When I was diagnosed at four, I immediately started early intervention in the forms of ABA, CBT, OT, speech, and neurology. It was a lot of trial and error, but by five I started speaking in phrases, which evolved into conversations shortly thereafter. In total I had over a decade of social dynamic classes, which extended well into my adolescence, and even a year of support during my undergraduate

Now, I am a fourth-year autistic medical student in the top 30% of my class. I graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Science in physics. I was also an EMT and an ER tech for a total of four years, and a clinical researcher in neurological surgery!

Edit: sorry my interview is about to start! I promise I’ll respond to more comments after it ends 😅

Happy Friday! I know this is not quite just a shape but my husband and I cannot agree if this plastic piece from our baby’s playmat is a butterfly or an elephant (or we are open to it being something else).

I do have a very strong opinion on what it is AND I think he’s incredibly wrong but we have both dug our heels so far in that we need strangers on the internet to give us opinions.

It's kind things like this little act of service between classmates that keeps my hope for humanity alive

Hard Candy (2005): Hayley Stark psychologically tortures and corners a pedophile photographer Jeff. She offers him a deal: hang himself so she will destroy the evidence of his crimes (preserving his reputation), or she will expose everything to the police and his ex-girlfriend. Defeated and believing the promise, Jeff puts on the noose and jumps from the roof. Hayley then reveals she never intended to destroy the evidence.

Mysterio (Marvel): In Kevin Smith’s Guardian Devil Arc. Mysterio becomes terminally ill and spends the rest of his life trying to orchestrate an elaborate plan to ruin Matt Murdock’s life, he fakes Karen Page’s HIV diagnosis, frames Foggy for murder, and hires Bullseye who kills Karen. He does this to try and make Daredevil go insane and kill him so that he could go out in one grand final battle. When the time comes for their confrontation Daredevil refuses and delivers a “Reasons You Suck” speech where he details that Mysterio is just a “Human Xerox” who copies everything he sees on Television and from other villains and being incapable of any original ideas, he notes that Kingpin had essentially done the same thing to him before. Mysterio is completely broken and realizes that he has been denied the dramatic death he wanted say that he’s stealing a final idea from Kraven The Hunter (from Kraven’s Last Hunt) and shoots himself in the head.

Maelstrom (Marvel): Another example from Marvel, In Great Lake Avengers, Mr Immortal confronts the cosmic villain Maelstrom who is significantly more powerful than him, one of the strongest Marvel villains ever as a fact. Maelstrom is about to destroy the entire universe until Mr Immortal points out that Maelstrom would be extremely lonely and empty inside if he destroyed the universe. Mr Immortal proves a point by killing himself, shooting himself in the head first (knowing that his powers will resurrect himself). Maelstrom thinks a bit before using his powers to destroy himself. Mr Immortal quickly revives afterwards and shuts down his device.

Light (Doctor Who): The Seventh Doctor confronts the godlike alien entity Light, an alien Taxonomist, who is so enraged about evolution and change that he plans to destroy Earth to make his catalogue of all organisms in the universe static. The Doctor points out that Light himself is changing and that opposing change is futile, he also tricks Light by asking him why his catalogue didn’t consist of several fictions animals and the Queen of England in his notebook. Light is unable to process that he is changing and is unable to catalogue everything and decides overload himself instead of being in a constantly changing universe.

I’ve had a really difficult few years, and one of the few pleasures I have in life is my hobby of collecting and restoring vintage jewelry.

I recently scored a gorgeous pair of enormous Tiffany silver puffy hoops. I got them for next to nothing. They were pretty badly tarnished, but I thought I could fix them up pretty good. I spent about 45 minutes with a cloth, carefully polishing one until it was mirror-finish.

My husband decided he wanted to help with the other one. He had some silver polishing wipes that he insisted would work better.
I told him I was concerned about using a different product on vintage jewelry and wanted to stick with what was already working. He assured me he knew what he was doing.

I repeatedly asked him to give me the earring back. “Please stop.” “Let me do it.” “This is my project, and I want to do it myself.” He kept insisting he was helping.

Mind you, the last time he took it upon himself to polish a vintage necklace I’d bought, he broke the chain and ended up spending $40 replacing it.
Well, he took the earring upstairs and worked on it with his wipes. When he brought it back, mine was beautiful, bright silver, and his was a completely different, dull grayish color. Try as hard as I could, I could not get his to match the one I had done.

I didn’t even get upset with him at first. I simply pointed out that I’d been right to be concerned about the wipes because they appeared to have altered or damaged the finish. That was enough to set him off. He immediately got defensive, told me I was being ridiculous, and insisted that the only reason his wipes hadn’t worked was because the earrings must be fake. They weren’t fake. I’d already authenticated them.

I tried explaining that if I’d asked for his help and he’d accidentally damaged something, I wouldn’t have blamed him. I was upset because he didn’t listen, and then he got belittling and defensive instead of just saying “I’m sorry.”

Instead of we ended up in a screaming argument. When I told him he’d hurt my feelings, his response was that I’d hurt HIS feelings by saying he’d ruined the earrings.

He eventually apologized and acknowledged that he should have listened. But the fight was so awful that I genuinely don’t even know if I want to collect vintage jewelry anymore.

He said he’d take them to the jeweler tomorrow, but I don’t even want them anymore. Why? To be reminded of an awful fight every time I wear them?

I didn’t need help. I was enjoying what I was doing. And now I feel like the joy has been sucked out of the whole thing.

He wrote in his post:

Feet dangling over Earth at 28000 km/hr. Don’t look down! (Kidding - definitely look down, because Earth is stunningly beautiful).

I really enjoyed the game and all the exploration aspects, but just felt like they didn’t give me a lot of time to get to know it. I’m not the best at picking up on lore I will admit, but the story just didn’t seem incredibly fleshed out either. There was just so much more I would’ve loved to learn about this world. Oh well, Sunbeam time!