I changed my domain again. 🫣 It was for extremely great reasons this time! And I’m going to try to go without changing it ever again, from here on out. 👀

Note: I’m mobile-bound, so updating everything is taking a bit of time. 🫠

Why Autistic Jane?

Several reasons, but here are a handful:

1. Trust 🤝

Guess how much of my blog traffic comes from search engines? 85.3 percent.

I can’t help feeling as though I’d rank higher than I already do if I not only had a dot-com, but had autistic in my domain. Ranking high matters for me, because I want my posts to outrank anti-autism sites and the articles written by non-autistic people who just assume they know what it’s like to be autistic.

2. Searchable 🧐

The dissociative identity disorder (DID) community is linking to my posts on Reddit! And mentioning my blog on TikTok!

It’s exciting —

Except…they just call it “Izzy’s Blog”, which is extremely generic. (There is also an “Izzy’s Blog”.) I want something I can set a Google Alert for, that will also give people an exact match domain site name-wise. I think it will go back to the trust thing.

Branding and public awareness play a part here, too. I think freyaj.com would look much better on a business card than izzy.blog. People can mention it in videos, without having to worry about linking it — something that’s especially difficult in TikTok. My social handles also match, which means they might find and follow me since searching that is easier now as well.

This year, I have been dominating high competition for supposedly difficult keywords to rank for, in the autism and DID niches. 👀 I’m really starting to think that the big dogs in blogging tell people to go for the low competition keywords so that they can stay on top and the people who aren’t on top can just keep hoping. ‘Cause I just went for it, and I got it. 💁‍♀️

I have some projects that I’ve been working on, mainly one, that will play into next year’s project, that will completely wipe out several competing lists. I definitely want a blog name where I can be known for just that, without having to put, “Oh, by the way, this is their URL.”

As an autistic content creator, my blog name and online alias should be searchable and linkable to ONLY me.

And some days, I don’t remember that being a content creator is what I set out to do after all this time, because I have DID. 🫠

3. Email issues 💩

Some people have had a hard time emailing me because their email provider doesn’t recognize dot-blog as a legitimate domain. 😩 Or maybe it just thinks I’m spam. Either way, it perturbs me.

Instead of having to use other domains all the time, which actual people think is spam, I will only have to use one. 🙌

4. Taking blogging seriously. 😤

That anti-autism Bing catastrophe, as well as my experience in autism burnout, has led me to wanting more out of blogging.

I didn’t want to be a public figure of any kind, because I hate the connotation that you have to behave a certain way. But these days, people don’t really behave a certain way, they just behave however they want. I have come to terms with the fact that the things I want to do in life are things that require me to position myself as somewhat of a public figure, even though it absolutely terrifies me and freaks me out, especially considering my past.

But I already am in that kind of position. It kind of fell into my hands this year — rather, my blog stats — and I’m taking responsibility.

5. Immediately identifiable. 👀

This is where all the previous reasons come together. I am autistic, and my name is Jane.

I want it to be known as soon as people see my name online, that I am autistic. I don’t want it to be something that I have to reveal, something that I constantly have to remind people of because they, for some reason, don’t think that I’m autistic. Pretty much every single thing I’ve written or video I’ve made has had something to do with my autism, even if it’s just my special interest.

What’s more, putting autistic in my blog name, which is also now in my social handles, might attract people just because I am autistic. I know that I occasionally follow people just because they have autistic in their social handles.

Beyond this, I think about my future and what I might do. As a kid, I wanted to be an author and a voice actress. I think I might still try to go for it, even though I’m 31 and pretty much flailing about like a fish out of water because I don’t know how to adult. I think it would be a bit ironic of me to become a voice actress, since I’m an intermittently non-speaking autistic. But I also think that’s all the more reason to go for it, if I want to. Once I have financial stability, I will look into voice acting coaches if it’s still something that I’m interested in.

And I think having that kind of identity — a solid, stable identity — online will help me to find somewhat of a stable identity personally. As a DID system, I am the sum of all my parts. We work together to function as one, and it works best for us. We do still maintain a system TikTok account, but that’s another discussion. 🙃

Ultimately, I don’t want to be known as the person with lots of names. Singlets don’t understand it, and I’d rather compromise by sticking to one solid identity so that I can use my voice and position in search engines to stomp all over their harmful misinformation. 👌

I have written for some sites in the past year, and I haven’t been proud of my domain enough to link it without feeling some kind of shame. It still got linked, but I just felt like farts that smell of grapes and refried beans with cheese when you’re lactose intolerant.

I want something I can be proud of, not over-explain the reason behind every single freaking time.

Topics I create content around 🤔

Are you going to get pictures of my cat, my current fixation, or a non-smiling selfie full of self-love because I’m no longer masking my autism (and that includes not smiling in photos)?

Will you read about something cute that my cat did, that only I find cute because I am her cat mom, or are you going to be enriched through an insightful post inspired by a shower thought?

Who knows.

The content I create is a grab bag of sundries going on in my brain. You never know what you’re going to get, and neither. do. I. ✨

I’m not here to be your success story inspiration, I’m just here to bond with the people who share the same building with complete strangers and pretend like they don’t even exist, even though you can sometimes hear them laugh through the walls.

But let’s pretend that I do know or have a general idea, for the sake of forewarning and proving autistic people can roleplay:

• Autism. Obviously.
• Mental health (DID, depression — look, I have a lot of diagnoses; don’t ask me to list them all)
• Name change journey (I’m keen for it to happen before my 32nd birthday)
• Guest features
• Special interests (my cat, books, pretty much anything I blog about)

👀 Guest features?

Yes. I’m working on a page. I don’t know yet how annoying it will be, but I really wanted to find a way to add more content to my site without actually having to do more myself.

I also wanted to get some more traffic to my blog, possibly. Interview features are something I always wanted, but they’re also my weakness even though I’ve been in journalism. I could never figure out what to ask people in particular, or figure out what to ask in the moment.

I’m creating a process that involves as few people as possible, which is great for my autistic heart and is also possibly great for them because they get to choose from a list of questions as opposed to me sending them a particular list of questions.

Even though I seek to crush ABA sites in search with as much fervor as high school football players, I’m growing my blog ethically. 🙃

Other things to note 👇

• I low-key feel like my blog may need a redesign by 2024. Something to refresh it + fit into me now. But I can’t imagine actually bothering with that presently.
• I might make a Linktree-style page for the homepage since people rarely view the index page of blogs 🤷‍♀️
• Currently focusing on video content, guest posts and saving money to get ahead in bills and stop struggling so much. 🤝
• I have a changelog for my blog, but I’m 💩 at remembering to update it. Refer to it for minor changes.
• I will be emailing people who link to my old domains to ask them to update my new links + giving instructions for people who might not know how if they’ve done it a lot. 😌

I think this change is good for me, and I’m currently set on it being the last. As long as people think that putting such an identifier in your domain name is pointless, I’m going to have the identifier in my name. Autistic is not a bad word.

If a day comes when saying you’re autistic is about as common as saying the color of your hair, it will still be relevant — it just won’t be a sign of rebellion anymore.

Choosing to live my life specifically as I am, in a way that accommodates me, as opposed to pretending to be somebody else is viewed as such a radical form of rebellion in and of itself. The irony of all the nuances surrounding this is not lost on me.