The Who
It occurs to me that, while this entire site is about me, I don’t actually introduce myself anywhere. So this is me doing that. Hi, I’m Joy (she/her/they/them), a former marine biologist, former small business owner, former community organizer, and current diagnosee of PTSD, C-PTSD, Major Depressive Disorder, and Autism Spectrum Disorder. So I’m both incredibly interesting and terribly uncomfortable at parties.
When I’m not building websites for fun, I also dabble in graphic design, do 5000 piece jigsaw puzzles, embroider by hand, run stairs, lift weights, and read contemporary romance novels at the beach. Oh and I have a podcast where I practice skills I learned in therapy, in real time, while having strong emotions.
I’m also white, 39 years old, queer (bi and/or pan if you wanna get technical), and gender queer. If “workout gear” was a gender, it would be mine. Since it’s not, I describe myself as femme presenting and occupying the political space of “woman” without really aligning with that internally. Basically this. I also experience episodic, chronic pain, am ex-evangelical, live with my parents, and am unemployed.
The Why
I originally built this site for my parents because I wanted to disclose to them that I have autism while simultaneously protecting myself from their assumptions, misunderstandings, and judgements. I wanted them to simultaneously know I have autism AND have a baseline knowledge of what that meant. This website is an attempt to curate the information I wanted them to have.
Originally, this site existed as a Word document, with a bunch of hyperlinks and such. My plan was to print out the document and also give them a link to a digital PDF version so they could access the hyperlinks. But I quickly realized that once I printed out the document and gave it to my parents, I no longer had a way to update it, so I’d need to continually update the digital version. And if I was going to be continually updating a digital version, I might as well build a website. So I did. A month to write the document. Four days to build the site.
If it’s not apparent by now, I have autism.
The What
This site is made up of 4 main pages:
- Intro: a basic introduction to what autism is (as we currently understand it)
- Joy: an explanation of how autism presents in me specifically
- Terms: a glossary, and list of what TO say and what NOT to say to someone with autism
- Resources: links to websites, articles, and tiktok videos, the vast majority of which were created by folks who actually have autism.
This site is NOT the end-all-be-all of what autism is or how it presents. I don’t pretend to represent the experiences of anyone other than just me. As I say multiple times on this site, if you’ve met someone with autism, you’ve met… exactly one person with autism. It is a SPECTRUM.
This site will continue to grow and evolve as my own understanding of autism and myself grows and evolves.
