I never claimed to be normal

Random neurodivergent expression

Boo. It’s me. 👻

My name is Cindy. I am 34 years old and neurodivergent. These blogs are just who I am and what I am feeling at the current time they are posted or random things I enjoy. Some deep, some not. If you read them I thank you for taking the time out of your life to listen. Some people don’t care enough to try to understand others, and it says something about you that you are trying.

recent posts

  • Pokopia – a wholesome escape that came at the perfect time yet again

    Does anyone else remember the animal crossing craze during the pandemic?

    People rushed to buy the new animal crossing game and switches. Prices for switches went up significantly. I saved up money for months to buy my non gamer friend a used switch so she could play animal crossing with me. It was the beginning of my dad becoming a gamer (which I very much am in support of!). For me, I was going through a stressful time, and on top of it forced to quarantine – but with animal crossing, the more I played it, the more I could relax and escape from daily stressors because of how calming and wholesome it was.

    I’m talking about this right now because I notice something similar happening with the release of the video game Pokopia. The craze is real, and the hype is justified for such a well designed and polished release. It’s an extremely comforting, calming game. It takes you into another world, unlike our own, where it feels like there are more opportunities for growth, positive change, and wholesome moments. Even if it’s just a video game, I feel like it’s really beneficial to experience these things when our daily lives or the state of the world makes them very difficult to experience.

    If it feels this fulfilling to have this in a fictional world, imagine how great it could feel in the real world?

    Until that happens, I’ll just be over here relaxing while helping my water type pokemon “make it rain” to free a rock type pokemon who is trapped.☕

  • I need to slow down

    This past week I have been waking up at 3 AM and starting my day. Waking up at this time was not planned, it was just what my body felt like doing. I was working on a project which I was very passionate about, and wanted it to be done by a certain deadline. So I worked on it daily for 6-8 hours to try to get it finished by Friday (yesterday). Since I had other things to do during the day, the early morning hours is when I would work on it. There was something peaceful about the quiet morning hours, but I could feel myself getting very overstimulated from the amount I was doing daily and the lack of adequate sleep. I had more caffeine than usual to keep up my energy, but I don’t think that was the best thing for my body.

    I have been booking massages lately to help with relaxation, stress reduction, and my aversion to touch. My massage happened to be booked at the perfect time for me (the day of my deadline), and I am so glad for that. One thing my massage therapist says she noticed is how my right hand and arm is the tightest it has been. I am right handed, so I use my right hand more when I am doing/making things. So it makes sense that it might be a little sore right now, but this is an escalation from my previous massage where she said “there’s something going on in your right hand”. I don’t want to know what would be the next escalation if I don’t slow down but I have an idea.

    My mother developed something called trigger finger from using a pricing gun regularly at a volunteer job. I imagine it’s very uncomfortable for her especially on top of having arthritis. Seeing that happen, I want to do what I can to avoid it. I love making things and I actually thrive on repetitive tasks using my right hand, but I need to take more breaks. My deadline was actually self created. I didn’t need to rush things. I needed to slow down. Part of me liked the challenge, but there are other ways I can challenge myself without causing discomfort and possible harm to my body.

    I finished my project. I have another deadline and project coming up for easter, but I’m going to be smarter about it. I’m not going to work for hours daily without much of a break. I’m going to monitor my hand and how it’s feeling and not push past discomfort. I’m also going to practice doing some tasks with my left hand which is good for your brain as well.

    As for this next week, I’m taking it easy. I’m going to travel for an overnight trip to see my mom and her cat. Petting him is the only repetitive hand task I will be doing for a little while.

  • Music Monday – Highlight: IVE 🎶

    IVE is a South Korean girl group formed by Starship Entertainment. The group is composed of six members: Gaeul, An Yu-jin, Rei, Jang Won-young, Liz, and Leeseo.

    IVE made their debut in 2021, and while I did check out their releases since their debut, nothing really caught my attention much until their release of I AM in 2023.

    The song is about finding your own direction in life and having hope for a better future, a message that I needed to hear at the time I discovered it. I started to look forward to more of their releases and they were hit or miss for me, until their most recent release, REVIVE+, where I can say I enjoy each and every song. To me, it’s an extremely solid K-pop album. It is very rare for me to not want to skip any songs on an album but this is one of those rare occurrences.

    I think what makes this album so solid is the flow of it. It’s just all catchy pop, doesn’t take itself too seriously, and is so easy to vibe to. One thing I also appreciate about it is that each member has their own solo song. It helps to see where each member shines the most. My favorite solo track has to be Odd by Gaeul. I love her vocals and how dreamy it sounds, and the lyrics are beautifully written:

    This makes me look forward to more solo work from her in the future.

    The title tracks of the album, BANG BANG, and BLACKHOLE were also some of my favorite title tracks from them. BLACKHOLE sounds like a part 2 to I AM, which some people may feel is too repetitive, but I am all for it!
    BANG BANG is one of their catchiest title tracks to me in a while though and has a bit of a different sound, making it stand out more in their discography.

