Into My Autistic Mind 6 + Special Announcement

Hello everybody, this George Harvey (aka The Autistic Blogger). Sorry I haven’t posted anything for a while. Maybe this look into my thoughts will let you know why.

Have you ever been obsessed with something? Have you ever felt so devoted to doing it that you do it for days, weeks or months without stopping. I’ve made a few typing errors, my phone just went off and I clicked off a pop-up that appeared on my laptop. But I’m trying to avoid my usual distractions, because I’m trying to talk about something important. Even My Little Pony won’t distract me…although I will mention it later. Some of you may know this, but I like to write reviews in my spare time. And for several weeks now I’ve been trying to finish a review of Skating Sensation – the fifth instalment of the Dork Diaries series. I really have to remember I can use italics instead of these: ”. Anyway, it’s been very hard trying to write this review. I don’t have as much spare time as I used to, I don’t always have a quite – sorry quiet – place to work in … and every time I try to write, I end up spending more time changing what I’ve written. It’s a problem I have with being a perfectionist. Even now, I’ve just deleted what I was going to say for my next sentence and typed a different one instead. Sometimes when I’m writing I think too hard about things. It also doesn’t help that I’ve got a lot of things on my mind. In fact, one minute … Okay, I’m back. I’ve brought something down from my room. I call it my Priority List. It’s broken into four categories: Top Priorities, Spare Time, Free Time and Can’t Change. Top Priorities are the things I should be focusing on the most with my time (e.g. job searching and volunteer work); Spare Time lists the things I need to do, but are slightly less important (e.g. ironing, walking the dog and going to the gym); Free Time lists the things I like to do when I have time to myself (e.g. watching videos, reading and gaming); and Can’t Change are the things I absolutely need to take time for every week (e.g. my part-time job at ASDA). The thing is, I get my priorities mixed up sometimes. I know how important it is to be job searching and planning other professional work, but my obsessions run so deep I often can’t focus on what I need to. That’s why I think the best option is to get my obsessions out of the way ASAP. I try not to focus on writing reviews and things all the time, but if I leave them unfinished … sorry I’m taking a pause to think … if I leave them unfinished it really bothers me and I feel like I won’t ever complete them. I have bad memories of not seeing projects through until the end. Unfortunately, working on them non-stop sometimes makes you sloppy. Okay, I need to mention this now or it’s going to keep nagging my mind. I saw the latest episode of My Little Pony on YouTube the other day and it was all about doing too much to complete small tasks. Sometimes you’re so used to doing things a certain way, you don’t realise there’s an easier way. Usually it takes someone else to point it out to you. I definitely feel I can relate to this, because I do all my proofreading/editing myself I don’t realise everything I’m doing isn’t necessary. When I WRITE – oops, the caps lock was on – when I write something, it’s usually perfect the first time around. But I spend too long trying to write different variations, until eventually I go back to what I had before. If someone else read through my writing things could be different. I feel like I’m going a bit off track here. When I watched that My Little Pony episode, one of the comments said the message was not to work HARDER, but to work SMARTER. And I couldn’t agree more. By the way I wrote harder and smarter in caps on purpose this time. I really need to get myself into more of a routine like I did in college. That way I’ll know when best to work on something and when best to refresh myself. I also need to do more planning with my writing, so I don’t keep hitting brick walls and constantly revise my ideas. As for the writing itself, I’ve started taking steps that will help me finish it a little easier. I already plan out my paragraphs in advance and now I’m doing things with the sentences that will … how should I put it … keep me from giving in to temptation. Try this if you’re a perfectionist writer, proofreader or editor. When you think something sounds just right, colour the text in green so you know not to change it later. When something sounds good, but you think it could be written better, colour the text in red so you know you’ve got the option to change or delete it. When you’re not sure about a piece of text, leave it black, work on it as best you can and, if it’s still black by the end of the day, delete it. Sometimes no matter how hard you try you can’t make certain sentences work. If you try too much to fix something that can’t be fixed you’ll just waste time. Plus, staring at unnecessary text for hours will make you tired and loose focus. Sometimes the best option is to delete it and come up with something better. I realise I’ve been going on for a long time now. I’ve just edited some of what I’ve written, my laptop says it’s almost 14:50 and my word-count is almost 1000. I could go on for ages about the 30+ things that distract me from writing and all the problems I run into whilst doing it. I could even write a book called ‘How to Write when you’re Autistic’. But I hope now you understand a little bit about why I don’t post things regularly. I’m a very capable writer and I’ve never missed a deadline. I just have a lot of new things going on in my life like drama and youth centre work. It’s difficult for anybody with Autism to adjust to change, but once I work out a new routine and set my own deadlines I’ll be able to get more done. I think I might post my Skating Sensation review on this site when it’s finished, just to give myself a sense of achievement.

