What to Buy Your ND Friends

November 16, 2025November 16, 2025 Kara Jorgensen1 Comment

As we head into the holiday gift-giving season, I thought I would make a list of some cool things to buy the neurodivergent in your life. I posted about this last year on Bluesky, and a lot of people found it helpful, so I thought I might share it here.

Disclaimers: the links are affiliate links, so I get a little kickback if you buy anything. Also, every neurodivergent person in your life is different. These are base ideas, not something that will appeal to everyone. The idea is that you can take these and use them as a springboard for buying things for others or padding out the gifts you plan to get them.

Silicone plate dividers– These silicone plate dividers keep your wet food and dry food from touching. They’re dishwasher safe and come in multiple colors.
A divided cereal bowl– A divided cereal bowl keeps your cereal and your milk separate. It’s a great way to avoid soggy food. Also useful for yogurt and toppings or just having chips/dip that don’t touch.
A dip holder– I promise this is the last food related one, but keeping your wets from touching your dries is always a thing. This is a little container that clips to your plate and will hold your sauce.
A weighted blanket– This one comes in lots of cute colors and patterns. I do suggest getting a cover for your weighted blanket, so you don’t need to throw a 15 lb blanket in your washing machine (it is chaos)
A duvet cover for the weighted blanket– This is so you don’t need to throw a 15 lb blanket into the washing machine (it takes FOREVER for them to dry if you do and will make your washer and dryer shake/walk, trust me this is worth it).
A shark robe/snuggie thing– If you’re friend is trans and ND, this is a silly one but trust me on it, they’ll think it’s hilarious. Plus, being able to pull a giant hood over your head is just chef kiss
The Comfy– My partner swears by the Comfy when they’re overstimulated (and perpetually cold). It’s oversized, and you can basically crawl into it or pull the hood over your head. It’s soft, warm, no weird fabrics or irritating strings.
A moon lamp– Sometimes you just need to lay in the dark with some soft colorful lighting. This lamp has a clicker with different colors. It’s very peaceful and aesthetic, especially if they’re into space stuff.
A human-sized dog bed– Do you like floor time, but you have the back/neck of a 30+ year old? Try the human sized dog bed.
A Japanese futon/tatami mat– Same idea as the human dog bed for floor time, but it’s easier to roll up and put away. It’s also more expensive, though bigger.
Color, Taste, Texture by Matthew Broberg Moffitt– A cookbook to help with someone who has food aversions/sensitivities by helping them figure out what they can/can’t tolerate and building from there.
Loop earplugs– to lessen sound without making you completely unable to hear. They come in many colors and levels of blockage.
A hug blanket– If you aren’t a fan of weighted blankets but like compression that isn’t too hot, this is a good alternative as it’s much lighter and more like a sleeve.
A timer cube– I like them for getting past bad executive dysfunction or for telling myself, I just need to clean for 15 min, etc. Caveat: the noise is hideous, like an alarm clock.
A grocery list pad for the fridge– If you forget what you’re out of, I like to put this on the fridge with a magnetic pen, so I can mark off what we’re out of when I notice. It’s a good way to avoid a 5 soy sauce bottles situation.
Safe and Sound by Mercury Stardust- Not necessarily ND specific, but I like being able to do things on my own with clear, step-by-step written instructions and accompanying videos. The Trans Handy Ma’am’s book has been helpful with basic home repair.
Noise-cancelling headphones– because noise = overstimulation. Some are far more expensive, but these are a good basic pair. They can get SUPER pricey
Other ideas:
- Buy things relating to their special interest.
- Give them a gift card to a place they like if they don’t like surprises.
- Do not buy an experience with a date unless you’ve talked to them about it before.
- More of their [nonperishable] safe food.
- Ask them what they want. We appreciate it.

My End of 2024 Reflection

December 29, 2024December 29, 2024 Kara Jorgensen3 Comments

Let me tell you, this year was SO MUCH better than last year. 2023 was horrendous, and while 2024 has not been great on a national scale, on a personal level it has been a breath of fresh air.

