Penny is an artist who uses her creative side and imagination to express herself. She’s now using this opportunity with ASDNext to not only do that through art, but also blogging. For much of her life, she felt like the “quirky sidekick” stereotype in a movie, always doing what others expected of her. When she was diagnosed with autism later in life, that all began to change. This news was life changing and she knew it was time to rewrite her story. She’s no longer on the sidelines of this so-called movie that is her life, she’s the director, leading-lady, or whatever other part she needs to play to figure out who she REALLY is! Every small step toward authenticity is now a victory for her in this new stage of life.
Penny

From Scar to Story
While doing a sewing task, Penny accidently burns herself with her iron. She writes about the aftermath and her thoughtful take-away from this incident. Check out this blog to learn more about Penny!
Read moreGirl VS Grass
Penny was putting off mowing the grass due to lack of experience and anxiety. She decides to try and do a little at a time. Click below to find out the outcome of her lawn mowing efforts!
Read moreCereal Bowls and Blogging
This blog is about how hard it can be to blog for other people. Trying new things can be overwhelming and stressful for everyone. We get to look over Penny's shoulder as she decides what to blog about in her second blog for ASDNext.
Read moreMeet Penny: Life, Cameras, Action!
We welcome Penny, a new blogger, to ASDNext. Penny blogs about feeling like the funny sidekick and having to mask who she was all the time. Penny writes “Emulating my peers was exhausting. I lost and suppressed my most authentic self to character portrayal. I questioned, who did I REALLY want to be?" She learns this is called masking and that she has autism. This understanding helped Penny decide to become the main character of her life story.
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