Hey y’all- long time no see. Don’t worry, I’m not leaving! I’ve just been very busy as always this summer. I’ve been MIA for several reasons, the main ones being giving Marvel back to her former owner and discovering that I’m disabled. So the story with Marvel is that she was doing awesome! Until we started painting our cabinets. The paint we were using was not bird-safe so I had to find someone to take care of her for two weeks until the dust and fumes settled. Now her old owner is an amazing lady who took very good care of her- she was just rehoming her because of a new baby. So when her former owner volunteered to watch her I agreed! Marvel stayed with her while we painted. It all went well and they were very happy to see each other, but when I brought Marvel back home she wasn’t herself anymore. She was calling out constantly, not eating, biting, and just seemed very distressed to be away from her owner again. I gave it a month to see if it would improve and it didn’t- it only got worse. So I got back in touch with her former owner, and she was able to take Marvel back again! I was so sad to see her go but as soon as she saw her owner again she perked up and I knew it was the best thing for her. She’s doing super well now and both her and her owner are happy, so even though she’s not with me anymore the story had a happy ending. I will be waiting a while before getting another animal because my life is still pretty crazy right now, and it wouldn’t be fair to the animal. Y’all will get to meet the new addition once that happens, though!
So about discovering I was disabled… @that_autist_artist is my secondary account where I talk more about this! I have my senior thesis next year and decided that autism would be a great topic for it because I already knew a bit about it and there is lots of recent research to pull from. (This was back in April.) I started reading more into it to narrow down my topic, and quickly fell into researching it intensely. The more I read, the more I realized I matched up perfectly with the way autism tends to present in people born female. Now the journey to making that realization was a LONG one and included talking to people who were diagnosed, reading everything I could get my hands on about it, and “testing” unmasking at home. (allowing myself to stim and “act autistic”) I did not watch a few TikToks and decided I relate and must be autistic- this was a long, in-depth dive with a ton of research, questioning, and mental crises behind it haha I am at the stage where I can confidently say I am autistic. My parents agree, and my autistic friends say I pretty obviously am autistic. The only thing left is getting professionally diagnosed. That is extremely difficult at my age, especially because I’m homeschooled. There are not many doctors who will test a 17-year-old for autism and even fewer who would fairly assess a woman. It would cost several thousand dollars as well and would not get me many (if any) accommodations or help. Until diagnosis becomes an option for me (I’m working towards it) I am comfortable with my unofficial diagnosis, and have started advocating for other self-diagnosed autistics and people who don’t look “traditionally autistic.” Feel free to follow my other account if you want to see more of that, stay here for cat stuff! I won’t be mentioning my autism often over here haha