I hope you enjoyed yet another trip into my Autistic thoughts. This one probably isn’t as good as my previous instalments (1-5), but it’s always nice to speak to others about what’s on my mind.

Before I go I have a special announcement. Tomorrow will be the be 1 year anniversary of this blog. And to celebrate, I’ve decided to post something that’s very near and dear to me. As you know, the reason I started this blog was to help make a positive difference in the lives of other people with Autism. But my advocacy isn’t just limited to writing. I like to raise awareness through charity, volunteering and public speaking. One of my earliest pieces of advocacy work was a presentation I gave at the end of my second year of college. Tomorrow I will post a video of this presentation in it’s entirety, so you can see and hear just how passionate I am about what I do. I hope you’ll enjoy it.

If you liked this post then please take a look at some of the other content I’ve written for this site and Autistic Blogger Reviews (https://autisticbloggerreviews.wordpress.com/) . If you have any questions leave me a comment – I’ll be happy to answer them. And as always, keep an eye out for the next post. Stay tuned.

 

 

About me: For 7-9 Year Olds

Happy new year everybody, this is George Harvey (aka ‘The Autistic Blogger’). For my first post of 2016 I decided to share something a little bit different. You see, for the past several months I’ve been doing a bit of job-searching. It’s a challenging thing to break into the world of work, especially when you want to be part of the writing industry. Sometimes to prove how good you are you need more than just a good CV or cover letter. In some cases, organisations will set you a writing task to test your abilities in specific ways. For one of the jobs I applied for, I was asked to describe myself in a way that would be exciting for 7-9 Year Olds. This was an interesting challenge for me since I had to think outside the box and the age group was one I really wanted  to write for in the future. Although my application to the job was unsuccessful, the staff were very impressed with what I’d written. I was even asked if they could use my material to talk about Autism in a primary school – one of the staff was also a teacher. Written below is a copy of the piece I sent them. Enjoy.

Hello, my name is George Harvey. There’s something you should know about me. I’m not what you call an ordinary person. I don’t mean I’m psychic or have magical super powers in case you’re wondering. No, I’m just a regular human being. However, I am just a little bit different to everyone else.

You see, ever since I was a little boy, I’ve been able to see things others can’t. Sometimes I see WWE wrestlers becoming Power Rangers to fight King Kong or Godzilla. Sometimes I see Pokémon characters playing dodgeball or Quidditch. Sometimes I see Jeremy Kyle as James Bond, or Ant and Dec as Laurel and Hardy, or characters from ‘My Little Pony’ acting out episodes of Doctor Who. Pretty weird huh?

So why does nobody else see these strange things happen except me? Well, they don’t happen in just any old place. You couldn’t walk down the street and expect to see a Dalek waiting for a bus – unless you were really, really, lucky of course. No, these things happen in a very special place only I can visit. It’s a place where everything unusual and out-of-place gathers to be as free and crazy as it likes. Where even the most uninteresting thing can become the king or queen of their own kingdom. And do you know where that special place is? My mind.

That’s right. All these impossible things are fantasies I see in my head.

