Who I REALLY Am & What I Have To Do

Hi it's Emily from Bite Size Vegan and welcome
to a very atypical vegan nugget.

I’ve been debating whether or not to make this video
for quite some time and kept pushing it back

so that I could at least post one
more solid educational video first.

But I feel it’s come to a point where it’s necessary.

I want to let you know a little bit about
what’s been happening in my life, what will

be happening with the channel and why, as
well as tell you something about myself that

I’ve never shared publicly.

As those of you who’ve been watching my
channel awhile know, I’ve gone from releasing

2-3 videos a week consistently for about two
years without fail—even down to the exact

publishing time—to announcing that starting
August 2016, I would be reducing to one video

most weeks, to the past few months wherein
I’ve posted hours or even days later than ever before.

As I said within the announcement video I
published in July, the reduction in posting

frequency wasn’t a vacation, but rather
a strategic—albeit painful—decision arising

from the mounting unmanageability of an ever-increasing
workload and ever-decreasing sleep.

Having long ago reached the point of being
unable to answer every comment, message and

email—which I abhor more than I can possibly
explain, and wish so desperately I could reply

fully to each and every one of you—recently
I’ve been increasingly more behind, overloaded

and decidedly absent from social platforms.

I greatly value accountability and have always
been someone who makes good on my word, even

when the other party has no expectation. The
first time I was five minutes late posting

a video, I thought I was going to have a heart
attack. But after having uploaded a few videos

recently explaining and apologizing for why
a video was not ready, I’ve found that what

I perceive as an unacceptable failure to keep
my word, is by and large not that big of a

deal to those of you who have commented.

Still, I’ve felt the need to try and explain
why I’ve been failing to keep up.

One of the primary reasons I mentioned for
shifting to one video a week was to dedicate

more time to building the necessary foundation
for a functioning team, upon which the long-term

sustainability of Bite Size Vegan and expansion
of resources depends.

Yet I’ve continually run into the Catch22
that in order to take on the help needed to

realistically continue this work, I must put
in more time and more energy than ever before,

at a point when my body and mind are refusing
to be pushed any further and I’ve literally

run out of hours in the day, averaging 0-4
hours of sleep the last two plus years.

Precisely because time is so limited, it’s
all the more vital I use it as wisely and

effectively as possible. Part of this entails
re-evaluating the priorities and structure

of Bite Size Vegan. Taking the time to move
forward with forethought will accomplish far

more than maintaining a semblance of regular
video output while driving myself into the ground.

Perhaps this will mean a shift in focus from
YouTube videos to speaking in Universities

and schools, like the incredible opportunity
I had to speak in a New Jersey high school

class recently, part of which you can see
in this video, which is also linked below.

Regardless of the direction Bite Size Vegan
takes from here, I cannot continue to do

everything on my own all at once.

I’m trying to fit too much in this video.
To stay somewhat focused but still offer more

information for those interested, I published
an additional video in a public post on Patreon,

which anyone can access, linked here and below.
It goes into more detail about team building,

why I’ve not simply issued an
open call for volunteers,

how and why I started a Patreon page, and
more about the financial end of things.

In striving for transparency and accountability
regarding the requirements and demands of

Bite Size Vegan’s expanding workload, I
feel I’ve yet to find a balance between

making an excessively boring multi-hour tutorial
and another overly abbreviated task list,

or indecipherable mess, which always fail
to convey anything comprehensive.

But, that’s not even what this video is really about.

Today I want to try and communicate
something very important about who I am—

though it has been infinitely more
challenging to put into words.

I’m Autistic.

I’ve never shared this publicly and I want
to be clear that in talking about my experience,

I am not and cannot speak for other Autistics;
nor is this video intended to be an in-depth

educational overview of autism.

For anyone unfamiliar, I highly recommend
referencing autistic activists and self-advocates,

not Autism Speaks, which, like so many of
the organizations I’ve covered in my videos,

harms and misrepresents the very individuals
for whom it purports to advocate.

I’ve provided links to several resources
in the description below and on the blog post,

including Autistic activist Lydia X. Z. Brown
of the blog Autistic Hoya, who effectively

introduces autism as “a neurological, pervasive
developmental condition. It is a disability…not

a disease [and] is a lifelong condition that
spans from infancy to adulthood. Autistic

people usually share a variety of characteristics,
including significant differences in information

processing, sensory processing, communication
abilities or styles, social skills, and learning

styles.”

