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MATTER OVER MIND

BY JULIAN MUNOZ

My name is Julian Munoz, and I am sane. Why I am starting with that declaration: I have that kind of sense that tells me that people tend to equate autism with insanity. Autism affects my ability to control my body with my mind. The thinking part of my mind works perfectly. Unfortunately, that thinking part is not in control. We, the nonspeaking, get lumped in with the insane too often. Our outward appearance throws people. Were they to spend time with us, they would realize we are rational. What rationally has me writing this blog is the desire to set people straight.

8/1/2025 0 Comments

Walled-Off No Longer

These days we are living life more fully. I get almost teary thinking about it. We went to see Judy’s psychiatrist almost 3 months ago, and he switched my medicines. I can’t believe how much better I feel. Feeling like this cannot just happen: it is the result of being on the right medicine, with the right dose. My previous doctor clearly knew I was struggling but had zero clue how to help me.

Kind of pissed about that, actually. All those years are gone, in which I was walled off from everyone because of aggression. All those years of loneliness are on his shoulders. That was walling me in all my life. My dream of going to poetry class with Judy will soon be a reality. All this because we listened to Judy about switching doctors.

So all you guys out there who are prisoners of your uncontrollable behaviors do not give up. Ask your doctors about clozapine. I have been on a million medicines, but none helped before this. My story is not a one-off. Many of us here at Mouth to Hand have been saved by this medicine.

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6/9/2025 0 Comments

A New Julian

The world will change for me next week. Really awkward to discuss aggression, but we totally must be open to hearing hard things. All my life, basically, I’ve suffered from bouts of extreme aggression. I don’t know what caused it, and I couldn’t control it. At last I am better, and can be with other people.

All my life I dreamed of that. But no one helped me get rid of the episodes, so I needed to be isolated. What kind of life is it, to never be able to have friends? The loneliness was beyond unbearable.

A week from today I will be starting in my first group. To see my dream come true is wonderful. Actually, it’s beyond wonderful: it’s like my whole world is finally filled with sunlight and warmth. At ten o’clock, on June 16, a week from now, a brand new Julian will be born.

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6/2/2025 1 Comment

The Day My Dream Came True

My ultimate dream, apart from being cured, is to be in groups of friends. I’m totally social, and love being with people more than anything. I was so lonely for so long when I couldn’t talk. Then my certainly major episodes of aggression prevented me from being with others.

When we met Judy, happy to say, my entire life got so much better. We learned what mainly love can do. We first got me to talk, then small things which made a huge difference started to happen: small things which totally changed my life. These things were her letting my Mom know about medicine that could help me. We went to see Judy’s psychiatrist, Dr. Minhas, and I can’t even begin to describe the difference in me already. My whole mind and body are definitely calming down. What a change!

Today that dream actually came true. Judy asked me if I wanted to be in a group. The answer is yes! Yes! Yes! I am totally, certainly happier than I have ever been!

This is one of the best days of my life.

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5/12/2025 0 Comments

Medicine and Me

There is an update on me and medicine. Several weeks ago, me, Dad and Mom went to talk to a new psychiatrist. I liked him very much. He was not condescending at all. He started me on a new medicine that has also helped Alex. Maybe it is my imagination, but I think it is making a huge difference. My whole body feels more relaxed. My thinking has cleared.

I have to thank the powers that be for the way Mom fights for me. She brought me to see Dr. Minhas when nothing my former psychiatrist did helped me. The way I feel now, I could certainly be in classes with others.

Wishes can come true if you keep trying.

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4/28/2025 3 Comments

We Want a Cure

When RFK spoke last week about autism, I was beyond thrilled. For all my life I have wanted someone to stand up and say what he did. We portray entertaining pictures of slightly quirky people on TV and people think that is autism.

That is not our experience. We suffer every single day of our lives. That is our reality. We cannot talk unless we have a trained CP with us, and most of us have never learned to type to communicate anyway. We cannot use the toilet unassisted, let alone shower or have any kind of privacy. We are very really aggressive too often, and self-injurious. We pour money into shows like The Good Doctor and Love On the Spectrum which show people with autism to be a little odd, but fully functional.

We nonspeakers are not functional. We are the ugly side of autism which no one sees because watching us beat the shit out of our mothers won’t sell more cars or cookies. No one is making cute TV shows about us. “How I Punched My Mother,” will never be a smash hit. We were speechless for all our lives. But at least a small percentage of us now are no longer voiceless. We want a cure…and we are fed up with the speakers talking for us.