But how do I get such absurd and creative thoughts? Well, you know when you have favourite TV programs, movies or books? Sometimes there are things in them you always remember, because of how funny, sad or interesting they are. Well this happens to me all the time. Whenever I see or hear something interesting, I record it in my brain. I then play it back to myself over and over again like a tape recorder. Over time, I record more interesting things, until I have several stories and characters all swimming in my mind like a school of fish. Occasionally, when I think two or more things work well together, I combine them to form something new in my head. Have you ever wondered why the Muppets went to Treasure Island or the Land of Oz in their films? Their creators must’ve had the same trick in their heads.

I wouldn’t call myself ‘Megamind’ – that’s already a Dreamworks film. But my wacky thoughts have made me come up with of some pretty amazing stories over the years. Sometimes they’re so exciting, I just can’t contain them inside my head, and they escape through my mouth or fingers as words. If you ever see someone talking to themselves, or typing away frantically, perhaps they’ve just had a ‘eureka’ moment and they’re not the crazy people you think they are.

It’s a wonderful gift to come up with stories so easily. I guess you could almost call it a super power. But with great power, comes great responsibility – and sometimes hardships. And I feel it’s my responsibility to let others know about these hardships.

Imagine you enjoyed something so much it was on your mind literally every second of every day. You’d always want to focus on it and not let anything, or anyone, disturb your thoughts. However, because people around you can’t see the special world inside your head, they just think you’re being rude when you don’t speak or pay attention to them. It can be very hard to make friends this way. So the only way you can help them understand is to tell stories about yourself and those like you.

Writing is my gift. My curse. Who am I? Not Spider-Man. Not a superhero. Just George Brian Harvey. A writer with Autism, who has a passion for using his creativity for the greater good.

If you liked this post then please check out some of the other material I’ve written for the blog. If you have any questions please leave me a comment – I’ll be happy to answer them. And, as always, keep an eye out for the next post. Stay tuned.

