I have already decided I want to donate my body to science. I have the paperwork already filled out to donate my body to the University of Utah Medical School, but I have not submitted it to them yet. My preference would be to donate to a program or to scientists who are specifically focused on researching autism, ADHD, fibromyalgia, or chronic pain. I want my body to be useful in helping others in the future to avoid the kind of pain and difficulties I have faced.

I have hope that science will continue to understand autism, ADHD, chronic pain, and related issues, and I want to contribute to the science.

If you are a scientist working in this field or you know someone working in this field, please contact me. I would be willing to commit my body, upon my death, to a good science program. I want to help, even after I’m no longer here. I do expect a report on what you learn, though. ;)

It’s a lot of work to get a business off the ground. So far, I have created the brand framework, registered the name with the State of Utah, set up accounts with Shopify and my print-on-demand vendor, established a bank account, and created some product concepts. I’m hopeful I will have everything else done so I can go live with my shop in the next few weeks.

I had an interesting discussion recently with one of our children. They shared with me that they tend to buy merch from influencers they follow or people they trust online, but they actively avoid responding to advertising directly. Advertising is the main way I plan to get the word out. It’s going to be interesting to see if anyone responds to my digital ads. I expect I will need to pivot and adjust many times along this journey.

As of writing this article, I have not announced my Substack feed publicly. I have a few subscribers, family and friends only so far, and I appreciate their support. I feel like I need to have the shop live with some products on it because people are going to want to see. I may only have one chance with many people to capture their interest. Or maybe it’s my perfectionist tendencies. Probably both. But I understand it’s better to launch than to keep polishing something no one’s seen yet.

My lovely wife gently suggested, “What if you just keep it up there? Maybe you can write what you’re feeling and just leave it up there? It might be helpful in the future.” I realized that it’s normal for my ADHD brain to have difficulty judging the workload of a new venture in advance. In fact, it might be normal for most people.

At this point, I need to focus on the money-making part of this venture. So, I will not be writing “every week.” I will keep the newsletter going and write when I can and when I have something to say.

Let me introduce you to the companion site to this newsletter.

Introducing AutisticBrain.shop

From the beginning, the plan has been to develop an e-commerce website focused on serving the community of people who are autistic and proud of it. When I say “serving,” I mean both the workers and the customers. My goal is first to get myself stable and to make enough money to pay the bills. Then, as I am able, I want to find ways to hire others who struggle with employment because of their extreme sensitivities. This may include some family members who are currently unable to work in the jobs provided by conventional employment.

My current draft of the mission statement for AutisticBrain.shop has three parts:

1. Create work opportunities for people with autism and neurodivergent brains.

2. Build a more honest, well-rounded awareness of what it actually means to be autistic.

3. Create products that autistic people, allies, and others will want to have and show off.

The website will be called AutisticBrain.shop, and it will offer products, such as t-shirts, mugs, and a variety of other merch, that I hope will appeal first to the autism community. Of course, I also hope it will appeal to allies and others who are interested in particular topics and historical figures profiled.

I currently have three t-shirt concepts ready. My goal is to have 10 before I launch the shop. As you can see, I have a lot of work to do.

Thanks for your interest and support. And thanks to my wife, Steph, who saved this newsletter with her kind, gentle suggestion.

This pain only comes in the early morning.
It is broad and pervasive — and chemical.
There is no source — it is only the signals,
sending and resending with no purpose,
they ricochet through my entire system.
What is the antidote? I must sleep!

Breathe… in for a count, then out plus two.
The breaths get longer; the count gets slower.
Wait! There is an overtone of tension in the calves.
Roll them out — an hour has passed.
I take a muscle relaxer. Will it help this time?
Breathe again. Breathe again.

I am a connoisseur of pain, not to consume
but to keep from being consumed.

I suddenly woke up feeling cold. It was still dark outside, and I realized my comforter was gone. Had it fallen on the floor? Why was I uncovered? That never happens. Sweeping the area next to my bed, the comforter was not there. My sweetheart and I each sleep with our own bedding, Scandinavian style. She’s always hot, and I’m always cold. I touched her hip gently to see if she had gotten cold and stolen my comforter, but she was only wrapped in her sheet, as usual. I found the comforter scrunched up between us and pulled it over myself. It felt too light, but I could feel the texture of the natural-fiber linen. It was my comforter, so I bundled myself up to go back to sleep.

