Life-The Aspergirl Way
Continue reading “The Aspergirl Diaries: Community Quarantine Week 27”
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To be completely honest, I wasn’t sure if I was going to write this post today, but in the end, I just decided to talk about the past week just in case you might also learn from it, and so I can also clear my head a bit. Continue reading “The Aspergirl Diaries: Community Quarantine Week 16”
I cannot believe that we have reached the end of June, and with that, half a year has just literally gone by. This also means that its time to take stock of the first half of the year and plan for the second half, and although it may seem like this year is a weird one, I’m pretty sure that if you take a good look and what you’ve accomplished, especially during the quarantine period, you might see that you’ve actually grown a little bit more, more than you expected.
Continue reading “The Aspergirl Diaries: Community Quarantine Week 15”
The month of June is going by so fast! It seems like we just started the month and now we are going into the fourth week of June! I still can’t really make heads or tails of this year at all, but this past week was pretty tiring yet fun for me.
Continue reading “The Aspergirl Diaries: Community Quarantine Week 14”
This week was a pretty big week for me, and I have no idea how I survived it. The biggest thing that happened was that I can finally now talk about the project that I have been hinting at for some weeks now- I launched my own YouTube channel for my other blog, The Kat’s Cafe! Aside from this, it has been a week of learning and gaining new insights about myself as well. Continue reading “The Aspergirl Diaries: Community Quarantine Week 13”
Things have been busier than usual for me, as I have been working on both small and big creative projects aside from a new creative project I’m also working on for work. I also wasn’t so diligent about working out in Week 11, so I tried my best to hop back on that train again; and it reminded me that it really does feel good to exercise, especially right after you get up from bed in the morning. Continue reading “The Aspergirl Diaries: Community Quarantine Week 12”
Right now, the region I live in, and the cities where I work and live at, are now under a General Community Quarantine. This means that there are establishments and offices that are now slowly opening, for economic reasons. And, of course, we are still being advised to stay home rather than go outside. However, I still count these as weeks under a community quarantine as the quarantine itself hasn’t been lifted totally yet.
Continue reading “The Aspergirl Diaries: Community Quarantine Week 11”
At this point in time, most of the city is gearing back to shift into the modified enhanced community quarantine, but things don’t feel that clear yet. Funnily enough, the weather seems to be mirroring this confusion as there are moments when it is still very hot, followed by downpours of rain. However, I’m glad that the rain does bring some cool weather when it does. Aside from that, my week was pretty hectic, and will be so until next Tuesday mostly due to work, so I can’t wait until I can relax a little bit more in the latter half of the week.
Continue reading “The Aspergirl Diaries: Community Quarantine Week 10”
These past two weeks have gone by so fast and have honestly been the hottest weeks recorded in my country as of late, a reminder that summer is here, but one without the usual trips to the beach, Tagaytay or Baguio due to the current situation. Aside from this, many people are confused and anxious about what the new normal will be looking like, especially in Metro Manila as we are now in a state of Modified Enhanced Community Quarantine (MECQ) now. Worries and anxieties aside, I’m pretty sure that I still really won’t be going out of my village yet, and I’m excited as well as there are many new and interesting new things and plans coming my way for the next two months.
Continue reading “The Aspergirl Diaries: Community Quarantine Week 9”
Ever since the community quarantine started, time seemed to move pretty slowly. However, for some reason, this week went by so fast. I’m not sure if it was because of the workload (work and house chores) that I have, or because of the fact that it is quite possible that we will be shifting to a General Community Quarantine by the end of next week. In any case, it was quite a week.
Continue reading “The Aspergirl Diaries: Community Quarantine Week 8”
I can’t believe that it’s already May, which means that we are one month away from reaching the halfway mark of 2020, and I have no idea what to think if this year yet. At this point in time, I can say that I have gotten comfortable enough with my daily routines that I can be flexible with it at times. However, I think that with a new month and the upcoming lifting of the Enhanced Community Quarantine on May 15 and shifting to a General Community Quarantine, there is also a certain feeling of uncertainty in the air.