Interests, Update and Music Video

Hello Internet. This is George Harvey, aka ‘The Autistic Blooger’. It’s been a while since my last post, as I’ve been on holiday in Majorca, and had other commitments. So to make up for it, I’ve decided to upload something special.
Over the last several months, I’ve written many posts about my experiences with Autism, and why I’m so passionate about raising awareness of it. I’ve also written creative pieces and reviews that showcase my other skills as a writer. However, one thing I’ve not been able to discuss in great detail are some of the interests I have as an ‘Aspie’ (autistic person).
I’ve said in the past that Autism makes me interested in a variety of different things. And these interests sometimes distract me from important things, like finding a full-time job, talking to people or completing a writing task. This is actually why it takes me longer to do certain things than other people – it’s not just that I’m a perfectionist. I’m not ashamed to say I have these interests. In fact, I think they’re what makes me relatable to other ‘Aspies’ around the world. Depending on whether they share my interests, of course.
So what does my Autism make me interested in?
Those of you who’ve read ‘Into My Autistic Mind’ would’ve noticed that I keep mentioning the series ‘My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic’. I will admit that I’m a fan of the show, like so many other Bronies and Pegasisters. A lot of people have problems with older audiences – especially teenage boys and grown men – liking ‘My Little Pony’. But I really think those people should watch an episode themselves, before they point fingers. The reason I like the show is because, unlike previous generations – which were so sissy even the target audience (little girls) would cringe – ‘Friendship is Magic’ teaches very sincere morals, which kids and grown-ups of all ages can learn from. There’s even one episode, which I think portrays one of it’s main characters having Autism – or at least Autistic traits. So I’m actually thinking of writing a review on that episode in the future. It’s called ‘Lesson Zero’, so please check it out. Also, check out the documentary ‘Bronies: The Extremely Unexpected Adult Fans of My Little Pony’ on YouTube.
Other interests I have include trading cards. I have a large collection of ‘Yu-Gi-Oh’ cards at home – including one of the Sacred Beasts and two the Egyptian Gods. Every so often, I like to take them out and build decks, so I can see how they match up against each other in duels. I’ve only ever had real opponents during my time in secondary school, when I played against my friends in the spectrum base. Since then, I’ve only played against myself. It’s rather lonely, but still enjoyable. I’d love to take on real opponents, or teach somebody how to play, if I was given the chance to.
Another of my interests is wrestling. I first discovered WWE in 2002, and four years later, I became a full-time fan; watching ‘RAW’ and ‘Smackdown’ on TV, buying merchandise, visiting WWE.com, and even going to live events when they came to London. Not to mention I own all 31 editions of ‘WrestleMania’ on DVD. I’m usually not much of a sports fan – I actually quit football, karate and gymnastics when I was younger. But what I love about wrestling isn’t just the athleticism of its superstars. It’s also the creativeness that goes into the storytelling. Everyone knows wrestling is ‘fake’. But that doesn’t matter when you get to experience a great show. Sometimes what you see is so engaging, you completely forget what you’re watching is staged. This is why WWE sometimes influences my own creative writing skills. It takes a lot of talent to suspend your audiences disbeliefs. And that’s exactly what I aim to achieve with fictional writing.
I love wrestling so much that I’ve even written for HighlightNation, a website dedicated to all things WWE. They were generous enough to post a link to my blog there, so I feel it’s only right I do the same for them. If you like WWE as much as I do then visit: http://www.highlightnation.com.
Another interest that influences my creative writing is animes. I absolutely love animes. Ever since I saw ‘Sprited Away’, I’ve been obsessed with Japanese culture and how well they do animation. The ideas that go into their movies and TV shows are so unique, and inspiring, you couldn’t imagine them being made anywhere else in the world. Not even in America. Why? Because Japan comes up with stories that other countries wouldn’t dare to try. I now own more than 50 different anime DVDs. Including almost every Studio Ghibli film, and ‘Sword Art Online’ – which in my opinion is the greatest animated series ever made, and one every anime fan should own. When I decided to become an author, I knew I wanted to create books that would be as memorable and exciting as animes.
A good writer is first and foremost a good reader. And as a writer I do love to read. Especially the Jacqueline Wilson books. Most of you will have read my review of ‘Lily Alone’, and learnt just why I love Jacqueline Wilson as an author so much – I’m thinking of reviewing another of her books, ‘Lola Rose’, soon. I’ve also read book series like the ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘The Hunger Games’. I sometimes even read series that are outside my target audience, like ‘Dork Diaries’ and ‘Magic Animal Friends’. My reasons for reading them are the same reasons I’m a Brony. Plus, it’s good research for me as a writer to learn what makes certain books best-sellers.
My final interest is one I never thought I’d have. I was never much of a music fan growing up. But I started listening to Michael Jackson songs after he died, and realised just how good they were – it was like he told a short story while singing. Soon, I was listening to his music daily; going to see ‘Thriller Live’ at the Lyric Theatre; I even created my own ‘Billie Jean’ music video as an ICT project once (see below). I’m so passionate about MJ sometimes I like to imitate him. In fact, during my holiday in Majora I saw a tribute band to him, and they invited people to dance on stage. I showed off my stuff, and they thought it was pretty good. It was the highlight of my visit.
I could go on and on about other interests I have, like Doctor Who and YouTube videos by Markiplier, Mr. Enter and AniMat, but I think you get the general idea. I want to finish off by saying that I do still have plans for this blog. As I mentioned, there are two reviews I’m thinking of writing – one will touch on Autism, the other will touch on another personal issue. I also still have plans to interview people in my life and ask them how my Autism effected them. But before all that, I want to write something I’ve been meaning to for a long time now. Months ago, I uploaded pieces that talked about my experiences in primary and secondary school. However, I’ve yet to speak about my college and university years. The next upload will likely be a piece on when I first entered North West Kent college.
I’ll now leave you now with this music video of me trying to be Michael Jackson.
If you’ve enjoyed this post about my interests, then feel free to check out the other pieces I’ve uploaded to this blog. Leave me a comment if you have any questions – I’ll be glad to answer them – and, as always, stay tuned.

I do not own the song ‘Bille Jean’ or anything else. This was simply made as an ICT project.

Into My Autistic Mind 3

This is my third instalment of ‘Into My Autistic Mind’. Enjoy.