    Overall I have become more and more impressed with IVE. Their empowering and positive lyrics, catchy pop songs, and talent in singing, dancing, and writing are things that I feel should be appreciated. 🩵🎵

  • An unexpected new passion 🐈🐻

    Lately I have been looking up a lot of different tutorials on how to craft different things. Some I wind up enjoying, some I don’t, but I still like learning different ways to make things and seeing how people do it.

    One craft that caught my attention was pipe cleaner crafts. Not just typical pipe cleaners, but I learned that huge, fluffy and soft ones exist and they are great for creating cute little animals!

    I practiced, was frustrated at first but then finally got the hang of it and really enjoy making each one.

    The first one I made, I put on top of a Valentine’s day themed mailbox I decorated and stuffed full of hershey kisses for people to take at the medium art center. A small short siamese kitty. I gave it a curly tail in the back to reference my mom’s cat who always curls his tail.

    We had a Valentine’s day theme fundraiser sale for our local therapeutic arts program (TAPS) and I created a lot of Valentine’s day themed ones for the sale. I made 18, and wound up selling 17 of them within a few hours of the sale which was very unexpected! I told myself I would be happy if just 5 of them sold, but people really seemed to like them which was such a nice surprise! I decided to keep one at the recommendation of my friend, because I kept saying “I really hope that one doesn’t sell because I want it”. I’m so glad she pushed me to keep it before it had a chance to sell because it would have been sad for me to part with it. (Yes I get emotionally attached to cute inanimate objects, don’t judge me!)

    Here are some photos of a few of them:

    Fisherman kitty in my display before I took him back to keep. I honestly just can’t part with him.

    After seeing people’s happy reactions and people asking for more after I sold out, it really made me think more about keeping up with this craft and putting more up for sale in the future and give as gifts. Not only is it enjoyable for me to make them, but they seem to bring joy to other people too, which is a win win. My head is full of ideas for themed ones I can make going forward and I am excited to get those started!

  • A different measure of success

    I feel that a lot of people’s definition of success is different but some of the most common ones I’ve observed in people over the years is having a great career, having more money/things, receiving constant validation from people, finding that amazing partner that ticks all those boxes. These things can be very fulfilling for a lot of people, but for me, my definition is different and I wanted to expand on that a bit.

    A little history about me – I was born with autism, and predisposed to depression and an anxiety disorder. Over time from experiences I was also diagnosed with PTSD. My brain has always operated differently. I tried for many years to manage these on my own without much help until I got so exhausted mentally and physically I had no choice but to seek more help.

    I am so glad that I did, because it was the best decision I made and I no longer feel like I am suffering on a daily basis like I used to, even if I have my off days.

    I used to get into little debates with people about success. They thought that I should be looking to get ahead and make more money. That was their definition of success. They thought I wasn’t thriving and being my best self at the time because I didn’t have a plan for making more money and have always lived on a low income.

    But to me at the time, just surviving was my success. Getting up in the morning, navigating my depression, anxiety, autistic and ptsd symptoms felt like a full time job. Everything I did was “how can I feel a little less bad than I do? I can’t feel good, but I really need to figure out how to make these symptoms not as bad”.

    It took a lot of mental energy day in and day out and I think a lot of people who never experienced those symptoms didn’t realize that. They would see me function okay in real life and think to themselves “she seems fully capable of doing x, y, z, so it must be that she’s unmotivated or lazy so let me try to motivate her”.

    But motivation or laziness was never the issue with me. My definition of success was just getting out of bed. It was having a fulfilling social interaction with someone when my social anxiety was putting me in fight or flight mode. It was being able to give to others and seek to understand them even when I didn’t feel understood myself. It was still being able to appreciate the little things in life.

    Even as I feel better and lighter, I still think of those things as success, and nowadays, the fact that I am able to actually feel joy on a consistent basis is one of my biggest successes. I never thought I would get here. I never thought I’d have free mental space to focus on doing things other than try to manage my mental symptoms, but I do.

    I now can do so much more, and, as a result, I have actually been able to make a little more money which is nice, but I still don’t feel as successful doing that as I do for just being able to get up daily out of bed. When I was fighting my brain for so many years and in survival mode, it’s the biggest success to actually wake up and have energy to do things and not feel like I’m suffering through them.

    No matter how many superficial successes I achieve, nothing will ever compare to that.

  • 7 Things I’m looking forward to

    Something that is important for me is having things to look forward to. I’ve realized I have a lot of them this year so far! But I’m just going to focus on 7 for the next few months.