Continue reading “The Aspergirl Diaries: Community Quarantine Week 7”
I cannot believe that we have already reached the six week mark of the enhanced community quarantine in Manila, which means that this lockdown has gone on for two months already. Unsurprisingly, our government also recently announced that the lockdown will be extended until May 15, which means that my current routines will be my new normal until then. However, despite being two months in, I feel that I still haven’t gotten to the level of my ideal current routine, but it’s getting there.
Continue reading “The Aspergirl Diaries: Community Quarantine Week 6”
At this point in time, I thought that things would be a bit more normal, or whatever the normal feels like nowadays. However, week 5 proved to be a little bit more emotional than I expected- maybe because I’m interacting with my family more now compared to the previous weeks, or because I still have some pent up emotions that haven’t come out yet since more than a month ago. Whatever the case is, I think I should let go of that expectation of wanting at least one week that feels “normal”, because it will just make me disappointed. I still have a long way to go when it comes to “letting go” of expectations, no matter how small they are.
Continue reading “The Aspergirl Diaries: Community Quarantine Week 5”
Everyone had a feeling that the quarantine over here was going to be extended, so it was no surprise when our national government announced that they would be extending the quarantine until April 30, 2020. To be honest, even though I am going a bit crazy, I think it would be better to extend until the curve flattens out more a bit. This year’s Holy Week and Easter celebrations were very different as compared to before as services were all online. However, all things considered, this has been the calmest week for me ever since the quarantine began.
Continue reading “The Aspergirl Diaries: Community Quarantine Week 4”
Given that the second week of the quarantine was pretty crazy in the homefront, I was hoping that week 3 would run more smoothly. However, this week reminded and taught me that having high expectations of things sets yourself up for disappointment, and that it’s better to try to be more flexible and to roll with the punches instead.
Continue reading “The Aspergirl Diaries: Community Quarantine Week 3”
After the first week in quarantine, I thought that I pretty much had things under control as I already had a nice time blocked schedule in place, and I had goals that I wanted to achieve by the time the quarantine ended. However, life seems to have a way of throwing overwhelming curve balls which keeps you on your toes and makes you run on pure adrenaline for a while. However, it does end up giving you life lessons and timely reminders; and the hope that a certain point, it won’t be as overwhelming as you thought it was before.
Continue reading “The Aspergirl Diaries: Community Quarantine Week 2”
Lately, I’ve noticed that I’ve been posting more Survival Guides as compared to my other categories. This is mostly because I’ve been making so much lists of protocols for myself to cope with things because so much has been going on, and mostly because its easier for me to make lists in general. However, I thought that it would be interesting as well to some unstructured posts, giving you guys updates, and my thoughts, feelings and discoveries in daily life. Think of it as me talking to you more freely as compared to my other posts. Some of these might be reflected in Survival Guides or The Aspergirl Reflects On…,as these posts might become the basis for those in the future. I think you can expect these posts to pop up maybe weekly, or at the very least, once a month.
Continue reading “The Aspergirl Diaries: Community Quarantine Week 1”
It has only been less than two months into both the new year (2020), and the new decade, but sometimes, if feels like several months have passed already because of all the distressing world related events that have seemingly been happening one after the other, whether it be a local or international concern.
All of this, combined with the never ending stream of both helpful and harmful (fake news) information on social media might trigger what I like to call anxiety and panic due to world events. To be honest, all of this caused both my anxiety and OCD to go on hyperdrive, to the point that I had a pretty bad anxiety and panic attack during one work day and had to call my therapist in order to calm down again. I’m pretty sure that I’m not the only one feeling this way right now, so I thought that it would be good to share some tips that I’ve been doing in order to help my anxiety levels go down.
