Dear Friends,

I am so in an interesting place right now. I am working to more fully understand it. It has been going on for months now.

I am processing my grief and trauma more deeply. It is a scary process. I am more able to face it with sadness rather than immediately getting caught up in dysregulation. Anger had become my defense for a while. But it was keeping me from consciously dealing with my emotions.

I still have to better comprehend what I am experiencing. It is a difficult thing to go through. I am weary of feeling sad and down. I miss my happy cheerful days. It is a bit tough to go through this without knowing where it will lead. But I feel in my heart that this is a good thing. I feel myself growing in how I face the harsh realities of my life.

The trauma of past years is indescribable. The grief over what I have missed out on and how hard my life will always be is soul-crushing if I think about it seriously. That is just the reality of my situation. But I also have great passion for this life. There is a lot of room for joy in this existence. There is so much I can still experience and learn from, so much to savor and love. I am a happy heart in a tragic disability. I know the word “tragic” might trigger strong feelings. That is up to you. I use that word because it is the story I am working through at the moment. Tragic doesn’t mean hopeless. It doesn’t mean miserable all the time. It doesn’t mean that my life is not worth living. That is how I feel in this moment. Tragic but with a lot of light.

This is not to make you worry about me. This is not a proclamation of how everyone should view or talk about this disability. This is just my way to share honestly about what I as an individual am experiencing. That is it. That is all I claim to offer.

This community has shown me that I can share such things without worrying too much about my nuanced and complex reality being taken carelessly and that my truth in regards to my life is respected. Thank you for that.

Your Friend,

Danny

Dear Friends,

All the news is roiling, and I won’t add any hot takes for now. I prefer my takes cooled.

So I just want to share how my day was. It was a great one thanks to my family and friends. I want to celebrate it, and also show how such days are possible but require a lot from my support team. I hope that such activities will be more accessible to spellers in the not too distant future. I am thinking that this is possible but will take work. I am also aware that I have the privilege of my sister being able to take me on ocean adventures, and that is a luxury. I am not saying that all spellers need to have access to ocean sports. I mean I wish that more spellers could access activities that they want to explore, not just classroom or clinic activities.

So first a family friend picked me up from home. My mom packed what I needed for the day. The friend brought me to La Jolla, where Tara met us. We watched the sea lions playing in the cove and then Tara and I donned our wetsuits and snorkeled a bit. It has gotten suddenly much colder! We swam with sea lions and lots of fish. It was pretty nice!

Then we had to make a long trek up to North San Diego County, with an accident on the highway ahead of us slowing us down as we ate delicious banh mi that we picked up on the way. We were a bit late to the afternoon activity, a study group for older spellers that Tara and another S2C practitioner are coordinating. It is so fantastic to have this opportunity to learn intellectually stimulating material with some of my best friends. This is our response to the lack of formal programs for advanced learning and socializing in person for us spellers here. I am proud of Tara for doing so much to help create a part-time option.

This group is awesome. I love being able to hang out and learn and discuss ideas with my friends! They are brilliant.

This is just the start of our study group. I am excited to see how it will evolve. This is such a gap for our population. I am hoping more programs emerge as the demand is on the rise. Tara is not quite ready to take this on, but she is doing a great job facilitating our informal study group. This is a big help as we wait for more comprehensive options to emerge.

Then we came home and our mom fed us banana bread and I chilled on the couch.

This is an ideal day. Except for the traffic.

Your Friend,

Danny

Dear Friends,

I am not going to try to analyze or advocate. I have plenty of thoughts about recent and ongoing events and movements. But I am not using this space for sharing those.

I just want to remind you all that the world will not be saved through rabid factionalism. It will not be saved by dogma. It will not be saved through clinging to biases and anger. It certainly won’t be saved through disdain and contempt.

I see so much of these negative forces, even among people I largely agree with. It is tearing our souls apart. It is diminishing our hearts. It is so sad even as it angers me.

Our lives are worth more than these dynamics of conflict. We are worthy of better conduct. We can bring more good into this world.

It is painful to witness such thoughtless and antagonistic behavior. It is baffling to see so many accept such blatant hypocrisy and exploitation of the common good. Yet it is not all that shocking if you think about it. This has been humanity through the ages.

