The Neurodivergent Diabetic

I'm feeling exhausted and frustrated as of late. I've been trying to find a job, but not only do I lack qualifications for the ones available, but my pool of options is limited because of my living situation. I only have an Associate of Arts to my name, as I did not transfer to another college after completing my time in the local community college. I have to stay close to home to help manage a dementia patient. With my mental bandwidth spent worrying about my family most of the time, it's difficult to work through these emotions and mental hurdles. The dementia patient is growing difficult to work with in many ways. I'm not unhirable. I've held a data entry position for a non-profit organization and two retail jobs. But there were always ableist coworkers or superiors who made my life harder. A few high blood sugar episodes later, and they wanted me gone. It's probably because I live in the South, where everyone fetishizes this bootstrap-pulling mentality that

I’m presently going through some art block right now. I do like digitally illustrating, but sometimes, it can be hard to engage with the hobby how I wish to. This time, I don’t have the excuse of mourning a pet. Between diabetes management and needing to help care for my father, I often feel like I lack the time and mental bandwidth for it. But on the same token, I know deep down that this isn’t true. If I push myself to engage with my art, I’ll discover that I have a surplus of time to expend. A multi-part retrospective of my art seems like a good way to reinvigorate my drive to create. I’ve tried out many different techniques over the years, and I would like to amalgamate the best qualities of each, which I’d only determine through careful study. At the end of this journey, I will come up with a mission statement for my illustrations… and whatever I intend to do with them in the future. I won’t cover every piece I’ve done, only some of the most notable. I may go back to the one

I’ll admit that these past few blog posts have been emotionally heavy. Sure, the outcomes of each story have been positive—I finally got my blood sugar under control, and I came to terms with a loved one’s death—but surely there was something that helped me keep going throughout all these bad times . Truthfully, there were many: YouTube content for me to peruse as I saw fit, digital art to help me express my emotions healthily, and my neighborhood walks. But today, one form of escape stands above the rest, one hobby—one hyperfixation—that has held my attention for many years, but I’ve never broken down why that is. I want to tell you about The Transformers . It is a franchise that needs little introduction, as the basic premise is quite simple to grasp: alien robots of all sizes that convert into other things--machines or creatures--to wage war against each other. Despite this, the lore runs deep, and some of the stories run even deeper with their themes, depending on which you

CONTENT WARNING: The following post discusses the death of a loved one and the grieving process associated with it. While I think the lessons from my experiences could be useful for my fellow neurodivergent folk, feel free to skip this post if you feel either uncomfortable or unprepared. I miss my dog a lot. His name is--was--Tiger. Early in 2022, he had come down with Cushing Syndrome, and due to his age, his condition was so severe that recovery was impossible. We resisted putting him to sleep for a while until the 5 th of October. I requested to take that week off from my volunteer job, to truly steel myself for what was to come. We'd known something like this was coming for a while, but the months leading up to it weren’t enough… and neither was that extra time. The night before that fated day, I was giving Tiger some hugs, when he suddenly rolled onto his back for belly rubs. It was the first time he had done that in weeks, and he even managed to do it twice before he tired