The State Of My Asperger's Life In 2013

As I write this, it has been five years since I realized once and for all that working with young people and the education profession was not for me, after more than 20 years of attempting to be successful in it, and decided to pursue a writing career.

That, incidentally, was when I first started posting articles on this site, following my two rules of writing that I established for myself:

1. Write what I know,

and...

2. Get it out there.

Pretty simple rules to be sure, but they have certainly served me well as there are over 110 Hubs on this site that I have written.

Writing has been a significant focus of my life since that February day in 2008 when I quit my last education-type job as an after school teacher in the inner city and decided to go for it as far as being a writer now, or forever wishing that I had.

Thankfully, due to issues pertaining to having Asperger's which precluded me from being successful at any job where the atmosphere was top-down as far as employee-employer - without going into too many details, I suffered from several nervous breakdowns and thoughts of suicide - I was able to go on disability, so I have been able to avoid being destitute.

I have found that posting articles online about different subjects of interest - sports, racial and socio-economic issues, movies and TV, what I've learned in the education field, and travel as well as my issues with being an aspie, has served as a sort of therapy for me as I start to feel a sense of anxiety whenever I go too long without writing.

Indeed, that's particularly the case whenever something unforseen and negative happens to the sports site that I'm an associate lead editor on now, a site focusing on sports teams in Los Angeles, and I'm unable to post when I need to.

But I am working on that.

Perhaps the biggest change that has happened to me in the five years I've been writing and posting is realizing that as good as it has been for me and my writing aspirations, doing Hubs and posting stuff on other sites was not the reason why I started this journey.

For the past couple of years or so, I have been working on a book called "MY ASPIE LIFE: Living With Asperger's Syndrome In A Neurotypical World", which is just as the title describes: my experiences of beng an aspie in a world that's not aspie-oriented;

In other words, my experiences of being mainstreamed as I have been since the age of six.

So far I estimate that roughly 40 to 45 % of the first draft has been done; I am currently working on the seventh chapter and I have resolved to work on that chapter - and the book - at least once a week as my goal is to have the book finished by January 2014.

As I have no desire to get rejection letters from publishers or have my manuscript end up on some pile in a publishing office, I plan to publish the book myself because I feel that would be the best way to get MY ASPIE LIFE out.

Other than working on the book, life has gone more or less the same for me over the past couple of years; I've continued to be involved in the activities that I want to be involved with, and just living day-to-day.

Writing "MY ASPIE LIFE" is my main focus, however (or should be), so much so that, well, while this is not necessarily my official "Goodbye" Hub, working on my book must take at least some form of priority if progress is to be made.

That's why, while I'm not leaving Hubpages and plan to add articles to this site in the future, one should not be surprised if there isn't as many Hubs from me on this site, at least for a while.

Writing for this site has been good for me, a way to establish something in my writing pursuits as well as a way to express my thoughts and opinions through something that people have told me that I am good at, and for that I am eternally grateful.

I suppose there's not much left to say except that I hope people that use this site and see this Hub give me good wishes as I commence on "MY ASPIE LIFE" in earnest.