Continue reading “The Aspergirl’s Survival Guide: How To Cope with Anxiety Due to World Events”
Continue reading “The Aspergirl’s Survival Guide: How To Goal Set For the New Year (2020 Edition)”
Time really does fly fast, although sometimes, it may not seem that it does. This was the thought that crossed my mind after realizing that it has been ten years since I graduated college, which means that I have been part of the work force for a decade now. Finding a job and having a career isn’t easy for anyone, and it is even harder for those who exist on the spectrum or on the higher end of the spectrum, like me. In fact, it took me ten long years to figure out what I really wanted to do as a career and it took me that long as well to create strategies and coping mechanisms to help me cope with the job and career I have now. So, in line with this, I decided to create the “Aspergirl on the Job” category, in which I will impart some tricks, tips and know hows, all the way from strategy tips to some advice on how to choose a career path or the right job for you; and the pros and cons of a freelance versus a full time job. However, before diving into that, I’d like to share my own little story with you, as I’ve gained a lot of experiences over the ten years I’ve been working, with the thirteen jobs I’ve had in my life so far, and the realizations that led me to where I am today.
Continue reading “The Aspergirl Reflects On….A Decade of Working”
Change, whether it be something as small as small as a change in plans or routines, or a major change, like entering a new job, is a constant in life, and we all have our own ways of coping with it. However, for people with Asperger’s Syndrome, change is something that doesn’t come as easy or as natural to us, even if it is as simple as a small change in schedule or routine, and can go as far as being something that can be upsetting to the point that it can trigger either a big or small meltdown.
Continue reading “The Aspergirl’s Survival Guide: How To Handle Change”
Going on vacation- no matter what kind it is or how long it lasts for- is a great way to relax and unwind from the stresses of work and the routines of our lives, to discover new places, and to create new memories whether it be a solo vacation or with others. However, once the vacation or holiday is done, more often than not, we have a hard time adjusting back to the routines of everyday life and work, especially as we still have a “hangover” of sorts from our great holiday and wish we were back on holiday again. This is true for everybody, but I noticed that compared to others, my adjustment period takes a little bit longer, but it gets there eventually. So, I decided to list down my top five tips to help you bounce back into your regular routine after going on vacation.
Continue reading “The Aspergirl’s Survival Guide: How to Bounce Back to Routine (Vacation Edition)”
Unlike most, I have never been bitten by the wanderlust bug, maybe because as a family, it is not something that we do, until recently. It started last year, in which we ended up travelling to Northern Luzon thrice in a year- we went to Baguio twice (one in May, and that trip is detailed in this post; and one in December), and we had one impromptu road trip up north to Pangasinan.
However, late last year, we caught wind of a wonderful AirAsia seat sale, and we decided to travel as a family to Seoul, South Korea from June 20 to 23, 2019. This would also mark our second trip abroad as a whole family, as the last time we traveled was to Hong Kong, two years ago, and that time, we also had extended family with us, unlike this time.
The Aspergirl Reviews segment is finally back! In this segment of this blog, I will be taking a look at different kinds of media (books, tv shows & movies) that deal with mental health issues, and seeing if they handled it correctly or not. Aside from this, I’ll also be talking about how I felt about it, and how it affected me as well. And what better way to kick off this segment for this year than by starting it off with a Korean drama that surprised me in terms of its representation and its personal impact on me- JBTC’s “Clean with Passion For Now”.
Continue reading “The Aspergirl Reviews: Clean with Passion For Now”
It’s been a few weeks since my first update, and I know that I said I was going to post more frequently….. and then real life and work once again reared their heads at me. However, I do hope to be able to continue posting more frequently from now on, and if I’m not able to, I’ll try to give a heads up as well on both this blog and on my social media accounts. So, without further ado, let’s get into my actual first post to officially start things off for this blog.
In the past, the categories of “Understanding Aspies” and “The Aspergirl Explains” categories were dedicated to explain things more related to autism and autistic spectrum disorders, but this year, I decided to open it up a little bit more so that I could talk about mental health issues in general, and more specifically, those that I also experience. So, with that in mind, the very first mental health issue I’ll be tackling for the very first post of the year for this category is something that is very much close to home for me as I have it as well- mysophobia.
Continue reading “The Aspergirl Explains: What Is Mysophobia?”
I can’t believe it’s been around seven months since my last post in September of last year. Around that time, a lot of new and exciting things happened to me in real life, especially in terms of my full time job. However, this also meant that it demanded more of my time, energy and attention, which is why The Asian Aspergirl has been neglected for so long.
