elm
@autistickynotes.bsky.social
stories from a BIPoC, queer, autistic, and adhd lens. direct, unfiltered, and rooted in lived experience. https://www.instagram.com/autistickynotes https://autistickynotes.substack.com
I can’t remember the last time I had a crush. Apparently I have been too busy staring at flowers and talking to the moon. #actuallyautistic #autisticwhileblack #queerwriter #audhd
eli (@autistickynotes)
i can’t remember the last time i had a crush. apparently i have been too busy staring at flowers and talking to the moon.
substack.com
i have been struggling lately. my depression has been close to the surface, and i have been trying to understand what it means to move through a world that feels so heavy all the time. #actuallyautistic #mentalhealth #queerwriter
eli (@autistickynotes)
i have been struggling lately. my depression has been close to the surface, and i have been trying to understand what it means to move through a world that feels so heavy all the time.
substack.com
we have mapped the moon more carefully than we have mapped the ocean floor. i keep thinking about what that says about us. this started with whales and the deep ocean. somewhere along the way, it became about listening. #auctuallyautistic #queerwriter #audhd #autisticwhileblack
eli (@autistickynotes)
i keep thinking about whale songs and the parts of the ocean we still do not understand. somewhere along the way, this essay became about what happens when we lose our relationship to listening.
substack.com
sometimes autistic people do not realize how painful something was until long after it happened. this one arrived late. #ActuallyAutistic #queerwriter #autisticwhileblack #audhd
eli (@autistickynotes)
sometimes autistic people do not understand how painful something was until long after it happened. this one arrived late.
substack.com
i wrote this after a therapy session about my father and what it means to recognize patterns my body learned in childhood while i am still learning how to trust what they are telling me now. #actuallyautistic #queerwriter #blackwhileautistic
elm (@autistickynotes)
this piece began in a conversation about my father and what it means to stay in relationship with someone who is changing. it became a piece about recognition.
substack.com
i am here alive in this body in a country trying to erase me trying to decide where bodies like mine belong see me i know who i am i love myself fully today #transdayofvisibility #queerwriters #AuDHD #autismwhileblack
there are moments when the room shifts and you realize something has been holding you all along. this piece begins there. #actuallyautistic #autismwhileblack #queerwriter #AuDHD #transwriter #disabilityjustice
care moved toward me
February 2026
open.substack.com
i wrote something about what it has been like to live inside a body that is breaking down. it’s about what it means to keep choosing to stay while the future feels less predictable. #ActuallyAutistic #AutismWhileBlack #QueerWriter #ChronicIllness #Disability #MentalHealth #Parenting #AuDHD
staying a while
lately my body has been shaking in ways i cannot ignore.
open.substack.com
this begins with a tattoo. it follows how a single mark became a way to stay when time wouldn’t slow down. #actuallyautistic #grief #AuDHD #mentalhealth #embodiment #personalessay #joyisresistance #BIPoC
elm (@autistickynotes)
this begins with a tattoo and unfolds into what it means to stay inside a body as time moves. it traces how one choice became a way of holding what arrives. “the rectangle holds all of it. past, pres...
substack.com
what grows when you slow down? a pineapple, yes. but also trust, presence, & a rhythm shared between a parent & child. a story of joy, tending, & learning to let life unfold. read it here: autistickynotes.substack.com #actuallyautistic #parentingjoy #blackjoy #audhd #slowliving
Rooting for us
Four years, two pineapples, and a reminder that everything grows in its own good time.
open.substack.com
read grief has a good memory on substack. for the ones who feel it all. for those learning not to rush the healing. this new piece is about the stories that live in the body long after they end. #actuallyautistic #AuDHD #autism #adhd
Grief Has a Good Memory
Sitting with what the mind refuses to release.
substack.com
something small, a handshake, lit up my whole body. not confusion. not envy. just a knowing kind of anger. wrote this in the fall. still feeling it. #writingcommunity #blackwriters #neurodivergent #autisticwriting #culturalappropriation #art #audhd
elm (@autistickynotes)
i wrote this back in September or October, when something small, a handshake, hit my body like a warning. i didn’t write it to explain. i wrote it because i was full. because there’s a kind of anger ...
substack.com
honesty shouldn’t feel dangerous. but for many of us who speak plainly, who name what’s real, it often does. this piece is about what it means to be autistic in a world that rewards politeness over truth and what becomes possible when we choose to slow down and stay real.
