9 signs you might have highly internalized autism...

1. You didn't have a speech delay and you met all your early milestones as a child... but were mistreated a lot by classmates, peers, teachers, and other adults in your life for being "different" 2. You did well in school, so your academics were never an issue

3. You remember trying to copy your classmates so you wouldn't stand out

I just realized something kind of huge about my highly internalized autism...

I was trying to think back to big traumatic events that caused me to internalize my autistic traits (to share examples so people can understand internalized autism better)... And though I did think of a small handful of examples, I realized something that I think may be the underpinning of the entire concept for me...

I didn't internalize my autistic traits because of massive traumatic events.

8 signs from your childhood that you might have been undiagnosed autistic...

1. No one seemed to want to be your friend or be associated with you
2. You didn't fit in anywhere 3. Your words were constantly misinterpreted
4. People were always calling you annoying
5. You were constantly blamed for things that weren't your fault or for things you couldn't control

I think it's time we discuss verbal, emotional, and psychological abuse because they're the most insidious and confusing types, and because of that, they are also by far, the most rampant. If you've ever been abused in this way but couldn't articulate why it felt like abuse (and were therefore gaslit into believing it wasn't) this post is for you. ❤️

I'll start with the things that make these forms of abuse so insidious and confusing...

Being autistic is having the weight of the world on your shoulders because you can't NOT see the rampant injustice happening all over the place & your brain being so fully saturated that you don't have room for pleasantries... and the world calling you self-centered and rude. 🥴 (This won't apply to every autistic person, but those who know... will definitely know 😅)

If you're autistic and you have anxiety, but...

- Meds haven't helped at all
- Doctors can't diagnose it or explain it
- Your anxiety is triggered by things tied to your autistic traits

There's a good chance what you're experiencing is distinct anxiety. Distinct anxiety is a type of anxiety that only autistic people experience... and it can't be explained by any other existing anxiety disorder currently outlined in the DSM.

I think I figured out how to sum up the (unsupported) autistic experience into a single pipeline... Constant and unrelenting autistic triggers → constant micro-traumas → masking → internalized autism → distinct anxiety + autistic burnout → harmful coping strategies + physical/mental health issues

I stopped drinking alcohol over a year ago, but I just realized something about my alcohol use that might be the exact thing some of you need to hear...so, here it is.

I genuinely didn't realize I was drinking as a coping mechanism. (1) I thought I was drinking to relax. Not to cope.

That's not what I just realized though (I've known this for a while). This is the thing I just realized... (2)

Saying "self diagnosis isn't valid because everyone is claiming to be autistic after watching a single TikTok video" is as accurate as saying "formal diagnosis isn't valid because all practitioners are telling people they can't be autistic after meeting them for 5 minutes." Yes, both happen. But it doesn't make either of them universally true.

I actually believe there are likely some people out there who watched a tiktok video or two (probably ones misrepresenting autism) and mistakenly came to the conclusion they're autistic. BUT...

7 internal autistic experiences I wish more people understood...

(These are not universal, but extremely common)

1. We rarely meet people with the same interests and struggle to find things to talk about with them 2. We don't know what's considered socially "appropriate" and when we try to act "appropriately" we never quite hit the mark

3. We often end up with our "foot in our mouth" and have no idea how we got there or how to stop it from happening again

I want to thank everyone who engaged on my posts about internalized autism.

There were so many incredibly insightful comments, and it's given me a LOT to think about. (1) I do think it's extremely important that concepts like this evolve within the community and not be exclusively defined by a single person. So I am truly grateful for all the amazing discourse I've seen as I've shared my initial thoughts about it. (2)

My breakdown of the autism Princeton study, part 5

Ok, so now that I've laid out all the details of the actual study, I'm going to get into how it all relates to the late diagnosed, level 1, high masking, lower support needs version of autism (my version of autism)... Aka, the version that often looks like absolutely nothing but is rife with internalized anxiety.

There were two groups from the study that immediately stood out to me when thinking about my version of autism.

My breakdown of the autism Princeton study... part 4

I think I'm finally ready to get into the biological / genetic findings of the study.

But first, for context, so you understand the lens I am looking through and why my content can be trusted... (1) I'm not a scientist or biologist... but I do have a psychology degree, which included training in statistics and research methods.

So though biology is not my area of expertise, I do have formal training in reading and analyzing research. (2)

My breakdown of the autism Princeton study... part 3

Let’s talk about the why behind the gender distribution because a lot of people are understandably frustrated that nearly 80% of the participants were male.

But first, let's talk about where the participants came from. (1) There’s something called the SPARK database. This was part of a U.S. based initiative launched in 2016 to take autism research to another level. Specifically focusing on the potential biological and genetic components of autism. (2)

My breakdown of the autism Princeton study... part 2

In my last post I talked about the research uncovering 4 pattern clusters in the autistic sample group, which people are calling "subtypes," and explained why using the term "subtype" is causing confusion... (1) (If you're interested in my explanation of that, you should go look for part 1. 🙂)

In this post, I'll share what the patterns clusters actually were and how they were grouped in the study.

As I mentioned, there were 4. Two included developmental delays and two didn't... (2)

My breakdown of the autism Princeton study... part 1

Ok, let's decode this thing together. Because it's... a lot.

First thing's first... (1) 1. The study was conducted on a sampling of diagnosed children. Mostly male. 80-ish percent.

2. Racial representation was not explicitly looked at.

This means that the 5k+ people studied are not representative of the autistic population in general.

Next... (2)

A lot of people get parenting autistic children wrong. And I'm going to explain how in the simplest of terms.

They think autistic kids need to learn how to tolerate things they find intolerable, because... "that's life." (1) This could not be more wrong.

What autistic kids need to learn is how to tell the difference between something that can be changed and something that can't. (2)

I really dislike the whole "autism is a superpower" framing because it completely ignores the disabling aspects of it, but also because it feels like when people say that they're humoring us rather than celebrating us. I think most autistic people who have special interests are legitimately impressive in what they know and can do with that knowledge.

There are two areas of emerging research that change EVERYTHING about autism awareness... and I wish more people were talking about them...

1. A study found evidence to suggest that "mild" stress can trigger PTSD like symptoms in autistic brains (There's lots of nuance to the research that you can find in the study, I'll link to it below)

2. Another study found that autistic people experience a type of anxiety that doesn't fit any of the existing anxiety disorders currently included in the DSM (link below as well)

7 signs you might have distinct anxiety... the type of anxiety specific to autism that can’t be explained by any of the existing anxiety disorders currently outlined in the DSM.

1. If you get anxiety when you aren't able to talk about your special interests... For me, this happens anytime I'm bursting to infodump on my husband but also know he'd be completely overwhelmed by it (especially after he's had a mentally draining day).

So I have to make a concerted effort to not infodump on him, but inside I'm EXPLODING with anxiety.

3 reasons autistic people struggle with open-ended questions

Reason #1

About half of autistic people have alexithymia... which is the inability to verbally express emotions or feelings. So, "How was your day" can be a tough question for an autistic person to answer because they might not actually KNOW how they felt about it.