Autism

Most descriptions of autism are written from the outside, lists of behaviours as they appear to an observer, and usually an observer watching a child. That turns out to be of very limited use to an adult sitting at home … Read more

The diagnostic picture of autism was built, almost entirely, from studying boys. That single fact explains a great deal about why so many women reach adulthood, frequently middle age, and sometimes later still, before anyone raises the possibility at all. Read more

Many people reach adulthood without a formal autism diagnosis — not because autism was absent, but because it was not identified, or because their particular presentation did not trigger assessment at the time. For autistic adults who received a late … Read more

There is a particular kind of exhaustion that autistic adults describe, not tiredness in the ordinary sense, but a collapse of the systems that have kept them functioning. Read more

For many autistic people — particularly those with a PDA profile — the ordinary demands of daily life can generate a level of anxiety that neurotypical frameworks simply do not account for. Getting dressed, choosing what to eat, being asked … Read more

You have spent your whole life feeling slightly out of step. You can hold a conversation, do your job, keep things running, but it costs you far more than it seems to cost everyone else, and by the end of … Read more

There was a time when you managed. You held down the job, answered the messages, kept the plans, and looked, from the outside, as though everything was fine. Then, slowly or all at once, it stopped working. Getting dressed feels … Read more