at the ready to stabilize him and draft a comprehensive plan to get him to the required specialists. Unfortunately he was trapped in a slot canyon. The only way out of that slot canyon was through hell and through pain gnawing at hope relentlessly. And hope of a rescue, quickly morphs to despair with every atomic tick of the clock.

What if I told you right now, there are so many kids and adults that are stuck in a situation every bit as deadly as Aron Ralston’s. Proverbially, pinned between a large rock and a slot canyon. Mental illness can entomb someone in a slot canyon of the mind, and similarly to Aron, the only chance for rescue is through pain and hell and to proverbially crawl to seek “help.” But in that way it is worse. Mental illness isn’t treated as an emergency, there isn’t a triage team to stabilize and support. There is no comprehensive team of medical specialists looking at mind, body and environment. The tools to treat mental illness are as rudimentary as the multitool that Aron had to use to unentomb himself. This slot canyon of the mind is ethereal. It can’t be seen, or measured, as easily as broken bones and lacerations. Those struggling often get turned away, deemed not a real emergency, put on exhaustive waiting lists, and never comprehensively assessed. They often get “treatments” that may, in fact, be harmful to them. Mental illness doesn’t respect time. Mental illness isn’t polite to take a break after 5pm and on weekends.

Compare the steps required for a sick person told to call 988 to what happens when someone calls 911 in a physical accident. The mental trauma victim often must make their own doctors appointments, navigate sensory and communication challenges, self advocate through gas lighting, and relentlessly absorb additional medical trauma. They need to keep doing their job, keep going to school. Navigate the cold indifference of The SYSTEM which has lost all ability to empathize. The SYSTEM will perhaps “see you,” if you have the right insurance and the stamina and executive functioning to fill out 17 different questionnaires. The SYSTEM basically asks, just like for Aron Ralston, to get help first you must drink your own urine and saw off your arm. To “self-rescue” requires the ability to navigate a byzantine maze of phone trees, insurance fights, referrals to nowhere and superficial advice. The gravity of mental illness is immense, and time stretches around the blackhole in The SYSTEM until it runs out.

How do we make things better? How do we better help those at risk and in crisis? I think it will take all of us to fix these systems, to demand better, to demand more. To demand more from medicine, law and education. As an example, what can schools do? What should they be doing? What can we do to advocate for our kids and the kids of others? How do we advocate for The SYSTEM to find children at risk that need support. How do we get The SYSTEM, to help children understand that there are brain differences that make us all part of the human continuum. Do we fight, fawn or flight? I struggle with this question a lot. In future posts, I will beg, plead and cajole for change in The SYSTEM because that is the kind thing to do.

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Similar to Samia in her post Role Reversal below, I distinctly feel that Maisa is as much a teacher to me as I ever was to her.

One such lesson became readily apparent when she taught me the difference between being nice and being kind. Nice is often packaged, wrapped in inane catchphrases, and meant to follow the social norms that are expected and spoon fed from our earliest times. It is often the social construct of pretending. Pretending to care, and at times pretending not to care. Being nice can stop nascent truths. Telling truth to power structures is considered rude, frustrating behavior. And telling truths can come at a high price, social slashing, public reprimands, ostracization and condescension. That is an important difference between kindness and being nice.

Fighting for kindness is going to look distinctly not nice at times. It is going to come with a strong sense of justice and often at a high price for the truth teller. Is it nice to punish those that are trying to tell the truth or at least a truth? Life was never all rainbows and unicorns for me and it is clear that it never be all rainbows and unicorns for anyone near the epicenter of losing Maisa. Her life, her charm, soul and presence will always be felt and always be missed by us, her siblings and friends. This loss resonates forward in time, cheating all who would have known her, all those that are worse off for never meeting Maisa on this timeline. I suppose I could pretend to not be angry. I reckon I could pretend not to see all the institutions that are failing us and our kids, in order to be nice. But I guess this is me saying a truth. I don’t think I can pretend. I can both want to reach a higher road of love and light, and also feel compelled to seek truth, purpose and to right wrongs. Maisa, my most cherished lefty, loved the saying that two wrongs don’t make a right, but three lefts do. I hope that when I meet these “wrongs,” I will advocate for the first left turn, because pretending they don’t exist is as terrible as pretending that Maisa didn’t and doesn’t exist.