I am disabled in ways that affect my life profoundly. But I am as emotionally capable as anyone. I can see these patterns and currents and I can see the bigger picture of what forces motivate these movements and actions and feelings. And I see that we need to return to our true hearts. To valuing compassion and mindfulness over smug “victory” and the temptations of anger. To see humans over propaganda. To doing what we already know we should.

This is such a time of strife. It is a remarkable time to be alive. It is an opportunity for us to discover more about how we can strive not only to cope, but to help others thrive.

Just my thoughts today.

Your Friend,

Danny

Dear Friends,

Time for a lighter post. Thank you for having such care with my heavier feelings.

Tara and I went snorkeling this morning. I was pretty low energy, but very calm and regulated. The water was a little cool, but still comfortable. The waves were small and the wind hadn’t picked up yet. It was a tranquil setting.

I felt so relaxed today. I love snorkeling but it always feel a little stressful. It is a lot for me to coordinate. But today I felt so at ease. So it was even better than usual.

We saw a lot of guitarfish in the sandy shallows, and some lobsters waving their antennae from under an old beam. We swam by some rays and watched their elegant movement through the water. And the leopard sharks were milling around. I love their beautiful sleek silhouettes and their gorgeous spots.

Then we swam to the seagrass beds, and though the visibility got worse there, we still saw so many fish and so so many leopard sharks!

Wow. They were swirling around each other and the seagrass. It was so cool to watch.

I felt so a part of something magical in the water today. I am so lucky I can do this in my hometown. It is still a longish drive, but we can do this once a week. That is actually pretty incredible!

I hope you are all able to do something that makes you feel awe and peace this week.

Your Friend,

Danny

Dear Friends,

I am overwhelmed by your responses to my latest post. Thank you for your thoughtful replies. I wanted to offer a lighter post, but this is another sort of heavy one. Our latest All Our Brave Hearts episode is on similar topics, and it was recorded a couple of weeks ago. I was so in a deep state of somber reflection.

I surprised Tara by choosing to make the episode around difficult questions. So it might not be for everyone, or if you are having a tough day. I hope our raw honesty is illuminating.

The link to the full episode is here. You can also listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!

And I hope to offer lighter content soon. I am not always so serious!

Hope you are all doing well. I appreciate you being with me!

Your Friend,

Danny

Dear Friends,

I am warning that this might be a difficult post to read. I try to be sensitive and careful in how my public posts might affect you. However, I believe that this is important to share. I am not the first to express such views. And I am not claiming to speak for anyone but me. Please know that.

I hate being a nonspeaking autistic person. My recent sadness has been about really being confronted with that truth. It is a cruel disability. I have no patience for anyone who has not lived this reality who tries to comfort themselves with platitudes about this being a gift. My reality can no longer be subsumed by false narratives crafted for the comfort of others.

I want to be fixed. I am broken. I can’t even do most basic things on my own. My compulsions are at times disruptive and even dangerous. My gut hurts almost all the time. I am broken.

That is not to say that I don’t deserve to live. It is not to say that my life is worthless. It is not to say that society can’t improve in accommodating people like me. Of course I deserve and will keep seeking a fulfilling life, with supports and efforts to do what I can to be an advocate for nonspeaking individuals. Of course I see us as people who are just as worthy as non-disabled people. We are here and we deserve dignity, respect, and better opportunities. We have a lot to celebrate in our lives, including the more positive aspects of our autistic brains. I can value the life I have now and also grieve for how fundamentally difficult it is.

This doesn’t mean I am saying that nonspeaking autistics shouldn’t exist. I am annoyed that I even need to cushion my truth with so much explanation and disclaimer. If you don’t have the mindfulness to grasp the nuances of what I am saying, I doubt I can explain it enough for you.

I appreciate you reading this with an open mind and heart. It might upset you. But it is my right to express it.

Your Friend,

Danny

Dear Friends,

I had a bad case of the blues last weekend. I was so low and down. It was so suffocating. This was similar to how I felt on my birthday. The sadness had a heaviness that sat on my brain. It was so painful.