Despite prevalent stereotypes, there aren’t
any visible markers for autism and no two

Autistics are the same. An incredibly concise
yet surprisingly helpful analogy I’ve come

across is that “autism is not a processing
error. It's a different operating system.”

I’ve spent my whole life trying to understand
and operate in a world that seems completely

foreign. I’m only now even barely beginning
to understand how I’m “wired,” so to

speak, and slowly learning how to work WITH
instead of AGAINST my brain.

Despite having worked with autistic individuals
and people with varying abilities for over

a decade, and passionately vocal regarding
issues surrounding disabilities as well as

mental health, I've had a huge blind spot
for myself, believing and being told my whole

life that aspects of who I am were wrong or
bad—and that I just needed to try harder,

do better, stop being so difficult, and for
the love of god, stop asking so many questions.

There are two main reasons I’ve never shared
this about myself. First, I was only diagnosed

just over a year ago haven’t really had
a spare moment to take the time to process

everything, and second—as I’ve said many
times—Bite Size Vegan isn’t about me.

There are a lot of things in my life that
I don’t include on the channel. Not because

I’m ashamed or trying to hide anything—in
fact, I actually tend to grossly over-share

by societal standards—but because that’s
not what Bite Size Vegan is for.

I’m sharing this with you now for a few
reasons, the most pressing being that I’ve

reached a point of what’s called “autistic
burnout.” I’ve linked here and below to

a very helpful video on this topic by Autistic
blogger, public speaker, advocate, and activist

Amythest Schaber. It’s part of their fantastic
video series “Ask An Autistic,” and really

speak to where I am right now with a clarity
I can’t express at the moment. I mean it’s

taken me over two weeks of writing, editing
and re-writing, to finish this video.

Another reason I decided to try and communicate
my experiences in such a public manner was

the hope that doing so might—even in the
smallest way—help break through the misinformation,

disinformation, and stigmatizing of autism,
as well as let any of you out there facing

similar challenges know that you are not bad.
And you are not broken.

It’s okay to be yourself fully and find
what tools and help you need to be healthy.

I for one have always had to reach a place
of extreme over-exertion to even consider

dialing anything back. And with the animals
being my central focus every day the last

few years as a full time activist, it’s
taken me pushing myself even further beyond

exhaustion than ever before.

But I have to start listening to what I’ve
said in to all of you in many videos: in order

to help others, you must first help yourself.
If there is to be any hope for me to continue

with the work I desperately want to keep doing
every minute of the day, I have to step back

from certain aspects for the time being in
order to learn and put into place the necessary

supports for myself.

I’ve driven myself to a point where my ability
to be an effective advocate for the animals

is progressively decreasing. Yet I keep stubbornly
forcing myself onward, when even so many of

you have told me to please take time off.

To be honest, time off, relaxation and
self-care are very foreign to me.

In fact, the one time in my life I really
made a concentrated effort to relax,

I ended up getting sick from
the stress of trying to relax.

I’m that good.

My brain has never been a quite place.

Even when I try, I can’t disconnect any single element from its myriad of connections and contexts.

I seem to lack any inherent filter for prioritization,

so essentially every new concept, variable, thought, change or sensory input adds to the existing chaos—

everything all at once all the time.

You can kind of hear this in my unscripted
Q&A’s, where I’ll take the scenic route

to an answer, speaking somewhat rapidly in
an effort to keep up with my brain.

Communication has always been demanding. The
challenge is navigating through the shifting

chaos and deepening complexities while attempting
to harness them long enough to translate them

into a linear, simplified progression of thought,
designed to help others make the connections

for themselves.

Throughout my life, my art, and my activism,
I've made decisions based on what would be

most effective for the message or purpose
of my work, regardless of my own comfort.

Almost every aspect of Bite Size Vegan involves
the very things in life I find most difficult—even

terrifying: learning and utilizing technology,
using social media…at all…reaching out

to people for interviews, asking people to
share my videos (or trying to even though

they’re a free resource), asking for anything
from anyone in any capacity, dealing with

unexpected change, dealing with expected change,
making business decisions, networking, traveling,

structuring and organizing, anything regarding
schedules—especially when out of my control—navigating

basic human interactions, and—most absurd
of all and the very purpose of Bite Size Vegan:

simplifying complex issues into clear, linear,
easily-accessed and understood educational

resources.