Institutional Immune Systems

Before I get into it, I find that I might need to highlight a pattern that needs to be recognized. Criticizing an institution isn’t the same as criticizing all the constituent parts of the institution. Our institutions aren’t monolithic, but often have many parts that are even often in conflict with each other. Similarly our human bodies, we are made up of different cells, bacteria, that all are doing their own jobs, and yet, also make up the whole. Mirroring our body’s immune system, institutions have their own immune system that can react (and at times overreact) to anything perceived to be a threat. It takes a lot of coordination and purpose to overcome this institutional immune response. This difficulty is ever present, and can resist even when most all of the constituents agree that 1) there is a problem and 2) that a change is required. The institutional immune system protects the status quo by digging in faster than a clam at the beach.

As an example, criticizing school policies is not a full frontal attack on public schools or teachers. It is possible that the current educational paradigm works well for Jack, but is terrible for Jill. The criticism doesn’t make Jill or Jack necessarily wrong, but only implies that they have different needs and perspectives. I believe that many have the perspective that the current system is not working particularly well. And yet it is difficult to hold up an institution to introspection. Often we are simply arguing over which is the cause and which is the effect of a problem. Challengers to the institutional status quo are often treated as heretics, and it often takes heretics to change the status quo. The kind thing is to recognize the problem and seek change, even if the change doesn’t feel nice.

The Law of Unintended Consequences

So many things in our environment don’t make sense to me. How can teachers have to beg to get hand sanitizer for their classrooms and yet we close everything during the pandemic? Why is it so difficult to get schools to follow the law to properly assess and accommodate children for disabilities, anxiety, or severe emotional disturbances? Why do so many kids with challenges and support needs get pushed out to homeschool or forcefully nudged to find private education rather than offered support? Sometimes when I ask why, I hear my father’s voice ringing out, “Follow the money, you won’t often be wrong.” Maisa, a Libra with her strong sense of justice, loved scales. Both scales of justice and reptiles1.

I have become increasingly frustrated with the dichotomy of schools simultaneously pushing for attendance compliance and similarly signaling concern over our kids mental and physical health. Aren’t these two mandates often in opposition? How might showering praise with perfect attendance awards, praise for the grind mindset and broadcasting explicit and implicit signals and threats regarding attendance compliance and repercussions be internalized? Ignore your pain, ignore your anxiety, ignore your illness. Show up or else. Or else, we might, in our sole discretion, fail your child and they will never be able to go to college. Your stomach pain and your virus isn’t real, and don’t even try using “anxiety” as an excuse. Only doctor sanctioned illness is real and only if you remember to get a note. And please donate hand sanitizer and get your vaccines because there is a lot of RSV/flu/covid/pertussis and something we can only call the COUGH going around. But your attendance is mandatory unless you have the executive functioning and the proper health insurance to get the proper NOTE.

The email from Boise High set me off. When I asked for a sherpa to help carry me and illuminate my path, this is not what I intended.

Our kids get constantly told to not use AI, get told to ignore the transformational technology that will clearly be part of almost any future job description. They get chastised for showing curiosity in what is becoming the world’s greatest teacher. They get chastised to only have the school subscribe to a service that will use AI to automatically harass parents. Why? Oh yeah, follow the money. I can use AI to help me chase the dollars and unravel the incentives structure. I mean, why wouldn’t I use it?

According to Perplexity, in Idaho, school funding is premised on a formula. It appears really complicated, but is basically premised on making sure that kids’ butts are in seats. It is tied to an average daily attendance model which was reinstated for the 2023-2024 school year after temporarily using enrollment-based funding during the COVID-19 pandemic. Under this system:

1. Funding Calculation: Average daily attendance “ADA” is calculated by combining attendance data from the beginning of the school year through the first Friday in November and the best 28 weeks of attendance throughout the year. This determines how much funding each district receives from the state[1][4]. [Jimmy speak - Leave it to the geniuses to call the acronym for attendance ADA, that also ignores the perfect attendance challenges that children with disabilities might have and should be covered and accommodated under American’s with Disabilities Act “ADA”. Clearly the money is talking, and it is saying that attendance is more important than disability.]

2. Impact on Districts: Funding is directly proportional to student attendance. For example, if a student attends 95% of the time, they count as 0.95 in the funding formula. Lower attendance results in reduced funding, leading to potential staff reductions and larger class sizes[1][2]. [Jimmy speak - If you ever stopped to wonder why it seems schools are much more concerned and focused on the fact that you took the fam to Mexico than they are about the time that you notified them that your child is suffering from anxiety, you now have an answer. One threatens how they bills get paid and the other is actually inconvenient.]

3. Financial Consequences: The return to attendance-based funding has caused significant financial challenges for schools, with statewide funding reduced by approximately $162 million compared to enrollment-based funding. This includes major cuts to teacher salaries, benefits, and discretionary spending[2]. [Jimmy speak - School District Administrators you better use whatever means necessary to get the kids to class, or else you might be facing a layoff and not having hand sanitizer during the pandemic will be least of your worries.]