Gosh what a day. What a week. I hope my viewers don’t mind me doing another ‘Into My Autistic Mind’. I wanted to write something else today, but so many things happened that I just couldn’t find the time to do it. Let’s just say I’m job-searching and I’m getting a lot call-backs. It’s almost too much to handle. Of course I want to get a job – who doesn’t. But the closer I get to having the jobs I apply for, the more nervous I get for some reason. I never know how much time it’s going to take me to do everything. There have been times in my life when … well how about that, of all the things to come into my mind right now it’s a scene from ‘My Little Pony’. I actually watched the first ‘Equestria Girls’ movie today. It was quite good. I don’t know why so many Bronies hate it. Well I do, but I don’t see anything seriously wrong with it. The song in the cafeteria scene was so good I kept playing it again and again. I’m also thinking of the direct to video sequel to Disney’s ‘The Little Mermaid’ – the one with Ariel’s daughter. You know, this is why I like my Autistic mind working the way it does sometimes; there are times when things come into my head and I worry so much about them, but remembering the things I love helps calm me. I wasn’t able to do it a lot while I was in university, because my assignments were always on my mind and focusing on them all the time made me sick. Word of advice to everyone: no matter how busy you are, always give yourself time to rest or it will drive you crazy. I’m still thinking of ‘The Little Mermaid 2’. I’m in the living room, right now. Sitting on my brown sofa and I’m still thinking about the song from ‘Equestria Girls’ – you have no idea how hard it is to spell ‘Equestria’ or other words without getting it wrong the first time. Maybe I really shouldn’t have watched the movie this morning. Maybe … Sorry, the ‘Secret Escapes’ hotel advert was on and I heard the creepy whispering it does at the end. Anyway, maybe I should have left ‘Equestia Girls’ for another day, then I could have written at least part of what I wanted to write for my blog today. Oh well, there’s always next week. It’s hard to keep to weekly deadlines. I just really hate having so little time to do things. Even a week isn’t enough sometimes. Back in school, college and university … sorry my stepdad just came home and he’s playing with our dog, Bertie. My mum’s on the other sofa doing school work. She probably gets more tired than me. I have no idea how much my time is going to be taken up in the near future. How will I ever become an author if I never have the time to work on any of my personal writing projects. I have so many ideas in my head, but I just have to get them down on paper. I’m thinking of ‘Spongebob Squarepants’ for some reason – and other Nickelodeon shows. I just checked to see if ‘Nickelodeon’ was a real word – apparently it is. Mum’s still typing on her laptop and I’m thinking of the Disney Channel show ‘Recess’ now. And now the popular ‘Phineas and Ferb’. This may not be the right spelling, but I’m not too fussed right now. The door to our large garden is open to my left and I’m hearing birds. My sister is sitting beside me looking at her phone. I sent off my provisional driving licence today. I’ve past my test and tommorow – excuse me, ‘tomorrow’ – I’m going to be looking on Auto-Trader and GoComapare.com. Or at least I hope I will. I don’t want anything else popping up out of nowhere like it did today. The TV is turned on to the channel ‘More 4’, but I don’t know the name of the programme. I rubbed my hands for a moment there and I just can’t get ‘Equestria Girls’ out of my head. Isn’t it funny how you always have one persisting thought that keeps coming into your head over and over. I do think of other things. I see a fly on the floor not too far from where my foot is. Now I’m thinking of a ‘Doctor Who’ episode where Sarah-Jane Smith (Elizabeth Sladen) and K-9 came back. I can’t seem to remember the name of the man who played Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. One problem I have with typing on my iPad is instead of hitting ‘m’ I sometimes it hit ‘,’ – the key beside it. Hey, now I’m thinking of really old CBBC shows like ‘William Wish Wellingtons’, ‘Oakey Doke’, ‘Bodger and Badger’, ‘Super Ted’, ‘Banana Man’ and more. But as I was trying to say earlier, when I was in school, college and university I felt I always needed at least two weeks to do any task. Then I knew I could do it in time. One of my biggest fears is never having the time to do everything. Time management is hard sometimes, especially if you have more than one job and a blog. I really hope everyone is enjoying my posts as much as I like writing them. The ‘m’ and ‘,’ problem just happened again. I don’t know why I feel I should let everyone know I enjoy reading Rachel Renee Russell’s ‘Dork Diaries’ series. I just find it to be very funny and entertaining. I hope the books I write one day will be best-sellers like hers. I probably shouldn’t write for too long, otherwise I’m going to have too many tags to attach. I’m glad this blog post didn’t end up sounding negative like I worried it would. I’m thinking of one more scene from ‘Doctor Who’ with Tom Baker offering a skull a Jelly Baby. “Would you like a Jelly Baby?” he says. “No, I don’t suppose you would.” I’m sure I’ll have what I wanted to write this week up next week.