However, I knew that I still wanted to make my voice be heard on the subject, but never found the right timing to do so. Now that I’ve been able to take some time and think hard about things, especially in terms of the direction of this blog, I can finally make my comeback to this little space of mine.
Living in a tropical country like the Philippines means that summers are extremely hot and humid, and that we are subject to a lot of natural disasters. Some of these that we have the most experience in include heavy rains brought in by the monsoon, and, of course, storms and a lot of typhoons. Typhoons, storms and hurricanes happen all over the world every year, and as each year goes by, the frequency and the intensity of these storms get stronger all the time. And as (Super) Typhoon Mangkhut (local name Typhoon Ompong) is currently in the Philippines, and as Hurricane Florence is currently in some parts of the United States, I decided to compile a little list of tips that I use for myself whenever typhoons happen.
Continue reading “The Aspergirl’s Survival Guide: Tips on how to Weather Typhoons/Hurricanes”
As the #TaketheMaskOff Challenge draws to a close this week, I decided to look back at the past six weeks and what I’ve written here as part of the challenge, and to see how it has impacted me, and what I hope I was able to do with writing these things down here. So, without further ado, here is my very last entry for the #TaketheMaskOff Challenge!
Continue reading “The Aspergirl Reflects: Lessons Learned from the #TaketheMaskOff Challenge”
Last week, for Week 5 of the #TaketheMaskOff Challenge, we talked about diagnosis, self-awareness and how that impacts masking. This week, the second to the last week of the challenge, we will be talking about strategies that can be used to to cope with masking. Most of these strategies came from all the lessons and experiences I’ve been through over the years, and in the end, it resulted in me being able to do something a person in the comments section here referred to as “authentic masking”.
Continue reading “The Aspergirl’s Survival Guide: Top 5 Masking Coping Strategies”
We are now in week five of the Take Off The Mask Challenge! Last time, we talked about Autistic Burnout and how it is caused by masking. This week, we will talk about how diagnosis and self-awareness impacts masking. This topic actually does directly lead into next week’s topic, which is all about coping strategies and using them deliberately.
Continue reading “Understanding Aspies: How Diagnosis & Self-Awareness Impact Masking”
As of this moment, we are now more than halfway through with the #TakeTheMaskOff Challenge as we are now in Week 4. So far, we have talked about masking, stimming, and how these affect one’s mental health. For this week’s post, we will take an even deeper dive and talk about burnout, how it is related to masking, and my own experiences of this.
As of the moment, we are currently in the third week of the #TakeTheMaskOff Challenge, and the experience of writing about masking and stimming has been quite liberating for me, and it is also interesting to see how far I’ve come from when I myself didn’t understand my own diagnosis and myself, and I hope that these posts, which talk about masking from my own personal point of view, will allow the readers to understand what we go through, and at the same time, I hope that others like me are encouraged to speak out and make their own voices heard. So far we have talked about masking and stimming. So, for the third week of the challenge, let’s take a look at the physical and mental cost that masking has on individuals with autism, my own personal experience of how exhausting it can be, and what coping strategies I use now in order to lessen the physical and mental exhaustion and stress.
Continue reading “Understanding Aspies: The Cost of Masking”
This week’s blog posts are a little bit different, as I posted twice for this week. However, that was only because I had a little “social report” that went hand in hand with a very recent event, and you might see “social reports” like that every once in a while, but, as a rule, I’m sticking to the current schedule of having one blog post per week.
Last time, I kicked off the #TakeTheMaskOff Challenge here on my blog, and talked a little bit about masking and my own experience of masking. This week (Week 2 of the challenge), we’ll be talking about stimming, how it’s related to masking, and my own experience of stimming.
Every year, I try to attend some fan pop-culture conventions and events during the year. As of this moment, the only one I have attended so far is this year’s Asia Pop Comic Con, which I do attend every year. However, this time, my experience was very different, especially as my social anxiety was almost non-existent as I experienced all the sights and sounds that the con had to offer, cosplaying as Ruby Rose from “RWBY”.
