asd – The Conscious Pilgrim

permission to feel

I’m someone who spends a lot of time in their own head. I struggle to shut my brain off at the absolute best of times and quite often, there’s nothing more comforting to me than to field a question about something that I am particularly well-versed in.

Beyond that, I take medication that acts as a stimulant, that – if I were to intellectualize it – allows the energy level of my body to catch up to the energy level of my brain where there can be some sense of equilibrium. It may even divert some energy, but that remains to be seen. These are ADHD meds, and since I am AuDHD (combining forces of Autism and ADHD), my Autism is a little more ‘free to roam,’ as it were.

The assertion that Autistic people don’t feel emotion is incorrect. They just process it differently. I would argue that they feel emotions to a higher degree and that regulating those emotions are more of a challenge… so don’t confuse that monotone voice and that deadpan look for anything other than what it is – honesty. If you’re seeing that face and hearing that voice, then you are looking and talking with someone who is not ‘masking’ their disability, and if it feels awkward, it’s not the Autistic person who doesn’t know how to react, it’s you.

Anyway…

… with ADHD meds working in full force, I’ve ultimately never felt more autistic than I do now.

Sorta makes it sound like I live even MORE in my head than before, right? Well, kinda. Except I can put thought to action way more easily without my ADHD symptoms clouding judgement and distracting me, metaphorically tying my shoelaces together.

There are not a lot of Autistic people who will tell you this, but I actually love my autism. Being able to see how I function differently from the people around me is not a new thing… I’ve always been different – but to know WHY and HOW is a comfort I’ve never felt before.

It’s allowed me to walk in the truth that I am very smart, and very resourceful, and good at a lot of things.

It’s got it’s challenges… especially for a “tough guy, rock & roll guy, a hot rod guy, a dad… of a daughter…” and all of the other tropes that beset men. Don’t get me wrong – I know this whole society was set up for me to succeed, but it comes on the condition that we must all be as stoic, stiff-lipped, and unrelenting as Rooster Cogburn in True Grit.

… now who’s not regulating their emotions?

Right.

The truth is that you can have a good life and still be sad. you can be smart and also make a poor decision. You can be a professional and still perform poorly.

And… you’re allowed to feel shitty.

Shitty is a feeling that is just as valid as happiness and just as important to acknowledge, live in, and move through. It’s repressing that feeling that hurts you, because you hang onto it, and add to it, until it’s bigger than you.

I try to remember these things when I’m consoling someone who’s sad, because I have to ask myself if I’m trying to make them feel “better” because it makes the dynamic in the room less awkward for ME… when really, the person being consoled should be made to felt SAFE to feel those feelings.

a thousand papercuts

I never in a million years would have described myself as someone with anxiety.

And I still don’t.

The end.

Well, not not exactly.

Do I have clinical anxiety? no.
Do I get anxious about things? Yes, I suppose we all do, but I honestly thought I might be the exception to the rule, because I generally felt the same about most things in my life. I never really got too worked up about ‘the small stuff’ as a general rule because in the grand scheme of things, I could anticipate a desired outcome if a few things were given special attention. So, generally speaking, I would operate at a baseline that I would really only deviate from in special circumstances.

I realize I’m speaking in broad terms, but that’s because I have always done this.

Then I started looking into natural supplementation to assist in recovery from athletic fatigue – i.e. I was running a lot and wanted to run more, and more frequently – and I happened upon an article about ‘cannabidiol’ – a cannabinoid that is fairly cheap and plentiful for those of the age of majority up here in the land of legal weed, better known to most as CBD.

There are several weed stores within dog walking distance, and they’re all pretty friendly to my giant Dane/Hound, so I did a little observational research of my own and found that it worked decently enough as described, but it also offered me an education in what my baseline for operation really was.

On a scale of 1-10, I’d have told you that I operate in the 1-2 range on a daily basis for stress and anxiety, but it was more like a 3 or 4. Again, not staggering, but I’d been hovering around the 3-4 mark for so long that it felt like nothing. As it happens, I’ve been living and coping with “1000 micro-anxieties” of which I was in unaware.