The word I had chosen for my word of the year for 2024 was “navigate” because I felt like I had been tossed into turbulent waters due to the fact that I was being harassed and besmirched by Freydis Moon/Taylor Barton, and I couldn’t tell anyone. They were a dark cloud looming over anything good that happened to me, and I was constantly afraid that any time I got attention, they would pounce on me. This meant every book release or awards announcement was riddled with anxiety since they did this to other authors they didn’t like in the past. In late April when they were finally exposed by Elle Porter, it felt like a massive weight had been lifted off my shoulders. The thing that had been too afraid to discuss publicly was finally out in the open, and FM/TB could no longer hurt me. I spent the rest of April and half of May vibrating with equal parts relief and anxiety, waiting for the other shoe to drop. My writing slowed to a crawl at the fear of retaliation and while processing all that had happened, but it was worth it. The only good thing to come out of FM’s assholery is that I have picked up a few new friends who experienced the same thing, and I’ve grown closer to another author I have a lot in common because of it.

On the writing front, it was actually a rather good year. Even with the wasted month, I wrote, edited, and published, “An Unexpected Question” (TRM #2.5), The Reanimator’s Remains (TRM #3), and started writing “An Unexpected Evening” (TRM #3.5). There’s always part of me that wished I wrote more, especially since that month off set me back and gave me a lot of stress in October when it was close to release day, but overall, I’m very happy with everything I published this year. The Reanimator’s Heart (TRM #1) and The Reanimator’s Soul (TRM #2) were both in the 2023 Indie Ink Awards, and TRS won for mental health representation, and book 3 is nominated in a bunch of categories for the 2024 Indie Ink Awards.

This year, I was invited to be on a few queer podcasts, I blurbed a friend’s book, and I got to work with some great people, like Jack R. R. Evans, who narrates my audiobooks, and Crowglass Design, who creates the covers for my books. I can’t thank enough my author friends for all the support they provided during all of this (and before and after). I also can’t forget my readers, who made the launch of The Reanimator’s Remains so wonderful. Without you all, there would be no books, or at least no audience for my books, and your support means so much to me. Seriously though, the reviews, shout outs about my book on social media, and the little things daily mean the world to me.

In my personal life, things have been going very well. My partner and I have both been on our own gender journeys, where we’ve been trying to figure out what brings us gender euphoria. During this process, we’ve become even closer. We both still struggle with our mental health and neurodivergence at time (are really ND if you don’t get in your own way regularly? lol), but I do feel like I’ve finally found a path toward better physical health. I have started lifting weights, and it’s been interesting to see how getting stronger has intertwined with my own version of nonbinary-ness.

I’m going to write more about my goals for 2025 in a future post, but with the way this year ended, I’m going into 2025 with far more hope than I did going into 2024. More than anything, I hope you all have a fantastic new year filled with good health, fulfilling projects, safe shores, and supportive people who love you.

Personal Life

On Gender

April 28, 2024April 27, 2024 Kara Jorgensen2 Comments

The other day I was listening to the audiobook of Threads of Life by Clare Hunter, and there were several instances in her book where she discusses the synergy of cis women working together and relating to each other in a space all their own. Listening to it, I was puzzled that people experience that kind of synergy or easy relation. I often chocked up my discomfort to being autistic. By nature, I’m not particularly good at “blending” with neurotypical people. As Hannah Gadsby talks about in their comedy shows, being autistic is like being the one sober person in a room of drunks; you constantly feel like you stick out.

But it runs deeper than the autism. I’ve never felt like a woman. People would talk about womanhood or what women want or feel, and I would feel my eyes glaze over. Cannot relate. At an abstract level, I get it. I can see and understand what other people in the same way I can say people can be the same gender and be very different people. The problem is woman has always fit like an outfit two sizes two big. It just sort of hung around me with no shape, and the shape people tried to give it didn’t make me feel good about myself or make sense in terms of how I see myself.

That has always been the bigger issue for me: how people perceive me. The lack of control over other people’s assumptions is a burden I constantly struggle to deal with. Any time I get hit with “ma’am” or “miss,” I can feel my soul curl like a shrimp. I’m lucky in that I’m an adjunct college professor, so most of the time, I get called “professor,” which is blessedly neutral. There are assumptions that come with being a woman or man, none of which I want or live up to. If I tried to ascribe to either, I would always be failing, falling short of someone’s idea of what I should be.

