My different sensory, social and physical experiences don’t prevent me from empathizing. In fact, I am skilled at building rapport, seeing things from different perspectives, and connecting with people.
An autistic mother’s autism diagnosis empowered her to stop trying to make herself and her children “normal” and to embrace being natural system disruptors.
To understand autistic fears and phobias, non-autistic people need more context. This article can help non-autistic people support autistic children and adults through what may seem to be unreasonable fears.
Food aversion is about more than just being a “picky eater” for many autistic people. The task can be overwhelming for more reasons that taste and texture.
Christine Condo on how the experience of being autistic is like being locked out of a glass room that she can see inside but can never enter.
I am writing this to carve out space for myself in the socially-constructed version of the world. I don’t exist if I’m autistic and all autistic people who act the way I’m acting are masking.
Lauren Melissa had no idea what was happening to her when she would dissolve into rage, confusion, or even blacking out. Once she was finally diagnosed as autistic, she had the self-knowledge to take control.
They mention creating a “coaching process” using artificial intelligence, as if autistic people haven’t been “coached” enough into neurotypicality. Unfortunately, our entire lives are made up of neurotypical “coaching.” We often in fact, receive too much coaching in how to act or generally exist among other people.
Autistic Masking is not a simple social fake. Prolonged masking has serious mental health implications for autistics; level up your knowledge so can learn to embrace your autistic loved one as their authentic self.
Emmanuel Abua discusses the disabling insecurity of the imposter syndrome all autistics feel when forced to mask and the healing power of solidarity of shared experiences among other autistics.
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