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. 👀

…is what I said.

17th November 2023: This is an updated post because, well…I changed it again. I went from autisticjane.com to freyaj.com, and now to lemonandlively.com.

I’m mostly going to focus on the change from Autistic Jane to Lemon & Lively.

Autistic Jane: Before & during

Before Autistic Jane, I had a super short, mostly generic blog name that ran into some issues:

• 80% of my blog traffic comes from search engines
• Short, vague domains aren’t always searchable or memorable
• Emails @ short domains are often invalidated as a spam precaution
• I needed a more trustworthy domain
• I wanted people to associate my autism with me

2022 was a tornado, however. I learned I’m the scapegoat in my narcissistic family, who weaponized everything I shared about my autism to prove to other people that I was mentally unwell.

That kind of pain cuts deep, and I began noticing microaggressions directed towards me as the result of putting “autistic” in my domain name. Being autistic shouldn’t affect my ability to land freelance clients, but the number of people who think autistic adults look and behave per the stereotypes is astonishing.

I’ve been fetishized, stereotyped, discriminated and invalidated because I didn’t measure up to what autism looks like to them.

The worst part was when people would reply to my social media comments to say ish like, “Found the [r-word],” and other cruel things (like how I burden my family and don’t deserve to exist). I couldn’t take it from both relatives and strangers.

Why I switched again

Becauseeee ambiguity is an autistic trait.

1. I have DID.

My blog + main online channels become their own place. Despite me not wanting them to become like an identity themselves…they do. From a legal standpoint, I think my brain naturally compartmentalizing like this is good…even if it’s frustrating.

I think using my system’s names complicates our ability to carry on with the blog, because of switching, dormancies, etc. We put the decision to change the blog name to a system vote — as you can see, the vote was in favor.

2. I want my blog to be viewed as separate from me.

My blog is mine, and so is my body’s — but they’re not just mine.

I need people to see my blog as an accessory to me, not directly me. It’s still me + mine — my channels, etc. I need this boundary for myself and to use in my interpersonal relationships.

When people quote/cite me (it happens!), I want them to include a blog name in addition to my name — not just my name. I know it’s complicated. I don’t have the ability to articulate this part at the moment. Maybe in the future.

3. Too many identity crises

See #1. No, seriously. My alternate identities switch throughout the day. Some stay for longer at a time. Others might go dormant due to stress, trauma or because they’re not needed at the moment. DID is complicated like that.

Anyway, all that switching means I’m constantly questioning who TF I am at any given moment. (Not always, just frequently.) I’m not always only one alter; sometimes I’m two or three, and so on.

Having my blog named after me feels like I’m trying to live a stranger’s life sometimes. It just fuels the identity crises and the depersonalization that comes with having dissociative identity disorder.

We need to be able to use the name we associate with most in the moment, which can’t happen as easily using a domain/blog name with our name in it.

Finding a new blog name

My new blog name needed to meet the following requirements:

• easy to spell & remember
• googlable
• social media handles available, with minor adjustments
• had “Lively” in the name
• Represented me, collectively speaking
• I loved it

A few brainstormed blog names:

• Frankly Freya
• Girl Meets [State I move to]
• Girl Meets Gloss
• Girl Meets Glow
• Living Like Lively
• Fem & Freya
• FemFreya
• Lemon & Lively

Of those, I only liked Girl Meets [State] and Lemon & Lively.

The latter is most like Cupcakes & Cashmere and Young & Hungry, a blog name and TV show name I really liked.

Lemon & Lively has my chosen last name.

It doesn’t matter if people forget the “and”, because I also registered lemonlively.com. (True me fashion.)

I love the name itself for the alliteration. The “lemon” part can go sweet and sour. Collectively, the name feels like sunshine.

Life gives us lemons…you don’t have to make lemonade. It’s okay to feel your feelings, want more for yourself, etc. Sometimes, relationships turn sour.

Toxic positivity not necessary.

Lemon & Lively moving forward

This is the part where you expect me to be pretentious, only to find I’ve already done many of the “forward” things:

• I deleted 500 old posts my system kept so we wouldn’t forget, regardless of consciousness
• I’m redesigning my blog and might be designing my own blog going forward

I don’t know if there will be any stark differences between my blogging now and before. Little by little, I’m learning how to love myself — more than I love anyone else — and how to be okay with that.

Unmasking my autism is a long journey to unveiling who I am, so I’m choosing to not define what that looks like before I even know. 💖