But sleep didn’t come. My brain started working on the business I’m creating to pay the bills, and hopefully to build it to the point where I can employ several family members and others who are more disabled than I am. I just named the business and the e-commerce shop two days ago. The umbrella company is called Able & Otherwise. The store website is AutisticBrain.shop.

As my brain started working, I had an explosion of thoughts and images. The imagery for AutisticBrain.shop came to me in a rush. I’ve been wanting the site and products to have the feel of a rock band t-shirt, and that’s what manifested. The image was of a 1960s VW Beetle with fat tires and smoke coming off them like the art of Ed “Big Daddy” Roth without the rat. There were several variations with the name AUTISTIC BRAIN SHOP in cool typography. I imagined a rockabilly platypus with a pompador looking like Brian Setzer of the Stray Cats.

My brain was on fire. I could feel a pleasurable sensation in my head as my mind was fully engaged.

I began to think about how I was going to execute on these fantastical ideas and how to write about this. Was I awake? I noticed the light in the window was growing brighter.

I began to see that many of the elements that had come together were things I have enjoyed over the years, even from my childhood. — My childhood! — I thought about the photo of myself at the top of this article. I was probably nine or ten years old. At the time, I loved to play like an army man. You can see the sergeant stripes sewn on my sleeve. My childhood was traumatic, and I have avoided thinking about it too much. But in this moment of imagining the possibilities for the Autistic Brain Shop, I was thinking about elements that I have enjoyed throughout my life.

When I was five or six, I remember lying on the floor and drawing a picture of a dragster with huge back wheels on the bottom of the coffee table in the living room. When I was in high school, I used to listen to Stray Cats and Adam Ant, along with Count Basie and Dizzy Gilespe.

In the midst of this beautiful experience of imagining, I suddenly had an overwhelming feeling of acceptance for myself as a child. The feelings of dread, shame, and avoidance were gone. For the first time, I was able to think about my life as a child in positive terms.

Then I noticed a small triangle of sunlight streaming through the window, across the bed, and landing in my eye. It had been several hours of dreaming, processing, and working. What a wonderful morning. Big hugs to little Chris, as I was called then.

When I see these photos of myself as a baby, I feel confusion and anxiety arise in my body. I don’t have any memories at this age — that’s not what I’m talking about. It’s more physical than emotional. I’ve wondered why I would look so confused at such an early age. These photos make a lot more sense with my recent diagnosis of AuDHD (autism + ADHD).

In fact, so many stories from my childhood make sense now. Of course, there are other factors to consider, such as my parents being Mormon hippy fundamentalists. We also moved around a lot. I lived in at least 35 homes by age 18. Even so, I believe that feeling of confusion and anxiety was most likely made worse by autism. It is totally possible that I was genuinely confused and trying to figure out what was going on at age one.

I have organized my childhood memories by what grade I was in and where we lived at the time. I was in a different house, a different neighborhood, and a different school with different friends every five months on average. Everything was always new. That’s traumatic enough, but now I’m looking at those experiences with an understanding that I also had difficulty with social interactions.

In second grade, I lived in Mount Pleasant, Utah. My older brother gave me a non-functional model airplane with gas engines that flew in a circle around the pilot on control wires. It was a twin-engine P-38 from WWII. I took it to school, where there was a kid who really wanted to buy it from me. I agreed because I wanted a friend and I liked the attention. I agreed to sell it for $6. We met later that evening at the corner drug store on Main Street, where he handed me $2 and said it was all he had. I didn’t know how to deal with the situation, so I took the money. The next day, he came to school with the airplane painted olive green. Of course, the friendship didn’t develop because that’s not how friendship works.

I thought about this incident well into adulthood. The value of the gift from my brother was much greater than almost any price a kid could have paid. I was also devastated by the paint job. The plane looked so realistic with the original paint and oil stains from the gas motors. I have done the work to heal this memory, but I felt shame and sadness for a long time.