what honesty asks of us
truth is a new beginning
substack.com
truth is a kind of care. even when it is uncomfortable. well, especially then. i shared this because it speaks a truth i am learning to live. may it resonate with something true in you too. #AuDHD #Honesty #Autism #ADHD #Allisticcommunication #neurocomplex #neurodivergent #ActuallyAutistic
elm (@elimose)
truth is a kind of care. even when it is uncomfortable. well, especially then. telling the truth of what i feel or what happened is not something i need to apologize for. it never was even though it...
substack.com
this piece came from a quiet moment that reminded me how grief and tenderness live side by side. on this day of mourning, i wrote what my body is carrying. it’s up now on Substack. #AuDHD #actuallyautistic #dayofmourning #gratitude #stay #tendernessisstrength #queervoices #transjoy
elm (@elimose)
this moment, this hand, reminded me what it means to belong. this reflection moves through mourning, memory, and the quiet power of gratitude.
substack.com
Some thoughts don’t arrive with answers. This piece is a trace of my inner weather of what it means to feel deeply, live slowly, and unmask in a world that often misunderstands. I wrote it to stay present with myself. Maybe it helps you stay, too. #ItsOkayToNotBeOkay #AuDHD #autism #depression
Playing human
Disclaimer
open.substack.com
the only way is through. this is how hidden love finds the sun. through grief, through breath, through small rituals of care. #TheOnlyWayIsThrough #LoveMadeVisible #AutisticVoice #JoyfulMotherfuckers #TendernessInPractice #AuDHD
The Only Way Is Through
Finding love in the light
open.substack.com
i never dreamed of being a parent. i said yes to it with fear and regret. and still, parenting gave me a love I never thought possible. #Autism #ADHD #AuDHD #Family #Healing #Love #Parenting #Queer #BIPoC
For Those Who Never Saw Themselves as Parents
On regret, resistance, and discovering a love I could not have imagined
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the other night my friend and i stared at this for what felt like hours. holding joy and silence, imagining people not being terrified to exist. a summer without ice indeed. #meltice #beaconhill #satx #asummerwithoutice
This piece is about eating again, and it is also about survival, family, grief, and the stubborn hope of still believing in people. I am learning to write from that place. I invite you to read, and maybe walk this journey with me. #AuDHD #writingtoheal #autistic #BIPoC #BLM #transjoyistesistance
Eating, Trust, and the Work of Believing
Notes on family, survival, and still choosing to believe in people
open.substack.com
my first post on Substack feels like opening a door. it’s my voice, unmasked, beginning to imagine out loud. this is an invitation for you to listen and journey with me, too. #audhd #adhd #autistic #bipoc #imaginingpossibilities #transjoy #unmasking
Another world is possible
Before I began writing here, I gave this speech to youth development professionals.
open.substack.com
I think this is the most horrifying post I have ever read.
@abelouise.bsky.social has the feature, poem-a-day, on the Academy of American Poets! It is beautiful. Here is a link to her reading it: megaphone.link/POETS2185059... #poemaday #abelouiseyoung #queerartists
Abe Louise Young: “Who” by Poem-a-Day
megaphone.link
call your representatives. have hope that your call will do something. this is absolutely catastrophic. people will die. #5callsapp #savemedicaid
Rolling Stone@rollingstone.com · last yr.A whopping 76 percent oppose significant cuts to Medicaid. The tax bill that Republicans ultimately pass — public opinion be damned — will make life more difficult for millions of low-income Americans. Here’s everything you need to know ⤵️
start it around 22 sec. when i get lost inside myself, i watch this on repeat. we live in a world that is so beautiful. we just need to pause and look. #blm #transjoyisresistance #mdd #cptsd #siponjoy
Murmuration
A chance encounter and shared moment with one of natures greatest and most fleeting phenomena. Facebook: Islands And Rivers For licensing information contact…
vimeo.com
Shoutout to Iberville Parish having a BALL lmaoooooooooooo
Gabrielle A. Perry, MPH@geauxgabrielle.blacksky.app · last yr.For anyone who needs some GOOD news, Nottoway Plantation—burial site of countless victims of the rape, maiming, and slaughter of the formerly enslaved but where white people love to brunch & get married—has burned to the ground. May the ancestors continue to rest peacefully. Amen.
