Well you’ve gotta start somewhere….

After seven months of having this website I think I'm ready to say something.

Sharing yourself - providing information and your experiences for advocating yourself and others and add to the world wide web of interconnected and sometimes irrelevant knowledge out there is a big step. I know it's just a blog and a wesbite but it marks a quiet transition from an invisible silent face of autism to a public one. Making yourself public, even (or perhaps especially) to strangers needs to be a well considered and deliberate step. One I think I'm now ready to make.

As I think about this there are four main questions it raises for me:
1. How much of yourself should you share with the world?
2. How well do you need to know yourself in order to openly share who you are?
3. What am I going to say that is going to be authentic and possibly useful and relevant, or at least mildly interesting to someone else?
4. Will anybody read it and does it really matter if they don't?

For questions 1 and 2 I think I need to be prayerful about what I'm going to say and not say (particularly if it relates to someone I know and not just me because I don't want to break anyone's trust or share anything they may not want put in the public arena). I also need to be comfortable with the fact I am growing and changing just like everyone else and that I can only share what I know and am not responsible for knowing and having thought about everything. I think as long as I'm honest, and prayerful, that even if no one much reads this it is a useful personal exercise in knowing, understanding and thinking about myself and my thoughts on life (which relates to Q3 & Q4). Writing and making up songs are how I often process how I feel about things anyway as my emotional self seems to be less well connected to my conscious (mind) self than for someone who doesn't have an ASD diagnosis.

I think in terms of knowing what to say I need to think of some questions to ask before saying it as well as being prayerful. Questions such as "is what I'm saying true?", "might it help someone else's understanding and experience?", "does it speak positively (or at least constructively and insightfully in a way that brings hope)?" and "does it align with my faith and bring glory to God?".

With this in mind I hope to bless whoever may read this and add to their understanding.

Tori

http://www.christianlifewithautism.com