The best way I can describe my gender is neither or none or femininely masculine. One of the reasons I gravitated toward Stede Bonnet in Our Flag Means Death is because he hits the right gender buttons for me. He is a queer, autistic man, but he’s quite feminine and fussy compared to the other male characters. He wears bright colors, loves a luxury fabric, and isn’t clinging to traditional masculinity. I look at him and see gender inspiration. Same with Lestat de Lioncourt in Interview with the Vampire, though I’m far too silly to embody that fully.

I joke with my partner that “weird little guy” is my gender. Can a gender be queer? Not genderqueer, per se, but slightly masculine in a queer way, not a cis het guy way. Mostly, I use agender or nonbinary as the closest labels I can get. I add lightly masc because if I wear anything too feminine, I get dysphoric. Truthfully, I’d rather toss gender out the window as an unnecessary nuisance. The people I tend to vibe with most tend to be neurodivergent nonbinary people because I think we look at gender differently than neurotypicals. Autistic people are more likely than the general population to be trans or nonbinary, and that’s probably because gender is made up. We hate when people make arbitrary rules or try to create hierarchy, so why would we let made up gender rules get in the way of living our best lives?

While in the past it may have bothered me that I didn’t vibe fully with cis men or cis women, I’m more than happy to vibe in the agender autistic/ADHD club with the rest of my friends. I may never feel the synergy people talk about, but I feel at peace and at home where I can talk about my special interests, not be chastised for a verbal fumble, and not be judged for the parts I came with. For those people, I am eternally grateful.

Personal Life

On Not Being Palatable

January 28, 2024January 19, 2024 Kara Jorgensen4 Comments

I’m starting to think the path of least resistance and the road to hell are the same thing. With what is going on in Palestine and my own country’s various issues, the vast majority of which stem from white supremacist ideology, I’m happily putting a stake through the heart of my palatability.

I’ve never been a people pleaser. To be a people pleaser, you have to actually please people, and when you were born weird and slightly arrogant, that doesn’t come easily. Typically, people pleasers will blend in with whomever they’re around, letting go of their edges and corners until they’re palatable. At this point in my life, I’ve decided to grow out my points.

At 32, I’m tired of making myself smaller to make other people comfortable. I got a taste of this in college as the student who always raised their hand and received dirty looks and snide remarks from my classmates. Frankly, I didn’t care. The eye-rollers were assholes, so I ignored them. Unfortunately, going to a very neurotypical-staffed grad program and then an abysmal job market eroded my “I don’t give a shit about other people’s opinions of me” attitude. Pretending I was normal (or masking, as we say in the neurodivergent world) sucks. It’s soul-sucking and wrong to the point that I burnt myself out playing normal. When I finally gave up and told my students that I’m autistic and queer and acted more myself, I ended up having a much better relationship with them. A weight had been lifted, and there was no going back if I could help it.

On the writing front, I’ve been far less willing to blend. I saw a post back in October where a new author was worrying that their audience might not align with their political views, so they decided to just not say anything. The knee-jerk reaction I had to the cowardice dripping from the post made me set my phone down. My first thought was, “Oof, I guess you’re white, cis, straight, and Christian.” Only someone whose identity aligns with the political “norm” would have such a shitty take. I used to be upset when I received homophobic reviews on my first few books. At this point, I smear so much queerness and neurodivergence across my books and online posts that someone would have to purposely ignore it to not see it. If you’re conservative and reading my books, you’re probably hate-reading, and I still have your money in my pocket, so *shrug* go ahead and leave a review that lures in queer readers.

Art is political. What we do or don’t include, who we do or don’t portray and how all gives a glimpse into our politics. If you want to sanitize your work to make it palatable for everyone, there is no chance that you’re creating anything worthwhile. Is it worth it to hack off your edges to make a few more bucks?

While I may not be immediately clocked as queer or nonbinary in the wild, I still stick out as a mask-wearer. I’m immunosuppressed, but even if I wasn’t, the science says we should avoid the plague at all costs if we want to maintain our and our loved one’s health. Masking is community care, and if you’re someone who feels strongly about racial equality or disability justice, you should be masking. You can’t be an ally to communities of color and not mask when they are more likely to have worse outcomes than white people. I don’t care if it’s weird or people think it’s over the top. It’s no skin off my nose to put a mask on when I’m at work or the store. It’s the least I can do.