    1. Valentine’s day! I have some fun and relaxing things planned for the day and I’m all for another excuse to eat chocolate.
    2. Valentine’s day sale – I’ll be selling a few valentine’s day themed crafts soon and I’m excited to finish them and put them up for sale.
    3. Pokopia! This launches next month, and I can’t wait to play it and see how it holds up as a cozy game.
    4. Life is Strange Reunion! Another game launching next month. As a big fan of the original life is strange game, this one looks a lot more interesting especially since Chloe is back.
    5. Practicing and learning more crafting skills. I’ve been getting into more sewing and watercolor as well as other various crafts and am looking forward to learning and improving on them.
    6. Weekly cooking class – always looking forward to learning more recipes each week and visiting with awesome people.
    7. Gaming group – we started a new local gaming group and I am looking forward to gaming more with people who share my interests in games – whether it’s video games or tabletop games!

    I could add more but these are just off the top of my head this morning. 🙂

  • Music Monday – Dreamy K-pop playlist

    It has been a while since I made a music monday post so this time I wanted to share an hour+ long playlist I created this morning. Something I love doing is making themed playlists with similar types of songs. The theme to this one is Dreamy K-pop songs. The songs have a mix of soft, dream like vocals and/or dreamy instrumentals. Some are more upbeat and some are mellow. If you listen, I hope you discover some you like!

  • Starting off 2026 taking much needed rest and time to myself 💤

    December was a great month, but there was just so much going on that I rarely had time to myself. It was like one event and project after another, which was fun, but my autistic brain not having much of a break and not having my usual routine did cause some stress. I’ll be honest, when I was younger one major way I self regulated and dealt with stress was by eating a lot of food so it became a habit I still have to this day. Also, everyone seems to eat more around the holidays, and boy did I ever. So many sweets and delicious food everywhere. It was fun of course, but not so fun when I felt all of my clothes getting tighter and I start to get a santa claus belly.

    Weight is a complicated and sensitive thing for me and a lot of other people, and I don’t want to go too much into it but my core issue with weight gain is how it feels on my body. I am a person with sensory issues and I can feel even a minor shift, whether it’s weight gain or weight loss and both can cause discomfort in their own ways, but weight gain moreso as it carries an extra heavy feeling I don’t like. It’s not about anything superficial, it’s the uncomfortable heavy feeling I get in my body.

    So January is a month of resting, getting back to healthier eating and taking some time to myself. It’s a quieter month which I used to not like so much because of the contrast of how exciting December is, but now I think it’s really essential to have a quieter more relaxing month after all the excitement.

    This month will be full of slow mornings, relaxing art projects, chill gaming time, less socialization, journaling, therapy, meditation, pajama days, and just any other cozy activities. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

    I’ll leave this post with a cute relaxing lofi youtube channel I recently found, perfect to put on in the background to start off a cozy morning with a cup of coffee. ☕

  • Wrapping up this year with forgiveness and gratitude

    This year there were a mix of ups and downs, but for the most part, I will say it was one of my better years, especially in the later half.

    There were some things this year that were upsetting to me. Some people who revealed they did not have my best interests in mind who are no longer in my life. I spent some time questioning why they did what they did, or questioning honestly if I was in the wrong at any point where I may have caused them to treat me poorly. When I read that sentence back it sounds ridiculous. It’s a habit of self blame I have. I feel that if I put all the blame on me, I have control and can prevent mistreatment by acting a certain way. This is a thought process I’m working on getting rid of. Part of that is putting responsibility where it belongs – on the other person or people who mistreated me.

    This is my post to say that I forgive the people who treated me poorly this year. This isn’t to say it’s okay what they did, it’s to finally get the closure I deserve because it’s unrealistic to expect it from them. I’ve had people who mistreated me have guilt pop up and try to apologize months or years later, or “follow” me online and if any of them are reading this I want to say please do not let the guilt eat at you. I am living well now, and that is enough for me. I hope you can do the same.

    I also wanted to take the time to give gratitude to the people in my life who I met this year who have treated me well. It really means a lot to me to feel seen, heard, and respected for who I am. It also inspires me to be surrounded by kind, generous, and funny people. It makes me feel comfortable being who I am and I won’t ever take that for granted, especially coming from a history of people misunderstanding me often and not accepting me. There’s a chance these people are reading this too, and I wanted to just say thank you for everything.

    This year was transformative for me. I learned a lot about myself, what I will tolerate and what I won’t. I’ve gained more self esteem and feel like I got my creative drive back. If 2026 is half as transformative as this year I will be happy!

  • Holiday craft fair 🎄✨

    This weekend there were many local craft fairs and I was excited to participate in one of them for the first time. This past month I have been making a variety of things – stickers, ornaments, cards, things out of clay. I learned so much in the process!

    Here are a few of the things from my display:

    The day was busy and I met so many nice people, and sold way more than I expected. Me and my friend were also raising money for our local therapeutic arts program in a different booth and sold a lot of things there as well made from local artists of all abilities.

    I am thankful for this experience. There was a lot of work put into it from many creative people who continue to inspire me. 🎅