But the truth is, if my mind didn’t work
the way it does, and I hadn’t been through

what I have, I wouldn’t be the person I
am. As utterly exhausting and taxing it is

to go through this process with the way my
mind operates, every comment or message of

change from new and existing vegans makes
every ounce of effort more than worth it.

Being autistic is not a tragedy. Looking back,
I believe it’s been an integral factor in

my connecting with non-human animals from
such an early age. I’m far from the first

autistic person to draw this connection. In
a perfect example of no two Autistics being

the same, take Temple Grandin, the most well-known
autistic woman in the world. Dr. Grandin has

written how autism allowed her to really put
herself in the place of the animals and understand

how they think, what scares them, what makes
them feel safe. And she used that profound

connection to design “better” and “friendlier”
ways to systematically murder them.

I, on the other hand, arrived at a different
conclusion. From an early age, the experience

of give everything I have in an effort to
communicate clearly or to ask for help, only

to be dismissed, ignored, or misinterpreted,
made me all the more passionate about and

determined to fight for the animals who are
also screaming at the top of their lungs but

are not just denied their voices and their
freedom, but also their very individuality—living

every moment in a hell infinitely worse than
I could ever imagine.

I will never not be autistic. And wouldn’t
want to be if I could. As I’ve said many

times in my videos, we need as many varied
and unique voices speaking about veganism

as possible. You will reach people I never
could, just as I may reach people others have

not.

I’ve heard from so many of you that you
don’t feel qualified, smart, or well-spoken

enough to get active, or don’t look how
you think you should. That’s a major reason

I make sure to share what I perceive as my
total incompetence, and the fear I feel every

step of the way. Because we all have a tendency
to compare our insides to other people’s

outsides. I think if we could all see what
was going on behind the scenes in each other’s

lives, we may find that the people we think
have it “all figured out” are—in a lot

of ways—just as lost and scared as we are.
I for one intend to keep fighting through

the fear, imperfect as ever, learning with
every fall, and wearing my scars with pride.

Before wrapping up, I of course want to spell
out what all this means logistically for Bite

Size Vegan and the channel right now?

Well, I’m not going to drop off the face
of the earth and I’m still not going on

vacation. Honestly, I’d likely go insane
were I to stop working entirely or even have

a stereotypical “day off.”

I still have upcoming speeches—two already
confirmed are VegMichigan and Cleveland Vegfest—as

well as slaughterhouse vigil trips and volunteer
time at farmed animal sanctuaries, among other

things.

I will post any events open to the public
on the “About” page of BiteSizeVegan.com,

where you can also sign up for my newsletter
to be informed of announcements and updates.

Plus you get a free ebook to boot.

I’ll also be focusing intently on building
the team structure and figuring out what changes

and supports need to be in place for the long-term
maintenance and growth of Bite Size Vegan.

Again, please see the video on Patreon linked
below for more details.

There’s an insane amount of backlog to be
addressed on many fronts, not the least of

which is the email inbox disaster. And of
course finally sleeping!

At least for the time being, I will not be
posting regularly on YouTube, and will be

far less present on social media in general,
though I will likely still post on Instagram,

Facebook and Twitter, so feel free to follow
me on those if you like.

Also, given YouTube’s ongoing shenanigans,
it’s always a good idea to click that bell

and choose to enable notifications for the
channel, so you’ll know when I do happen

to bust something out.

As always, I’ll be the most present on Patreon
checking in with and running things by my

Nugget Army family, without whom there’d
be no future to plan for Bite Size Vegan.

Though this may seem like a retreat or surrender,
it is anything but. I’ll never stop fighting.

And this is the time to do so from a place
of grounded strength, no longer a crumpled

mass, bruised and broken and swinging at shadows
in blind desperation.

I hope you will continue to learn about and
help promote veganism by perusing the 350+

videos on my channel. Please share them far
and wide, in conversations with friends, families,

on social media. Both my channel and website
have a search feature and I have an excessive

amount of playlists grouped by topics and
themes. I bet there are some you’ve never

seen before! …and some you never care to
see again.

It would mean the world to me to know they
are still being utilized for spreading the

truth through education. I cannot overemphasize
the power of sharing—its impact should never

be discounted

Last but by far not least, I want to say that my supporters are unbelievable. You have sustained me,

made my life livable through the sleepless
nights of overworking my complicated mind.

Thank you for standing by me.

And thank you for accepting me as I am,
long before I could begin to start accepting myself.

Now go live vegan, and I’ll see you soon.