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Matthew’s Story

I was born on August 18th, 2000 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Early on my parents knew something was a little different about me. At the age of 2 I was diagnosed with Autism. We had to move across the country to Calgary, Alberta in order to get the therapy needed to ensure I would be able to speak and live a fairly normal life. I went to a place called the society for treatment of autism ( now called Husky Energy center for autism ) and they worked with me for 4 years. At age 6 I graduated the program and we moved back to Winnipeg.

My elementary school years were a mixed experience. There was some bullying, but most people were decent. I had some friends, but not a ton. When I moved on to middle school things became worse. There was bullying, name calling, and I had no friends. The social cues and social norms changed so much as we entered our teenage years and I couldn’t keep up. However, when I entered high school things became better again, and as I progressed through high school things continued to get better. I had some friends, People knew who I was, and I felt more connected than ever before.

I graduated high school in June 2018 and since then, have moved on to university. This has been a real struggle. The classes are harder, and once again I have no friends as an adult. This is something I hope will change eventually, but for now, its very very tough. I want to pursue a degree that is going to lead me to a career where I can help people on a daily basis. This blog update will be posted on the Facebook page, and I encourage you to share with your friends on Facebook. Next update will come soon. Thank you.

My Wish For True Acceptance In The World – Top 3 Things to Help The World Accept Us

Hi there everyone! I was thinking over the state of how we as autistic and neurodivergent people are viewed in todays society. I will definitely agree that things have improved over the last several decades for the neurodivergent community, however there is still a lot of work to be done. Here’s a list of things that both individual people and greater organizations can do to help the cause.

Create Awareness ( the beginnings on a path to acceptance ).

It is well known that people who are neurodivergent often ” hide in the shadows ” so to speak. We often feel that society is not fully accepting of us, and unfortunately that is often true. A great way to help more people notice us is to create awareness ( but make sure it’s positive awareness! ) This could include volunteering, posting content created by neurodivergent people on your social media channels, or reaching out to learn more than spreading that information.

Be a friend!

For many neurodivergent people, just trying to get a friend feels like an otherworldly struggle. I still struggle with it significantly in terms of gaining friends in my area. I do have a great friend that lives in the US but since he is far away, I only get to see him a few times per year. If you know an autistic person, or anyone who is neurodivergent, please reach out to them and offer to be a friend, and make them feel accepted and like they belong. The vast majority of us want this. We just want to be accepted for who we are and be allowed to be who we are as an individual and still get to participate in society.

Learn from those who walk the path

Who better to learn about neurodiversity from, than the people that live it every day! Making a connection with a neurodivergent person is a great way to help make a small but noticeable impact, and people can improve their own knowledge of neurodiversity through this small action. It doesn’t mean you have to make a huge commitment, but even small actions and being kind can really add up to helping people. Please keep this in mind!

Got questions? Drop me an email under the contact us button or comment on this post. Thank you for being here!

Ebook underway!

As announced earlier on the Facebook page, I am writing an ebook about my lived experiences with autism! I am super excited for this and what it will bring in the future in terms of helping create change in the community. I hope you will all read it when I am finished in a few months and release it! I got several pages of it done today as well. Have a great day!

Just a few updates!

Hi everyone! Just a couple of quick updates, as I’m sure most of you know my Facebook page was stolen from me last week, but I have recovered it now and wanted to thank everyone for reporting it and helping me recover it. Also thank you to whoever it was at Facebook that restored my access, I appreciate that a lot.

I have launched the fan subscriptions feature on Facebook so people can subscribe for $4 CAD a month, ( $3 USD ). So far 19 people have subscribed and I very much appreciate it, I would like to grow my subscriber base because the funds from it will help allow me to work on my bigger advocacy project and dedicate more time to helping people.

In regards to this website, I do plan to update this WordPress page, but I am limited in what I can do until I can afford to purchase the premium plan again. So please bear with me while I work on this. Thank you for being here!

Autism and animals- Dedicated to Misha

Pets can be a huge help to autistic people. This is because they are loving and caring, they provide unconditional love and we really can feel a special connection to them and like they truly understand us. I know this because for 9 years, we had a cat named Misha. From 2013-2022 we had her, and she was a truly exceptional cat. She was one of the best cats you could ever ask for. She was kind and loving and caring, and provided that truly unconditional love. We lost her on February 7th, 2022 to kidney disease. It was devastating and very difficult. We do not have another animal yet, and it will likely be some time until we do. However I know eventually I will get to have another pet, and look forward to the day that happens.

We miss you so much Misha, and hope you’re happy and healthy up there in kitty heaven. One day, we will meet again. Misha was 20 years old, so we had her for the second half of her life. As a kitten she was dumped into a garbage can and left to die, but her previous owner rescued her and gave her a wonderful first half of life, then she came to us and we gave her a wonderful second half of life. A cat can provide something in your life that almost nothing else can, and its irreplaceable and that is why it is so devastating when it’s time to say goodbye.

To this day, I am heartbroken without our precious Misha. But life will go on and she WILL always live on in my heart, and the hearts of everyone who loved her.

Hug your pets close, because you never know when they will be gone. Pets are beautiful and special. They help us with autism calm down and are amazing companions.

Thank you Misha for everything you did for my life, and I hope you enjoyed this family for the 9 years you were with us.

Website updates coming!

Hey everyone! I’ll be updating my WordPress website before too long, to include some cool and great things! I’m just gathering some ideas right now, but I was thinking I may write some special posts on here, and add some new sections too.

I’m a little limited in what I can do until I can afford to pay for the full website plan again, but in the meantime I’ll definitely do what I can.

Do you have any ideas for me on things you’d like to see? If so, please let me know!!

Expressing my appreciation

I will keep this short and sweet. I just wanted to say. Thank you for being here on my page for nearly 6 years now, and I know we can make the next 6 years even better! I look forward to serving this community for a long time to come still, and although it’s been rocky at times, I am proud to continue to serve the community here. So thank you for sticking around always.

It’s been a while!

Hi Everyone! I can’t believe its been nearly 2 years since I have written on this blog website here. I hope you’ve all been doing well. I’ve been going through some tough times, but what doesn’t kill us will make us stronger in the end. I do plan to start writing some blog posts again here, but please bear with me as I can’t afford to upgrade to the premium website at this moment again, but when I can, I will. That means you may see ads on the website ( WordPress, out of my control ) but I will do my best to create a good website experience for you all. Thanks again to those of you who have stuck around through my extended absences. All the best!

Why we should be confident in ourselves

Confidence has been a touchy topic for me most of my life. I have always found it quite difficult to be confident in myself. A lot of this comes from a basic human trait, that we feel the need to compare ourselves to others. This is a problem because it prevents us from being happy with ourselves.

I have always had a habit of comparing myself to others, even though I know it’s simply not a good or healthy way of thinking. It’s something I’m working on, but it takes time to change and won’t happen overnight. When we can be confident about the various aspects of our lives, it allows us to simply be happier and healthier, and we feel mentally better. Definitely my powerlifting has helped me become more confident and feel physically and mentally stronger ( because it takes a lot of mental determination to lift heavy weights ) but it’s also led to me comparing myself to people who are stronger than me. So I simply need to focus on making myself stronger and not worry as much about other people.