The Year I Didn't Want, But Deeply Needed. - How I Survived (and Even Thrived) After MAGA Made My DEI&A Work 'Enemy #1
To My Community: Thank You for Getting Us Through 2025. Here’s Our Dream for 2026.
I don’t know what awaits me in the new year... but I’m still cautiously excited.
2025 was a year that pushed me, challenged me, and demanded I change the way I do things.
As years that bring rapid change often do, it wasn’t the year I wanted, but somehow it was the year I needed to live through.
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At the beginning of last year, I was scared, angry, and sad, mourning the loss of most of my consulting work, due to the current administration’s relentless attacks on DEI&A (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility).
Last year, I only had 5 clients... total all year (a big loss, since I used to have 2-5 clients a month before MAGA made DEI&A enemy number one).
At the beginning of last year, I didn’t know what I was going to do or how David and I were going to survive without the day job and the career I’d worked hard to build over the years, but somehow we did... Thanks to the amazing community that surrounds us.
I held t-shirt fundraisers, I sold one-to-one Ask Me Anything sessions, and pushed my books and subscriber content on Substack and Patreon.
Lucky for me, Meta was boosting my content and paying me well for it through much of 2025... something I knew wouldn’t last (because it never does).
With the added free time on my calendar, I beefed up my social media activity, pushing my Facebook page to new records (reaching over 50 million people a month for multiple months in a row). Then I started working on self-publishing another book (NeuroDivergent Rebel’s The Weight of Normal) and officially birthed it earlier this month.
I also signed a contract with Routledge to work with Rebecca Duffus on creating the adult version of our popular children’s workbook (Autism, Identity, and Me) and have started the project (which we are trying to get done by April so it can be released by fall next year).
In the end, 2025 was a much better year than I initially thought it could be, all things considered (especially considering the deep depression I’d slipped into and had to climb out of in 2024 when my grandfather passed).
After losing my grandfather and our eldest dog soon after, 2024 was one of the hardest years of my life, but somehow (and fortunately) 2025 was much better.
For me, any year when I’m able to write and publish a book is a good year.
Writing has always been one of my first loves. It’s something I’ve always felt called to do, though I never would have guessed growing up that I’d end up writing non-fiction one day.
Now, as we slide into the new year once more, Meta has recalibrated its algorithm and pay rates, significantly reducing my reach and the amount they pay me for my content, forcing me to adapt once more.
What, for the past year, was temporarily one of my main income streams has once again fallen to levels that can’t sustain me (something I knew would happen eventually, because social media has never been a reliable income source for me).