A better name for that is “overwhelmed.”
And being constantly overwhelmed is symptomatic of other things.

It’s truly amazing what we can decide about ourselves, and subscribe to… until we suddenly can’t anymore.

Popping a CBD caplet put me down to an actual 1-2.
And then I knew something that I could never un-know.

Now, again… not an anxious person by definition, and I won’t start to say that I am at any point but it was fairly eye opening to go from ‘not worrying about the little stuff’ to ‘actually not worrying about the little stuff.’

So, I found a little thread… and I tugged on it… and through some of my own research and podcast-listening and conversations with other neurodivergent folks – whom I seem to be surrounded by, for the most part – I decided to go for a formal diagnosis for AuDHD (the one-two-punch of ADHD and ASD, together at last).

I was put on ADHD medication, and as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, with the ADHD dog now on it’s leash… I’ve never felt more autistic.

So, there’s an origin story for you, lol.
44 years of believing things were a certain way, and that everyone has a similar experience.

But, no.
They don’t.

managing the unbridled

I’ve driven a few people nuts over the years, from romantic partners to band members, but none so much as myself. It’s not until very recently that someone flipped on the lightswitch and the reason was revealed – AuDHD – the 1-2-punch that is the combination, and often conflicting traits of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

One of these things can be medicated. So, I spent a month building up levels of that medication, and I’ve been on my full dosage for a month now, and I have to say that the barking dog that is ADHD put on a leash (still barking, though – it’s being treated, not cured) it’s really given my Autism symptoms some space to move around and show itself – and while it can be challenging at times, and I definitely catch myself being weird in public more frequently… I have to say that I really do like myself.

What really adds layers to this is that I’m also starting a small business that allows me to make really cool stuff. Full disclosure: I’ve been running small performing arts businesses: rock & roll bands – for decades, so while some of this is very new, a lot of it is very familiar and I definitely DO have something to compare the experience to, and that comparison is Me vs. Medicated Me.

I’ve put an inordinate amount of energy into this new venture that seems to be falling together pretty seamlessly, somehow. I don’t have a wild number of gigs right now, which sucks, but it’s good for the development of ‘this thing‘ (as I’ll refer to it henceforth) because there is not much to distract me from ‘this thing‘ currently. The big year-end push at my day job has recently happened, so there’s a little more mental space for ‘this thing‘ right now on that front as well.

So what’s different?

My level of focus is huge. As much as I’ve become Dr. Doolittle around my house, forgetting whether I’ve let the dog outside and when, or that I have rice on the stove, or that I have a coffee growing colder by the minute still sitting under the Nespresso tap… completely losing track of time to the degree that I have set multiple alarms to remind myself to check the time… all this aloofness is happening in favor of mentally differentiating between small parts for something I’m building, or paint shades.

I’m suddenly able to point myself in a direction and see it through to the end. Sure… time-blindness is a factor more than ever before, but that’s become part of the planning, and the ASD part of my brain loves a plan… while the ADHD part can roll with a plan that changes… so while my plan may be to do some very detail-oriented work, if my eyes and hands aren’t cooperating that evening, I can change gears and tackle something that I’d planned to do another evening. It all needs to get done… so all steps forward are progress.

It’s when I don’t have a plan, and things change… that shit goes sideways in a hurry. I’ve walked away from a few flaming wreckages in my day, and this won’t be one.

I’ve still got a thousand things going on in my brain at a time, but each of them has time & space to breathe and develop. It’s a very exciting and explorative time in my life and I’m honestly really excited to do it, and while I’m pursuing this I also get to learn how to work with myself in a whole new way, which is thrilling. It’s like having a business partner that understands my shortcomings and compensates for them – meanwhile, creativity is flowing in a really cool and interesting way.

I’m excited to reveal what I’ve been working on – ideally by the fall of 2026, I should be able to do some sort of reveal, because there are legal and tax things at play that I don’t fully understand – but some of that might be a job for someone else if this all goes the way I hope it does.

What no entrepreneur will tell you is that there’s a possibility that the whole thing falls flat… They can’t think like that, and neither can I. But what I can say is that if it doesn’t rise to the level I hope to see it reach, I’ll still be richer for the experience.