4. Challenges: School leaders have expressed concerns about the unpredictability of attendance-based funding, especially as post-pandemic factors (e.g., increased absences for illness or mental health) continue to affect attendance rates[2][3]. [Jimmy speak - Admission that this sucks for schools, especially when the schools are really struggling to force the kids to school because the schools are causing so much anxiety in our kids.]

We need to change. Honestly, everyone knows that this needs to change. There is even discussion about changing the formula, that said House Bill 0718 didn’t appear to get anywhere last year[5]. We need to accept that what we are doing is not working and is hurting kids. We need to recognize the perverse moral hazard in these incentives. I will in future posts address how these financial incentives and other financial disincentives play into ignoring mental health, fail to fulfill duties to assess and accommodate those with disabilities and needs. School distress and refusal is often a child “can’t” go to school problem, not that they “won’t” go to school. I will write how they are explicitly encouraged to ignore their distress, their own “ADA” (Americans with Disabilities rights) and their own mental well being to rack up “ADA” attendance points for their school district. I am not attacking the intention of the teachers and administrators, but first and foremost the incentive structure that they are all operating under. It is time for us to be more KIND and less NICE. For the sake of those that can’t/won’t advocate for themselves.

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Citations:

[1] Lindsay Gill, State of Idaho Reinstates Attendance-Based Funding for Schools, The Riverhawk Review, https://theriverhawk.org/1866/news/state-of-idaho-reinstates-attendance-based-funding-for-schools/ (last visited Feb 9, 2025).

[2] K-12 schools could see $162 million in cuts from attendance-based formula, Idaho Education News (2024), https://www.idahoednews.org/top-news/k-12-schools-could-see-162-million-in-cuts-from-attendance-based-formula/ (last visited Feb 9, 2025).

[3]Does less spending also mean low test scores? A look into Idaho Public Education funding, (2024),

(last visited Feb 9, 2025).

[4] Idaho State Board of Education, Public Schools Funding Formula FY20, Idaho State Board of Education (2019), https://boardofed.idaho.gov/resources/public-schools-funding-formula-fy20/ (last visited Feb 9, 2025).

[5] H0718.pdf, https://legislature.idaho.gov/wp-content/uploads/sessioninfo/2024/legislation/H0718.pdf (last visited Feb 9, 2025).

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In looking through photos of our trip to Disney World, the happiest place on Earth, the juxtaposition of the two photos below really struck me. The first photo is in the Magic Kingdom, the second is at our hotel. Look at her face in both of the photos. In the first, where she is holding a giant lollipop, she doesn’t look happy. Knowing what I know about autism and sensory sensitivities now, I understand. She was in a crowded park with lots of noise, lights and smells, wearing a costume that may have been itchy; she was likely completely overstimulated and had no idea why she was feeling that way. Her end-of-the-day meltdowns on that trip now make perfect sense.

Now, contrast the Magic Kingdom photo with the one of her at the hotel holding a lizard that she caught. She is in a more quiet environment, engaged with nature, away from crowds, artificial lights, strange food smells and noise. The look on her face is one of pure joy. I thought I was doing something special by taking her to see Mickey Mouse, but I think perhaps she would have been happier chasing an actual mouse.

In addition to lizards, Maisa loved catching spiders, any kind of bug and snakes. How she knew to hold the snake correctly, I have no idea. She must have been born with this knowledge, along with a lot of other innate wisdom. One of her favorite camping activities was trying to find and catch river snakes.

In the Chinese zodiac calendar, this year is the Year of the Wood Snake, so I have been thinking about snakes, shedding skin, and transformation. The snake has significant spiritual symbolism, including the embodiment of life force energy that we can connect with more fully when we let go of the things that no longer serve us. Like the snake shedding its skin, when we can release the things that we have outgrown, we can connect both with our inner wisdom as well as a greater collective consciousness.

For many people, including many autistic people, Disney World is a very happy and joyful place. The commercial aspect, crowds and sensory overwhelm, however, can take any of us away from our truest nature. The wood snake reminds us to turn back inwards towards our truest selves, to remember who we are, without the costumes, without the characters. When we do that, we might find some things that we have been avoiding, some things that we have outgrown, and perhaps some skin to shed so that we might make room for something new. Transformation isn’t always pretty or comfortable; in fact it is sometimes downright scary. I think this is why many people are afraid of snakes. Releasing that fear helps carve the path to connection, both with our intuition and with each other. It isn’t easy, but it is hopefully worth it.

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