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4/14/2025 1 Comment

The Gala

The most wonderful night of the year is the gala. The way I feel when I am there is that I am worth something. All the people that come are dressed in attire for a fancy affair, which makes us feel it is real. Definitely Judy looked stunning, and her hair looked like the ladies of the nineteenth century. Friends and families were there celebrating their children like we are stars, not just their disabled burdens.

People believe more and more that we certainly can achieve things. May that belief spread to all the world. I know we look and sometimes act incredibly impaired but we are just like speakers inside. Inside we want to accomplish things.

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2/17/2025 1 Comment

Lab Grown Human Tissue is a Reality

Judy just read to me an article from the Wall Street Journal about the idea of growing new arteries in a lab. It is an astounding advancement in medicine. The company that is now awaiting final FDA approval is called Humacyte, and they’ve already implanted over five hundred arteries in people. I was happy to learn that soldiers who’ve been injured have had limbs saved by having the lab-grown arteries implanted.

Getting to the point of this post, I am aware that research takes enormous amounts of time and money. Reading that scientists are working on things like this makes me hopeful that someday we may find a way to help us nonspeakers. To be able to grow human tissue in a lab is futuristic. Perhaps there are ways to regrow the broken pathways which stops us from speaking with our mouths.

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11/25/2024 1 Comment

2024 and Me

This year I am especially thankful to my parents for not giving up on me. People often want to be rid of their difficult autistic child. Maybe they can’t take the aggression or the screaming anymore. Maybe they have no patience left. Whatever the reason, by the time their child is 30, they are no longer trying to improve their child’s life.

My parents brought me to see Judy when I was thirty. I had no voice for three decades. And now I not only can talk, I have a whole community of people who know me, and therefore know I am not cognitively disabled.

My parents continue to try to help me with the bursts of aggression that I cannot control. They limit my ability to join many groups and classes. I want them gone; I want to be included in things. In the next year, that is my goal. It is a resolution, I suppose.

This past year, since I started talking, has been the best of my life. May next year totally continue to see my life improve even more.

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11/18/2024 1 Comment

A Cure for Autism

I have thoroughly considered my thoughts on the fanaticism on the causes of autism. The fanatics get in the way of real progress. Being over thirty means that I have been around the block a few times. And there has been mostly zero progress on finding the causes and devising new treatments. Given that the numbers of people being diagnosed has continued to rise, you’d think that there would be money poured into research. But that is not the case…and worse, there are the fanatics.

In my lifetime, there have been so many different groups of fanatics all of whom claim to know the cause and the cure. There were the anti-vaccine people, and the worms people. There were the genetics people and the gluten/casein people. There were the vitamin B12 people and the retrovirus people. There were the heavy metals people and the oxalates people. And there were so many more.

While there may be some validity to some of these, none are THE cause. Powerful voices championed some of these, and that led people to chase these things, more often than not, to no avail. Let me say that feeling the way forward takes being totally innovative. Utterly acting in good faith takes honesty and passion. Many who forwarded these causes, believed in them. What makes me angry though is the blindness that so many demonstrate.

The way to make progress is through real science. Dispassionate logic. Gave this thought: AIDS was practically cured in three decades. Autism has been increasing exponentially for decades, and there are no new treatments. It needs to be a priority and it needs to be a priority NOW.

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10/28/2024 1 Comment

The Dance

After my latest post, having thought about it, I am totally too excited for people to understand. For over thirty years I was alone in this body with nothing but my loneliness for company. There are times still where I can’t come to terms with my new reality. The thought that we get to make ourselves known is overwhelming. Add to that, dances and classes and galas and you still don’t fully get the wonderfulness that is M2H.

There is less than one week until the dance. Apparently for much of that time I won’t be sleeping: the butterflies in my stomach are having a field day. Maybe you, who are speaking, cannot understand this level of excitement. But those of you who are nonspeaking mostly will understand. People who love this place get why it’s special. People who come here experience the magic.

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MATTER OVER MIND

Walled-Off No Longer

A New Julian

The Day My Dream Came True

Medicine and Me

We Want a Cure

The Gala

Lab Grown Human Tissue is a Reality

2024 and Me

A Cure for Autism

The Dance

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