LDSGator

Am I doing this right?

Full circle.

@Ironhold In all seriousness, you should give the comic a shot. I’m a lifelong fan of the medium, and I’m sure you are as well. I don’t know any comic writers personally, but I’ll guess that the overwhelming majority of them struggled to get it all together. Rookies at everything usually struggle at first.   

Dude, I hope things work out for you. You are absolutely in my prayers.  

The big hurdles I'm facing now:
1. Getting people to understand that because I'm wired differently, I sometimes have a few issues. For example, if I get stressed enough, the muscles in my jaw and tongue will actually seize temporarily, leaving me unable to speak for a brief period. Rather than understand that they need to give me a second, a lot of folks who witness this will just presume what I was going to say and go off of that. 
2. The combination of my being on the spectrum and what I've lived through has left me high-strung at times and constantly on alert, which leads to anxiety issues and the like. 
3. The assemblage of mental and physical health issues I have mean I have no peace or comfort. Even on a good day I'm usually in some degree of constant dull pain, and trying to be "normal" is also mentally taxing. 
4. There is no "my bad!" big enough to magically undo the damage that was done to me, but whenever I try to explain to someone how A led to B there's a non-zero chance they'll flip out on me for how I'm still "blaming" them for what happened in the past and I need to let it go. 
5. The combination of my being on the spectrum and what I've lived through has rocked my perceptions of what is "normal". It's to the point that I'm actually having trouble writing fiction because I have no frame of reference for what certain emotions feel like or how someone feeling those emotions would act. 

When I was growing up, "Rain Man" was pretty much the only reference people had for what autism was. Because I was so "high-functioning" and had already been labeled as "gifted" everyone just presumed I was neurotypical and that any time any of my quirks manifest it was in fact some sort of personal failing on my part. It's a big part of why I suffered so much growing up, as the adults viewed everything I said or did through this lens and never imagined that perhaps I was needing some help. 
Yes, I was well into adulthood before I was given an official diagnosis, and by then I'd left behind a sad history of poor choices, burned bridges, and people I'd hurt. 

Autism is something that a person is born with. Yes, I'm high-functioning. 
Now, people who are autistic often have greater than usual difficulties in processing change and in handling stressful situations, so it's entirely possible that your grandson had an astoundingly hard time dealing with it. 
Also... what sort of quirks and "eating disorder" are we talking about? There's a lot that often goes hand-in-hand with autism, and so depending upon what we're looking at this could be how your grandson is wired. 

I'll always be a fan of Peter Boyles, who was an AM radio talk show host in Denver for a lot of decades.  I started listening the week before 9/11 happened.  He recently retired, but still acts as guest host and does a show on Saturdays.  He's in his '80's now, last I heard he still rides his motorcycle to Sturgis every year.  
Peter was often talking about the professional wrestlers he knew, and how similar the profession was to both circus/carnival performers, and politicians.  There are portions of all 3 professions that require genuine skill and competition, a portion that involves deciding how certain things will go ahead of time, and a portion that is 100% an act for an audience.  They all involve stakeholders that must be kept happy with your performance.  They all involve personalities rising and falling in prominence in a continual churn.  He'd meet with wrestlers before and after their matches, as they'd sit in their dressing rooms and talk politics.  He wasn't the least surprised that Jessie Ventura became the 38th Governor of Minnesota, based on how often Jessie would talk politics after the show. 

 
 

And just like that, now I want to eat the rich.  
 

In my estimate, I have paid around $51,000 into Social Security over my life of working and I will probably never collect it.
Give the Federal Government control of part of your retirement funds.  What could possibly go wrong?  Social Security is the biggest Ponzi scheme ever created in my opinion.

I really appreciate the support. I'm a little odd in that I moved to a rural area that is predominantly LDS but working for an organization of a couple hundred people that are 95% from other parts of the country. There is an anti local, anti Mormon attitude that is common amongst my co workers. As I've been here a while and have become friends with more and more locals ive realized that these are good people and that a lot of their positive attributes are due to their beliefs. 

That’s a really great idea. It shows how much the church values families. 

Thank you all. I'm hoping to get a little theological insight and exposure to some different views. So far everything that I have researched resonates with me much more than other denominations but my more importantly, my most powerful experience with feeling the spirit came when I was listening to a sermon? at General conference I believe by president? Nelson.

Greetings!
 
Investigator here..

Amazing.  Whenever I need to feel a little hope for the human race, I go look at what SpaceX's latest milestone.

So @Jamie123's wearing an owl mask these days. Anyone want to mock him for it? Maybe we could get some owl pellets if we ask nicely.
I'd wear a bunny mask, but I'm afraid of raptors.

Fun story: We moderators have a private forum for talking about moderator stuff like account warnings and bans and stuff.  We also have a forum open to everyone to talk to moderators about moderator stuff.  One time I got those mixed up, and talked in the open forum about a problematic poster, and then the problematic poster saw my post and life was awkward for a bit.
Moral of the story: When you skip all the forums except for General Discussion, ya miss the juicy stuff!

Maybe no one has a lot to say right now.

Not being a Mormon, General Discussion is my usual go-to, since Current Affairs is mostly about America (though I do check it out sometimes). I do check out the other forums though, so if you make fun of my Owl costume there, I'll cry! 😭

That’s accurate, and it’s also accurate to say it’s very naive if someone thinks they can be spread truth by being abrasive, obnoxious or insulting. If I walk up to you and say “Hey, only an idiot doesn’t believe in the Book of Mormon.” You virtually guarantee that the person will never open a Book of Mormon in their lives. 
 
Church members like to believe that how you present yourself and how you dress matters. That’s partially why missionaries can’t light up cigarettes in ripped jeans and vulgar t shirts. However, a guy in a suit with a clean haircut calling people who don’t agree with him “stupid”  is far more damaging. 

It's my observation that people who don't keep their covenants often think it's "mean and drives people from the church" when you talk about keeping your covenants.

I've been waiting years for someone to write a Chick Tract of Jack Chick post-mortem.

Depressed. 

@LDSGator you rebel.    What will you become after hanging around libertarians?