In With the NEW (to Me) and You!

Have you ever deleted a post?

I have.  After I read Tumble into Love’s post Everybody Must get Stoned: Criticism of Special Needs Parents I started sifting through my old posts trying to locate the posts of mine that reiterated the common characters Tumble into Love was depicting.

When I got to the character, Denier – the person who does not think a diagnosis exists and behavior needs to be parented out, I began searching for my post, Autism is NOT a Fad.  In that post I wrote about someone who told me that autism and ADHD were not real diagnoses. 

Try as I might to find it, I couldn’t.  Turns out I deleted it.  And not just deleted and sitting in my trashed folder.  DELETED it, deleted it.  I know for sure as I used to pin my posts to Pinterest.  I found the pin:

But when I click on the Pinterest link, I get the lovely message.

Not only did I delete it from my blog, I also deleted it from my laptop.

Made me start to wonder why I deleted the post so resolutely.  I remember feeling upset by the denier for saying something so hurtful.  I remember looking at the numbers and the rise of the diagnoses through the years.  Heck, I even created the nice picture above for the post.

I am sure the post wasn’t the only one to hit the dust.  Have you ever gone back and read your first blog posts?  I did.  Mine were awkward, forehead rubbing messes.  I didn’t want to be associated with them.  I got rid of them probably around the same time I got rid of my Fad post. 

Right now, I have eleven blog posts sitting in my trashed folder in WordPress.  They need reworking.  I haven’t gone off the deep end and just canned them.  Yet.  In those posts I broke one of my rules.  I wrote about autism as if I were a teacher or an educator about the diagnosis.  Which I’m not and vowed never to do.  I can only write about autism as a parent to MY family.  Maybe I’ll get the gumption up to fix those guys.  Maybe…

Since I couldn’t find a couple of mine, I looked to other’s posts – ones that I knew had written about the same thing.  But I couldn’t remember their names.  No worries, I went to manage the blogs I follow to find their clever titles.

That is when I discovered I was following 972 blogs.  972.  Whoa!

I started scrolling through the names.  Some of the blogs haven’t been active in years.  YEARS.  I saw a lot of old familiar faces that are, sadly, no longer blogging.  And a lot of others I didn’t know who they were, and it appears, no longer blogging.

A few months ago, a blogger took a stand on her post and announced she was leaving the blogging world.  She was unfamiliar with the faces and didn’t feel her posts were being read, just liked.  She called out two other bloggers for their opinion, although the two she called out to, I knew, were no longer blogging either (EDDAZ and David).  But all the change did her in, and she left.

I am at a happy 315 now.  Most of the bloggers are actively blogging.  Some of my favorite faces of yore I still kept in hopes to hear from them again.  But there are some new faces.  If not new to the blogging world, then to me.  Their blogs are enjoyable and worth checking out.

Sharing Tumble into Love helped our community grow.  So, I’d like to mention a few others related to autism and/or parenting.

Those parenting a child with autism or special need:

Stay Positive it’s Autism

Mischief Momma

From Tumor 2 Autism

Fatherhood in the Trenches

Positiviely ASD

An Unusual Path

And there’s a couple of Dad’s out there that have great parenting blogs I really enjoy reading for all the laughs:

Dadzooka

The Grumpy Nerd Dad

Maybe one day I will write my fad post again.  I still feel the angst and animosty strong enough to do the topic justice.  Again.  Until I do, or move on to the next new topic, check these blogs out when you get a chance.