I’d like it if everyone could take a look at themselves and figure out what parts of themselves they’ve been sanding off to make themselves more palatable and why. Obviously, if you’re in an unsafe situation, you should do what you have to in order to preserve your life/sanity, but for those of us able to step out of line or march to our own beat, we should stop trying to be palatable.

Being palatable is blending in, being palatable means not making waves, being palatable allows genocides to unfold, whether they be of queer people, Palestinian people, disabled people, and I’m not about that life.

The Reanimator's Heart · the reanimator's soul · Writing

Why Oliver is Important Rep to Me

October 8, 2023October 6, 2023 Kara Jorgensen1 Comment

As is a common theme with people from marginalized groups, growing up, I didn’t see any autistic characters in fiction (or at least none that read as overtly autistic). Of course, we have plenty of hyperfocused, brilliant characters like the inventor from Flubber or Milo from Atlantis, but those characters didn’t really portray the struggles of being autistic. While I wouldn’t want to be neurotypical, being autistic in a society built for neurotypicals means always feeling like you don’t fully grasp a situation or that everyone seems to know things innately that you do not. These characters didn’t show that. Everyone likes to dunk on Sheldon from Big Bang Theory for being fairly sucky rep as he’s a self-centered asshole, but I did appreciate that Sheldon struggles with things the others find “normal” because he’s autistic. Overtly autistic characters who aren’t just slightly quirky geniuses were practically non-existent.

Then, there’s also a multifaceted element of spite.

For background, I’ve known I was autistic since I was about fourteen. I figured it out on my own and took steps up until official diagnosis because, frankly, being officially diagnosed can make your life harder and it’s costly, so I haven’t gone for a full evaluation. But I have known for a over half my life that I am autistic. The college I went to for my bachelors has a degree in ABA, and when I realized what ABA was, I was like HELL NO (if you don’t know, please look into why ABA is traumatic and basically conversion therapy for autistics). On top of that, a woman in my graduating class who is NT wrote a picture book about an autistic girl’s experiences, and I was just… less than thrilled that no one was critiquing the fact that she was writing from an autistic perspective when she isn’t autistic. She’s just someone who wants to be a special education teacher. Autistics get talked over a lot in regards to our experiences and lives, and after trying to write more neurotypical characters, I decided to lean into neurodivergence in my writing.

If you look back at my first book, The Earl of Brass, it’s pretty obvious that Eilian is AuDHD (ADHD + autism). At the time, I had wanted to portray him as someone with ADHD, but when I look back, I realize he’s probably autistic too with his special interests, food issues, and some sensory issues. Hadley, the love interest in that story, also comes off as autistic. Oops.

When I decided to write The Reanimator’s Heart, I made the purposeful choice for the first time to make a character overtly autistic. I wanted Oliver to be someone who embodies my experiences as an autistic person. I wanted a character who is an adult, and a queer adult at that, who moves through life trying to take care of himself while managing a job, friends/relationships, and his own needs. This doesn’t mean he doesn’t need accommodations. The Paranormal Society’s building provides him an isolated bedroom off his laboratory, and a quiet room in the library appears where he can calm down when overstimulated. Even with his closest relationships, Oliver still needs help sometimes, but neither Gwen nor Felipe belittle or infantalize him. Despite having help and setting his life up in such a way that he isn’t constantly burnout, he still gets overstimulated or has a shutdown.

Ultimately though, Oliver is an adult man with a job he is good at and a partner who loves and supports him. So much of what we see about autism is aimed at the neurotypical parents of autistic children, which leads to autistic adults being infantalized by professionals and other adults. It is something I despise and many other autistics, regardless of support needs, despise. I wanted to have Oliver be clearly an adult who still struggles with sensory issues or losing his ability to speak when upset due to being autistic, but he still is able to live fairly autonomously and be successful in his job and love life. I’ve also made it very clear throughout both books in this series (book 2 comes out October 24th, btw) that his partner, Felipe, loves and supports him. He doesn’t find Oliver to be a burden, and expresses that to him when Oliver fears he is one. Often in stories, neurodivergent characters are seen as annoying or burdensome to their partners, and I wanted to make it clear to other autistic readers that they aren’t burdens and that there are people out there who will love them because of their quirks, not in spite of them.