You can’t buy that kind of fulfillment.

no idea

Hi, I’m really not sure what to write about today, so I’m going to just trust my process and trust that by the time I feel like it’s time to stop writing, I’ll have made some profound point.

I’ve got a lot on my brain right now… and it’s an ADHD brain so that means quite a bit. I’m in the process of developing a thing – an artistic thing… a wonderful thing that I’m very proud of, but am now working out how to duplicate so that I can send it home with people, in exchange for dollars.

So it’s an artistic venture that has become a yet-to-be revealed small business that I’ll be running on the side of everything else I have on the go… but a lot of it feels pretty normal to this “30-year rock & roll band” guy. There’s a long list of things that need to be done that I have experience doing in rock & roll fields.

I’ve got someone working on a logo. I’m writing website content. I’m looking into promotion avenues, and cross promotion, weird influencers, Social Media pages, YouTube, Meta ads… I honestly don’t have time for a lot of this because I’m too busy making a cool thing… That being the case, I’m not ready to actually talk about what it is and how it works just yet… So, I’m going to stay cagey about it.

Beyond that, my primary focus has been using my powers for good and not evil… and by that I mean I’ve begun commodifying my ASD to hyperfocus on this (these) thing(s) I’m building, and my ADHD to keep as many balls in the air as I can. It’s been an interesting case study – well, not a case study in the traditional sense, but more in the vein of ‘observational evidence’ – at any rate, I’ve ultimately become my own superhero when it comes to getting work done on this new venture, as I have developed a lot of skills over the years.

With my ADHD more in check due to medication I’ve been prescribed, I have to say (as I have to a few people) that I’ve never felt more autistic. My time blindness and lack of awareness around time is an interesting challenge. I’ve been realizing that I don’t do well with specific times, but I am capable of measuring time with tasks… for instance:

I know how long it takes me to get home from the gym and get ready for work.
I know how long my workout is… and I know how long it takes to make breakfast and coffee… so, as long as I get out of bed at the right time, I will get to my office at the same time every day.

On the flip side of that – I don’t know how long it’s going to take me to accomplish one of the new tasks for this new venture. Sometimes I will work on it until either my hands are shaking (signifying that it’s time to eat) or my eyes hurt (signifying that it’s time for bed). So I set a lot of alarms now, and I make good use of my calendar.

Anyway… In a lot of ways this new thing scratches all my itches…

It’s music adjacent
It involves sound design
It involves working with my hands and building something
It involves historical knowledge
It involves working with other people
It involves visual art
It’s a niche market, but seems to be a community minded one, rather than a competitive one

It’s got elements of making music and elements of hotrod building… it’s very involved and I think the timing is right, in spite of certain world events and the advent of tariffs and high transportation costs, I’m hoping to service in my own community and in my own province, something that exists, but exists regionally.

Anyway I’m very excited about it, and I’m sure there will be small reveals along the way.

emotionally i’m a celebrity

“Emotionally I’m a celebrity” That’s a line from an Iggy Pop song, but I sorta love it and I think it’s a fair descriptor of how I feel sometimes – although, yes, I DO understand that ol’ Iggy is takin’ the piss over a generation of punk rockers who don’t understand punk rock.

Maybe it speaks to you, too.
Maybe it doesn’t, and I’m emotionally dysregulated… but are we not all the main characters in our own stories?

Once upon a time, they used to call artists, (and by extension, popular artists) (and also by extension, rich weirdos who were often popular artists beck before being ‘famous for being famous’ was a vocation) ‘eccentric.’ That’s a term I haven’t heard used in a long time; likely since medical science has come up with actual diagnoses for these disabilities.

Yes, disabilities – and that’s an important distinction.

These people who operated in these ways fell under the umbrella – or; nore accurately, were swept under the rug – of ‘eccentric‘ which was a catch-all term for ‘a little different but ultimately harmless‘ primarily because they saw beauty in things that their contemporaries didn’t. These folks were odd. They’d simultaneously procrastinate and fixate. They’d be uncredited authorities on obscure topics. They acted out sometimes… or became reclusive. They showed up late and left early. They wore sunglasses indoors and dressed differently. they were called ‘weird’ ‘gifted’ ‘wild’ and my personal favorite: ‘talented’. They flocked together. They had a hard time maintaining employment. They drove fast. They lived a high-risk lifestyle. And there were countless other symptoms… and unfortunately for those who lived their lives before these diagnoses were available – they self medicated their disabilities in lieu of actual help.