If you enjoyed this very long paragraph of my unfiltered Autistic thoughts, then check out my other instalments of ‘Into my Autistic Mind’. Also have a look at some of the other things I’ve written for this blog. Leave me a comment if you have any questions – I’ll be happy to answer them – and, as always, keep an eye out for the next post. Stay tuned.

Into My Autistic Mind 2

Last week I posted ‘Into My Autistic Mind’, which allowed readers a glimpse into my thoughts. Because of a generous comment made about it by somebody who’s as passionate about raising awareness of Autism as me, I decided to do another one.

This time I’m in a different environment, at a different time of day, with different thoughts on my mind.

Again the following lines may seem like random gibberish to you. But they are the actual, unfiltered, thoughts I had whilst writing this blog post.

I only have a short time to do this. It’s 9:46, my shift starts in … wait how many minutes is that before 10:30? Well it doesn’t matter it’s changed to 09:47 now. People are going in and out of the door to my right. I sit on this sofa so often before I start work at ASDA that practically everyone knows who I am just because I sit here. I can here the music that plays in the store, someone else just came through the door and a light has gone dark to my left – it’s motion activated. I’m thinking of an old robot dog that used to be sold called Texter or something. I’m remembering and advert of him and I just had to make three corrections in my writing. I still remember the advert for that dog. Now I’m thinking of a scene from ‘Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva’. I love that movie – I even wrote a review about it. I love the games too. The crossover game with Phonex – sorry – ‘Phoenix Wright’ was stressful though. What can I say, I’m a puzzle-solver not a lawyer. I’m glad I have auto-correct on my iPad sometimes. I’m still thinking of that scene from the ‘Professor Layton’ movie. Oh great now in effort to forget it I’m thinking of ‘My Little Pony’ again, but only briefly. There’s a window to an office a little way over to my right. Now I’m thinking of the host – sorry a phone just rang – as I was saying, I was thinking of the host of ‘Deal or No Deal’ and Mr. Blooby, but now I’m thinking of the Rock and WWE. I’ve not seen many of the Rock’s movies but he’s great on the microphone. ‘My Little Pony’ keeps trying to sneak into my head but I’m not going to let it. I almost wrote head as ‘hear’ just now. And ‘as’ as ‘and’. And ‘as’ as ‘an’. Gosh, that’s the trouble when you have so many short words beginning with ‘a’. I’m thinking of a play station – sorry, Playstation is one word. I’m thinking of a Playstation game I used to play, called ‘Spyro: Year of the Dragon’. Now suddenly the DVD menu of ‘Shrek 2’ is in my head. It’s really funny. Now there’s an anime in my head that had vampires in it, now ‘Monsters vs Aliens’ and an image of Barack Obama in 3-D glasses. And now Pokemon is in my head for some reason – thank you again just now auto-correct. I’m trying to focus on other things but it’s hard. I’ve got ‘Powerpuff Girls’ in my head now. Clearly my iPad doesn’t like words like ‘Spyro’ and ‘Powerpuff’. Now another Spyro game is in my head. I just misspelt ‘another’ and almost misspelt ‘misspelt’ (twice). Now I have a ‘Crash Bandicoot’ game in my head. It’s part of a watchmojo.com top ten video. I love those videos – and they’re published everyday. But my favourite – having trouble spelling out ‘Internet’. My favourite Internet … Wow I just paused a long time. What I’m trying to say is I like Mat Brunet – not sure that’s the correct spelling. But his videos on animation are just great. He does reviews, animation look-backs (I corrected look-backs twice), the Epic Mickey files and more. Wow, I suddenly can’t think of anything, that’s weird. Oh, but now I’m thinking of David Tennant, Billie Piper and ‘Doctor Who’. I’m thinking of the first official episode those two actors were in together after the Doctor regenerated. For some reason ‘Conker’s Bad Fur Day’ is on my mind – a really mature video game that involves a binge-drinking squirrel among other things. Drinking has reminded me of one of the final episodes to another anime. And one of the character’s saying ‘Dokey-Oakey’ (clearly very drunk). It’s 10:10 now and I’ve only got 20mins left. My word-count says 3,718 words but I know I have other things on this document beside this post. I’ll copy and paste this onto the actual blog later and attach all the tags. I just had to go over a few sentences there to correct them slightly. Now I remember Woody from ‘Toy Story’ in an activity centre computer game I had once, based around ‘Toy Story 2’. I had a ‘Lion King’ screensaver for my computer once, which changed weekly. I just had to scratch my wrist there. Other thoughts are still coming into my head, but I should stop now. Otherwise I’ll keep writing and I’ll start my shift 1 or 2 minutes late like I usually do. But I do like this sofa. I’ve done all sorts of things on it before starting my shift, reading, playing my DS, writing reviews, thinking of movies like ‘Mary Poppins’ – that thought is happening right now actually. But anyway I should stop now.