I have had depression before. I have experienced grief. I have been deeply sad. But it is relatively new in my life to experience such physical manifestation of my sadness. By that, I mean that I have started showing sadness on my face and feeling heaviness in my body. It is strange.

I did experience this after my dad died. And again when visiting my uncle in Japan, and looking through my grandmother’s things and realizing more fully that she had died and I would never get a chance to know her better. And when visiting elderly relatives in Ireland for what I knew was the last time. I also cried, which is very rare for me, when I heard that Tara was considering applying for a job elsewhere after we had gotten fluent. But that is all over the span of seven years.

So this is still an anomaly for me. And I am not sure how to cope with it. It feels so all-consuming. It feels like there is no way it will get better. And yet this last bout lasted only a few days. So strange to have such a warped sense of perspective without overt dysregulation.

I also must say that this is different from the depression that I experienced before spelling. That felt more chronic and yet less intense. It is complicated.

I notice that my compulsions were so quiet during my sadness. That was the only good part. It was kind of nice to have a break from those. But I just felt so flat.

My family was so lovingly and kindly compassionate in that they didn’t try to force me to cheer up, but listened and gave me space and gently showed me they cared. Tara encouraged me to watch the sunset with her one night. That felt like a balm. And two good friends helped me during our regular online hangout. I also went surfing with Waves 4 All for the first time since breaking my arm, which felt great even to my sad self.

I am better now. Danny is back, compulsions and all! I need to figure out more how to cope with such heavy sadness. I have a lot more to say about it.

How do you handle such feelings?

Your Friend,

Danny

Dear Friends,

Wow! I just had one of my favorite ocean outings!

This morning, I swam/snorkeled the farthest I ever have from shore. I am so proud! We swam from La Jolla Cove to the kelp forest area just by a buoy marking a quarter mile from shore. It was a gorgeous day with awesome visibility. We could see the bottom the whole way. I might have been intimidated if I couldn’t see what was below me, but luckily today it was so clear.

The kelp is so peaceful. There is so much life around the long elegant kelp towers. I saw my first tope shark! It was so beautifully winding around the kelp.

As we swam in, feisty sea lions swirled around us. I always love seeing them.

Our mom observed us from the shore. She was so impressed with my swimming!

Thank you to Tara for being willing to let me try this new milestone. I feel so empowered. I can’t wait to go out again next week!

Your Friend,

Danny

Dear Friends,

Another ocean day! It was such a nice, sunny, summer’s day. It was so nice to get in the water!

I am feeling so much better. A mellow week helped me rest up. And I was so ready to end this hot week with water time! So I was all smiles and giggles and some singing in the car on the way to the beach.

The water was so refreshing and clear. We swam today instead of snorkeling, because I wanted to practice my swimming skills, and I lasted thirty minutes. It was so tiring but satisfying. We stayed close to shore and Tara made sure we took regular breaks to just tread water. That helped.

We didn’t see as much wildlife as usual. That is too bad, but it happens. We saw some leopard sharks and rays and fishes. The feeling of swimming with other animals is so thrilling!

Then of course burritos, which we took to eat on another beach. That is the best epilogue to ocean time.

I am so glad I felt good enough to swim in the ocean today. It is so soothing to be immersed in the sea!

I hope you get to do something you love this weekend!

Your Friend,

Danny

Dear Friends,

I am much calmer now. Thank goodness. That was rough. And I am still a bit on edge, but I am managing it.

Honestly, I have very little idea what triggered it. There are many possibilities. But what really helped me internally was knowing so many of you feel like I have helped you. I am still feeling down about the barriers to pursuing a career that will allow me to use my brain and make a significant difference in the world. I am so limited by my disability. Everything I do must be with support. So I can only do a tiny fraction of what I want and of what my brain is capable of.

So being reminded that I have still done good work for others does help. Thank you for reminding me.

I want to share some photos from my actual birthday and also from a fantastic pool party hosted by my friend Jake. I was so down on my birthday, but my family tried so hard to make it memorable. The pool party was the first time that I felt really calm after my most recent dysregulation flare-up. Being with friends and in water helped me feel relaxed.

That is all for now. I am processing a lot. I hope you all are having a good start to the week!

Your Friend,

Danny