Not a weakness

Nate, your entries warm my heart. I want to say that I don't believe H.F.A is a weakness. Our biggest challenge in life makes us who we are. Each day that we face it, we become stronger. Everyone has something, no matter what. Your something is high functioning Autism.

I marvel at how our somethings- your H.F.A and my hearing loss- though very different things, often have a very similar outcome. We both get left out often and we both wish we connected with people more and made friends more easily.

Diagnoses and labels are a curious thing. Seems to be something that has evolved in our society to categorize everyone who doesn't fit in the way they are 'supposed' to. Would Nate have become isolated and fallen through the cracks two hundred years ago? I seriously doubt it. He'd probably be working on a farm or in a small rural town where the community looks out for him, supports him, and see him as an endearing and unique person.

Nate, I am so happy to see you writing. Three posts already. I started to worry last night after your first post that maybe you wouldn't be able to post again. I worried that it might become something that you focused on so much, trying to write it just the way you wanted to, that you wouldn't be able to enjoy it. I don't want it to be something that keeps you up at night.

I think one of the hardest traits of H.F.A is the perseverating that creates an intense cycle of anxiety and worry. Often people with H.F.A will stress over experiences and things people said or did that may not even register with someone without H.F.A. My hope is that this blog is always something comfortable and interesting for Nate. If it is otherwise, I hope he'll write about that too.