Hopefully this one long paragraph has allowed you to get even more of an idea of my life and the thoughts that go through my head nearly every second of the day. If you like what I’ve written, then check out the first ‘Into my Autistic Mind’ post and leave me a comment. I should have something different for you next week, so keep an eye out for the next post. Stay tuned.

Into My Autistic Mind

A lot of people wonder just what goes through the mind of a child or adult with Autism. How do their thoughts compare with other people’s, and how does it effect their focus and behaviour?

Whilst I can’t speak for every person who has Autism, I can allow you a glimpse into my own mind and show you some of the thoughts I have as an adult because of my condition.

The following lines may seem like random gibberish to you. But they are the actual, unfiltered, thoughts I had whilst writing this blog post.

It’s so sunny outside. I can see the shadow of a chair in front of me. The wind’s blowing softly. I just had to correct my text by changing a comma in to a full stop. I’ve also made several mistakes in my grammar whilst writing that last sentence. It’s good to have auto-correct on your iPad, but it can be annoying when it comes up with the wrong word – especially when sometimes that word doesn’t exist. I should say I’m outside. I’m suddenly thinking of a still shot from ‘My Little Pony Friendship is Magic’. I’ll admit it: I’m a Brony. Hold on, let me just correct something. There all fixed. My ‘I’ll’ came up ‘lol’ on my iPad. Stupid auto-correct. Various cartoons I used to watch are in my head now. I’m still thinking of that shot from ‘My Little Pony’. Bertie my dog has just jumped on the trampoline. He’s looking at me intently. I walked him earlier, but he rolled in poo so I had to give him a bath. That reminds me of a show I used to watch called ‘Angelia Anaconda’. I’m hearing a lawnmower in the distance. My rabbit Millie is… Wow I suddenly had to pause there. Now there’s a plane above me and I’m thinking of the O2 area in London, where you can actually walk over it now. My sister has done it before, but I haven’t. Now I’m thinking of Colin Baker back when he was ‘Doctor Who’. There was a whole season that got cancelled in the 80s – “the season that never was” or “the lost season”. I keep thinking of a joke someone said – I think his name was Philip Segal or something – he said if they had set an entire ‘Doctor Who’ story on a cable-car ride it would be just fine. It was something to do with an idea for a story they were planning for “the lost season”. Maybe you wouldn’t understand. Yes, as I was trying to say, Millie is scratching about in her hutch behind me and I can still feel the warmth of the sun and the blow of the wind and voices in the distance. I’m think of a ‘Dexter’s Laboratory’ episode where a toy monkey smiles. Another pause. I wonder if I should make the TV shows I mention more clear. There that should do it – there enclosed with apostrophes now. I’m still thinking of that monkey and another monkey that was mentioned in ‘Jimmy Neutron’. I probably shouldn’t make this too long – I’ve got people coming to the house with shopping and I need to meet them at the door. I’ve also got a presentation to finish before next Tuesday. I was just thinking of a song from ‘My Little Pony’ – sorry it keeps coming into my head. I’m one of the older guys who like that show. Okay, now I’m thinking of something else, but I really shouldn’t say what it is. It’s hard when you get a thought in your head and you just want to get rid of it because of how embarrassing it is. I just had to scratch my head there. And now I remember playing a computer action game of Pixar’s ‘Monsters Inc’ – I said ‘Disney’ before, but I changed it to ‘Pixar’ to be more specific. Wow! I’ve already written more than 500 words! But now I’m thinking of ‘Doctor Who’ again and the episode where a monster keeps repeating everything David Tennant says: “roast beef, bananas, the medusa cascade, BANG, Rose Tyler, Martha Jones, Donna Nobel, TARDIS.” It’s really funny now I remember it. I can’t help giggling. Another thing that made me laugh for ages was a YouTube, ‘How it should have ended’ animation on Indianna Jones – excuse me ‘Indiana Jones’. I’ll leave the spelling mistake for you to see. Millie is sucking at her water now and Bertie’s collar is still drying on the chair. He’s a little way off into the garden looking at something. The phone’s ringing now, but I don’t think it’s for me. I’ll just let it go to voice mail if it’s… Another pause. Well it’s not for me and I don’t think they’ve left a message – they never do unless it’s important. I don’t know why but I’m remembering Hillary Duff in ‘Cheaper by the Dozen’ with a face mask on. Now I remember her in the ‘Lizzie Maguire Movie’ where she’s in Rome. And also her first appearance in film as Wendy in ‘Casper meets Wendy’. I remember seeing ‘Casper’ cartoons when I was younger. Gosh I can’t seem to spell ‘remember’, I just had to correct the one I just typed. But anyway I remember – oh great I did it again. There fixed it. Anyway Casper scared somebody so much they jumped up inside their hat and floated away – weird huh. And then Casper flies to the moon and meets little people like in ‘Guilver’s Travels’. Guliver and Rapunzel and other fairytale or fictional characters appeared in ‘Doctor Who’ once in the land of fiction. They even had Medusa with her snake hair – in fact that reminds me of the Medusa that appeared in ‘Clash of the Titans’ – the really old version with Dynamation. I really like old classic stories like ‘Little Women’, ‘Time Machine’ and the like. Hopefully they will help me well on my way to being an author myself. That’s what I’d like to do one day – I just fixed an error there – I’d like one day to be an author and help others with my condition and other disabilities. I’m still thinking of the face of that ugly Medusa in ‘Clash if the Titans’. Is that even the title of the movie – I might have got one word wrong. It’s a film that came out before the third ‘Star Wars’ (Return of the Jedi). I just took a stick from Bertie. He’s sitting in the shade of the table near me now and Millie is still moving about in her hutch. Maybe I should let her out and enjoy the sun. Then again, I don’t want Bertie chasing her and she can easily get caught somewhere – that’s the trouble with having a big garden. She has gotten out before. Bertie is crunching the stick now. Why am I remembering an episode of ‘Blue’s Clues’ and why do I say ‘remember’ a lot in this. I almost misspelt the word again. Did you know ‘misspell’ is the most misspelt word in the English language. At least according to ‘Qi’ – I love that show with all its unusual facts. Bertie is really crunching that stick. I can’t seem to stop myself typing – I just made another error – but I know I should stop soon. I don’t want this to go on for too long. And I still have a presentation to finish. Oh dear, this is more than 1,100 words now. I’ll stop it here and continue some other time.

Hopefully this one long paragraph has allowed you to get an idea of my life and some of my interests. Even as I’m writing this part now, more unusual thoughts are coming into my head. But now you can see what’s on my mind throughout the day and why it’s easy for my thoughts to wonder. If you like what I’ve written leave me a comment and look out for the next post. Stay tuned.