The Outside in View of Uncommon Bostonian:: What an Autistic Black Woman Sees

By Yvonne Christian

A book that shows the blog posts, essays, and art of an autistic Black woman that reveals in an unconventional memoir. It also reveals her personal struggles with employment and emotional abuse (bullying at school and her own family).

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Oct 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781483583464

Book preview

Biography

Introduction #1 (Why Did It Take So Long To Make This Book Happen?)

Sometimes I say autistic, and at other times I say, with Asperger’s.

My name is Uncommon Bostonian. I am an autistic black woman. Actually, my name is Yvonne Christian, a black woman with Asperger’s syndrome and nonverbal learning disorder. There are many ways I can identify myself, and they all usually end up offending someone. I decided to keep it simple on the cover of my book. I went through a lot of crap from other people for a long time before my diagnosis in 2002, but I am getting ahead of myself.

Originally I wanted to write a memoir. I thought I was a person walking around who just didn’t know how to socialize with people correctly and who couldn’t read body language and facial expressions at all. My thinking was that I had some sort of undiscovered mental condition, and I was going to write a memoir to show the world that I had discovered this on my own. But before I could write it, my doctor told me about Asperger’s syndrome.

I still wanted to write a memoir, but while I was learning about Asperger’s syndrome and autism, life happened: unemployment, temping jobs, illnesses and deaths in my family, my own health issues, a couple of car accidents and car maintenance issues, the health issues and deaths of companion pets, and tons of financial problems.

In 2009, I joined a writers group called Writers Anonymous, and we self-published a book in 2011 called Seven at The Sevens: A Collection of Seven Word Stories, Memoirs and Poems. One of my essays called They Said that I Didn’t Act Like a Black and one of my paintings, called The Wild Side are featured in the anthology, All the Weight of Our Dreams: On Living Racialized Autism.

Introduction #2 (The One I Wrote in 2010. Personally, I Think It’s Still Good.)

My Book Idea!

I love to write. It’s as simple as that. Long before I was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome in 2002, I had wanted to be a writer and to be working in the field of mass communications. However, when I graduated from Emerson College in May 1986, my career in that field turned out to be a bust.

I ended up working in the places I least expected to be working. Even worse, my current employer doesn’t recognize the years of experience and the skills I have, despite the fact that I’ve proven that I can get up in front of a group to deliver a PowerPoint presentation and can write articles. Yes, what I learned and practiced at Emerson College has made me a seasoned pro when it comes to communicating. However, my current employer, who I’ll keep anonymous in this book, doesn’t believe I have any experience or talent whatsoever. Nevertheless, my resume speaks for itself. I have been working since 1986 with very few periods of unemployment.

How long have I been working for my current employer? Well, long enough to motivate me to present my writing to the world. In July 2005, I created my very first blog, Outside In, where I started writing about Asperger’s syndrome and pop culture and other topics that caught my attention. A couple of months later, Outside In got quoted on the back cover of Ellen Notbohn’s book Ten Things Every Child with Autism Wishes You Knew. I was published at last.

Two years later, in August 2007, a new daily newspaper, Boston Now, advertised for bloggers to write stories, opinions, and reviews. After meeting with a representative at one of the paper’s evening workshops, I set up Uncommon Bostonian, my second blog. I used that name not only because it was the working title of the memoir that I hoped to finish writing one day but also because it is what I had been using as a pen name for the Outside In blog.

After my first three entries for Uncommon Bostonian, I set up the blog on the Boston Now website. A couple of days later, my entries were published in the newspaper. I was thrilled.

Practically every week, from August 2007 to April 2008, I saw a lot of my entries in Boston Now. In March 2008, one of the editors asked me for my photo to be included on the website because the paper wanted to show pictures of its star bloggers. I agreed and sent my picture. I was excited to see my photo on top of the list of bloggers on the site.

There’s an old saying that all good things must come to an end. Unfortunately, all good things came to end in mid-April 2008 when the paper’s investors in Iceland decided to pull out of their newspaper endeavor. They abruptly cancelled the newspaper without any warning and told their staff to pack up and leave that day. They left us bloggers in a lurch, not knowing what to do with our blogs. I managed to cut and paste all of my posts and save them on my computer, and later burn them onto a disc.

I started a new Uncommon Bostonian blog on the AOL Journals site, where my Outside In blog was also located. I had always enjoyed sharing my opinions about society and politics in that blog, so I decided to keep it going. It was smooth sailing for a couple of months until AOL Journals announced that it too was shutting down, at the end of October 2008. Once again, I had to move Uncommon Bostonian to another host site, bringing Outside In along for the ride. They are both now located at WordPress.com (Outside In: http://yechristian.wordpress.com and Uncommon Bostonian: http://uncommonbostonian.wordpress.com).

For the last two years, I have been wondering what I should do with the original Uncommon Bostonian posts because many of them were published in the Boston Now newspaper with editorial changes. I could have easily put them in the WordPress blog, but I wanted them to stand out on their own.

Then, I thought about all of my unpublished work from writing classes in years past and the essays I’ve written but never submitted. I was never certain which genre my essays fell into. I see things from my own unique point of view.

Finally, I wanted to showcase my artwork along with my writing. Slowly, an idea for a book of writings and art started to develop. I thought about this and what I had written so far in my unfinished memoir. Why not have a sampling of my creative side all in one book?

It sounded like a good idea.

Part One: The First Posts: Late August 2007–September 2007

I Call Myself Uncommon Bostonian

Posted August 23, 2007

Here I am with my second blog. My first one is called Outside In at AOL Journals. I’ve been having fun with that for two years. Now it’s time to spread my wings and do another blog. I’m up to the challenge. I am going to have fun writing for two blogs.

Why do I call myself the Uncommon Bostonian? It happens to be a long story, but I’ll make it brief. Before I was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome (a form of autism) back in 2002, everyone always accused me of deliberately being rude, obnoxious, rebellious, and different. I