Continue reading “The Social Aspergirl: Asia Pop Comic Con 2018 & The Power of Cosplay”
Interestingly enough, even before this challenge started, I had already written about masking and my own experience of it in a previous post. However, I couldn’t help but be excited to join this campaign as things like this aren’t that common to come by. So, from now until the week of September 3, 2018, every Wednesday, I will be putting up a blog post about masking. To either join us in the campaign, or to follow it to see what other content creators who specialize in this topic have to say about it, please follow the #TakeTheMaskOff on social media.
Continue reading “Understanding Aspies: #TakeTheMaskOff Challenge”
In the past few years, and especially in the past few months, there has been a lot of talk about mental health and wellness, and many have become a little bit more open to talk about it. In the Philippines, it has only been in the past few months in which I have really been hearing more people talk about it, and because of that, and the recently passed Mental Health Law in the local government, more and more organizations and groups have been creating discussions about mental health and wellness through events and talks in order to educate others, to spread awareness, and to create a safe space for people to be open about it. One such event that did this was the recently concluded “Head On: Let’s Talk About Mental Wellness” talk that happened on July 14, 2018, Saturday, at The Learning Child School in Ayala Alabang, and which was hosted by MAGIS Creative Spaces.
Continue reading “The Social Aspergirl: Head On: Let’s Talk About Mental Wellness”
No matter what age you are, most people inherently feel the need to belong to something and to be accepted by society, and the same goes for those with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). However, in our case, this tends to be a little bit harder, so we tend to rely on a coping mechanism called “social masking” or camouflaging in order to keep up appearances. This can be emotionally and mentally exhausting for us, but more often than not, we feel that it is necessary in order to blend in with our colleagues and friends. Another coping mechanism that we also use is imitation, and I believe that this one is more prevalent in the teenage and young adult years, especially if you are still figuring out and finding your true self. In this post, I hope to explain both what camouflaging or social masking and what imitation is when it comes to being on the spectrum, and I hope that you will be able to glean some insight as I also reflect on my own experiences with it.
Continue reading “Understanding Aspies: Camouflaging/ Social Masking & Imitation”
Unlike some, I have never really bitten by the travel bug hard enough that I really do save up to travel. The last time I traveled via airplane was two years ago, and more often than not, I end up going on day trips with either family or friends. These trips are usually food trips or cultural and historical trips, but more often than not, I go on day trips to just escape the hustle and bustle of the city and to spend quality time with people that I love and care about. However, regardless of whether its a short or a long trip, there will always be some issues that one ends up facing. It may be the same issue, or it could be a completely different one. So, because of the quick holiday getaway that my family and I just had, I decided that whenever we go on a trip, be it overnight or a short day trip, I will be writing about the experience here, and talk about some of the difficulties that I experienced and how I dealt with it.
Continue reading “The Wandering Aspergirl: A Quick Baguio Getaway”
Aside from finding time to relax and unwind, another way to unwind and recharge from all the stresses at work is to take advantage of vacation leaves or long weekend holidays. Whether it is just a day trip, overnight trip, or a fun trip abroad, traveling is a great way to take a vacation, even though it may be tiring at times. In line with this, I decided to compile a list of helpful tips that might help aspie adults when it comes to going on a trip for vacation.
Continue reading “The Aspergirl Survival Guide: 7 Tips For the Adult Aspie Traveler”
In the past few years, there has been a big shift in the way people think about mental health, and there has been more conversations happening about it, and many are becoming more comfortable about talking about it as well. While those in the Philippines are not as open about talking about mental health as compared to those in an international setting, it is good that mental health is being talked about more today here. This can be seen in the fact that last Saturday, April 28, 2018, the first ever Mental Health Blogathon was held at the Art Cube Gallery in Makati City.
Continue reading “The Social Aspergirl: Mental Health Blogathon 2018”
As Autism Acceptance Month is coming to a close, I will also be bringing my first Autism in Film series to a close. I had a difficult time choosing what my last film for this month’s series would be, but ended up choosing “My Name is Khan”, a movie that I have actually heard about quite a lot.
Continue reading “The Aspergirl Reviews: My Name is Khan (Spoilers!)”
Continue reading “The Aspergirl Diaries: Community Quarantine Week 18”