Oliver is the rep I needed as a twenty year old and still need now, and my hope is that other autistic people will see themselves in him too.

Personal Life

On Autistic (Un)masking

November 20, 2022November 18, 2022 Kara Jorgensen1 Comment

Something I have been trying to do these past few months is mask less. Masking in this case is not trying to act neurotypical. Most autistic and neurodivergent people fake it til we make it. We know there is a social protocol that we should follow, whether it makes any logical sense to us or not. If you aren’t sure what I mean, here’s an example: When someone says, “How are you?” they really aren’t asking how you are. Unless they are a very good friend or your partner or someone on that level, they don’t care. It’s an empty small talk question, and the only acceptable answer is good, okay, or to complain about something you both don’t like (like work or a sports team losing). If you say, “Ugh, my IBS was acting up over the weekend and I’m exhausted,” they will look at you like you have lost your mind or stop asking you how you are. Or my absolute favorite, they will ask and keep walking. Tell me you don’t care without telling me you don’t care.

Anyway, masking is somehow equal parts passive and purposeful. There are times when the mask just automatically appears, like someone catches you off-guard or you say your automatic responses to things. For people who may not realize they’re autistic or can’t unmask, it will be far more automatic but still completely exhausting. Most of the time, masking is something we feel keenly, especially if we’ve been doing it for a long time. It’s the mental equivalent of unzipping a tight pair of pants when you get home or tossing off your bra after work. When I’m masking, I’m constantly doing mental calculations. Am I holding eye contact long enough? Am I doing it too long? Do people think I’m being shifty? Am I talking about something inappropriate? Have I said something by accident that will make my friend hate me? Masking makes any prolonged social interaction something I need days to recover from. Being “normal” is exhausting, and even masking, I don’t do a terribly good job.

What I’ve tried doing is essentially “coming out” as autistic to my students. Quite a few of them are neurodivergent, which helps. I don’t lead with it day one, but I make it clear that I accept self-diagnoses and self-made accommodations for people who are neurodivergent. Once I start talking, I’m sure some have an inkling. Eventually this semester, I came out to both classes sort of by accident, and it was a MASSIVE relief. I still watch my words and make sure I don’t accidentally hurt someone’s feelings, but not having to worry about eye contact or modulating my speech patterns makes teaching so much less exhausting. Personally, I think I’m more engaging when I loosen up and allow myself to be weird in class (especially knowing the laughs I receive are not mocking). The hope is that it will also make my students more comfortable, and for some, meeting a neurodivergent professor and/or writer may also be affirming.

The problem is that because I’m masking less, when I feel like I need to mask due to the situation (doctor’s office, grocery store, extended family, etc.), it is exhausting. It is so much worse than it usually is because I’m not accustomed to doing it as much. It’s like not exercising and being told to run a mile. I just want to collapse in a heap of social exhaustion after masking now. I used to be able to sort of hold it off until I totally fried myself, which is not great, and it sucks because I want to mask less. I need to. It’s better for my mental health to not be “on” constantly, especially when being “on,” is being akin to being a different person. But I can’t not mask all the time because it isn’t safe to, and the social repercussions of being unmasked around people who don’t understand are not worth the backlash. I absolutely dread the times I need to socially mask now, and I hate how much I’m not looking forward to holiday gatherings because of it. You would think family would be the people you could be yourself with, but when they think of autism as only non-verbal people who have high needs, they don’t believe you, even if you meet the criteria in spades and they think you’re weird.

I’m already still semi in the closet with being queer and nonbinary around my family, so compounding it with not outing myself as autistic, creates a day full of exhaustion and stifling un-Kara-ness. The stiff smiling, awkward(er) version of me feels so pale in comparison to the vibrant weirdo I know I can be when I’m with my students or my friends/partner. I just wish I felt comfortable letting that version of me out more often.