There’s that word again. Disabilities.

Anyway,
… all of those things are still true.
… and have been true for me along the way.

The importance of that distinction comes with some controversy within the community, I suppose, but I’m beginning to think that controversy is regional – as in, if you live in a place where there’s no government funded help available and you’ve received an adult diagnosis after developing your own coping methods over the course of your life – you probably don’t want to be labeled as a ‘disabled person.’

However; if you do live in a place where there’s government-funded help and tax breaks, that designation is probably a blessing.

But if you live in a place, as I do, where; although you were diagnosed as an adult, and have some (healthy) coping mechanisms (after dispelling your unhealthy ones on your own, the hard way), and the governing body in your region DOES provide help and support, but the current folks in power are actively trying to take money out of the pockets of disabled people, it’s a VERY important designation.

Me? Yeah, I’m ultimately fine. I made it this far, didn’t I?
I’m pretty high-functioning ADHD and ASD (AuDHD, technically).
But that doesn’t mean I have a spare $5,000.00 kicking around for testing (regardless of the outcome) as well as $150/month for medication and an untold fortune for ongoing therapy.

How about folks who are not quite so high-functioning?
Or folks who are dealing with a whole bunch more than I am?

These disability designations are crucial.

So my job… my role here… is to highlight the fact that these people are all around you. This is why I’ve decided to be open about this, and not to be embarrased about it.

Because April 2nd was World Autism Awareness Day… (and yes, the notion of posting this on a thursday was really problematic for me due to my Saturday morning ritual… and my… ASD… struggled with that) and there will be all kinds of cool information being posted and shared all month that I hope you will take in.

Thanks everyone.

The Iggy Pop quote is from the song Neo Punk, from his most recent album “Every Loser” which is a great record from front to back and the fact that he put out such a barn burner of an album at 75 years old should give you as much hope as it gives me.

Another line from that song is “my hair is blue, and my prescription, too” but both my prescription AND my hair are grey. Not joking.

thanks / embarrassment

Sometimes I write this thing, and I have absolutely no real concept of who’s readying it, or when. The hosting platform shows me a little number, but I don’t delve into that because I don’t really want to write for a specific audience. I’m not trying to grow a brand… well, not here, anyway.

There are people who read it every week. They let me know. I am deeply appreciative of it, and it makes me feel really good that after a few years of public journaling, that what I’m saying has some resonance…

But 2 weeks ago when I posted about my neurodivergent diagnoses, people really came out of the woodwork to let me know they had my back, or… brain… or… whatever they had, they were supporting me.

So, thank you very much. All of you.

Now for the ’embarrassment’ part.
No… I’m not embarrassed. Quite the opposite.

When I was younger, I used to think I wasn’t embarrassed easily. Actually, no… I thought you couldn’t embarrass me if you tried. While that’s probably still true, it’s conditional, because one of the tiny little things I’ve realized about myself is that I can be embarrassed very easily – just not through conventional means.

I fear no ridiculous karaoke song, no questionable stage attire, no public speaking event, no dirty joke, and I don’t subscribe to any ideologies or political views that will come back to bite me in any meaningful way… but I gotta say, being cool; or at least perceived as cool, is vitally mportant to me.

That probably sounds pretty dipshitty… but why would I lie about it now?

When I was a kid, I never felt cool. As a matter of fact, I was certain that I wasn’t. I was kind of a weird kid – I was very quiet, and I had a real hard time keeping up with other kids because I really felt like I didn’t belong anywhere… especially with kids my own age.

I went to a private christian school in Grade 1 & 2, and I was homeschooled in grade 3… and then when I was new to the Edmonton Public School system in grade 4, I got picked on. Maybe we all did, but it sure felt like I was the only one back then. So I did what I was supposed to do – I told a teacher. Allow me to tell you – and I would say it to any kid I meet who is dealing with the same thing – that was the worst fucking idea anyone ever had.

The school talked to the bully.
And they let me leave 5 minutes early to get a head start so I could get home… but within a couple days the bully came and found me and pushed me around.

I told the teacher again, and they called my dad.

In my eyes, my dad was all that is man.
He was a big strong guy who didn’t take any shit from anyone, and honestly he terrified me, because I was ULTRA timid and he worked shift work, which meant he was grumpy, and probably worried about money, though I wouldn’t know what that meant just yet.

I was so embarrassed.
I was so sure that my dad already thought I was a wimp, and if I had my way, I wouldn’t even be a blip on his radar most of the time… but he picked me up from school that day and he took me out for lunch to McDonald’s, which was a rare treat back then.

He instilled upon me that day that “REAL tough guys don’t start fights, but they ain’t afraid to end ’em” and that if you’re backed up against the wall, sometimes the only way out is to punch your way out.

Since then I’ve really only had to throw fists a couple times… but I remember consciously deciding at that point that I didn’t want to be the kind of person who gets pushed around ever again. I wanted to be the kind of person who – if someone saw you pushing me around, they’d think YOU were the asshole, and not worry about whether or not I was okay… because guys like ME are ALWAYS okay.

That’s a long way around the bend…but all that was to say that there’s a level of vulnerability around mental health diagnoses that’s required, and although I intuitively want to share and help destigmatize and demystify these things – it DOES kinda go against my laurels to open up that way.

So for me, I had to decide not to be embarrassed by it. I had to decide that it’s totally cool to be transparent about my neurodivergence and my challenges so that maybe some twerpy kid who’s as unsure of himself as I once was can look at me and my neurodivergent cohort and say “if he’s cool with it then I can be cool with it, too.”

Anyway… if you read all that, thanks again.

in the dark

Last week I opened up about my ADHD and ASD diagnoses… so you can go ahead and anticipate some neurodivergent talk here.

It’s a hell of a thing to get diagnoses like that as a 43 year old man.

The best way I can describe this is to say that metaphorically… I’ve been feeling around in the dark for a long time.
And sneezing… for decades.
So I’m just there… navigating through the dark, thinking I’m pretty good at it… and again: sneezing – but assuming that everyone is having the same sneezing problems as me… and nobody can see what’s really happening.
Then someone turns the light on.
And suddenly I realize that MOST of the people around me had flashlights.
And the room is FULL of cats.
And I’m sneezing… and I’m realizing that everyone could see fine except for me.
And I’m the only one allergic to cats.
And now it’s all coming together and making sense.

I’ve always been good at puzzles and games.
I’m good at most things I try to do, if I’m being honest.
But that’s partly due to (a) only trying things I know I’d be good at, and (b) not allowing myself to be bad at anything.

The kicker is that those Modus Operandi are actually defense mechanisms that are cleverly disguised as brilliance and ambition… or discipline.
Don’t get me wrong… ambition and aptitude are requirements, but I have to ask myself if any of these things are truly difficult.
Now… they are, generally VERY difficult, but I still have to ask.

I have tried things that I wasn’t good at right away. We all have. But I know what I’m capable of, because I’ve been in the driver’s seat of this body for 4 decades… so I can look at a thing I don’t know how to do and logically relate it to something else I enjoy.
Often there’s only a few degrees of separation.

For example – I have a 1962 Ford Fairlane that I work on and drive in the summer months. I have the aptitude and discipline for this. I am also a proficient guitar player who’s very picky about his electric guitar sound. So, it’s not a stretch to say that I might be good at building my own guitar distortion pedals… because I understand the construction and robust requirements of a metal box that gets stepped on for dramatic effect, and I know what sounds good. I just need to understand circuits…

… so I’m learning how t understand circuits.

Not to downplay this new hobby at all, because it’s very cool, and very fun, and very rewarding, and it is artisan work… but buying a bunch of tools and components was not a risk for me, because of course I’d be good at that.

Anyway… I clearly have more questions than answers.
I appreciate you reading this.

PS… I’m building guitars pedals now.