Hello!
Sorry, I didn't write here for a long time. There were a series of upheavals in my personal life and the words dried up. The words are back now.
Now I've been diagnosed as autistic, it's led me to start wondering: who else ? How many other women are out there, just feeling a bit out of place but not knowing why? I've spoken to and read of countless women and girls who weren't diagnosed til their thirties, their forties - even their FIFTIES! It seems so unfair that you could go your entire life, through relationships, higher education, even starting a family, always feeling like you don't quite belong.
As is evident, though, more men and boys are diagnosed than women. This is largely due to gendered socialisation. Women who are autistic are often conditioned to behave in a way that is seen as more agreeable and compliant - as all women are - and this means that their issues with sensory overload, or listening comprehension, etc. may go unnoticed simply because of their coping mechanisms.
I honestly cannot relate to half those checklists you see online when you google "Oh my god, Google, do you think I have Asperger's syndrome? How did no one consider that?" or whatever you type into that search bar. I highly suspect a lot of women don't either.
That is not to say that NO autistic women fit the current criteria, because of course they do, and you're perfectly fine if you do. Not to mention that this list isn't exhaustive at all, partly because I have a bad memory and partly because autistic people are all very different from one another. Shine on my beautiful autistic diamonds!
For ease of reading - I have italicised sentences / longer paragraphs where I give anecdotal examples from my own life. These may resonate with you, they may not.
- Do you often feel low-level irritated or
uncomfortable throughout the day? (at work, college, wherever) You might know
what the source of the discomfort is (for instance, I absolutely hate the
feeling of having my feet constricted, so wearing socks and shoes stresses me
out) , you might not. It may take you a while to realise the source of the
stressor until you make a change that significantly reduces your stress levels.
- Do other people cast you as grumpy, or rude,
when you don’t think you are either of those things particularly?
- Do you copy other women a lot because you don’t
know how to act? When I say other women, I refer both to women you see in the
media and women you know as peers. When I was younger I was always craning my
neck around to see how other people were behaving / talking/ moving at discos
and parties, now as an adult I tend to find myself somewhat imitating various
screen sirens when I don’t exactly know how to deal with a situation.
- Do you have Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)? Does
it seem to come on randomly ? IBS is really common when you’re autistic,
probably because you’re so sensitive to absolutely everything. My body’s
reaction to most stress is nausea. Not slept? Nausea. Watched a really
stressfully horrible film? Nausea. Had a bumpy bus ride that took ages? Nausea.
You get the idea.
- Do you feel like, when you speak to other
people, they often hear the words you say as something completely different? Do
their reactions stress you out? Do people often get annoyed or angry with you
and you can’t quite work out why? Does it lead you to feel like you’re a mean
person, even when you haven’t really done anything that bad upon reflection.
- Whether or not you make eye contact, do you find
it unpleasant or distracting? Again, autistic women are pretty good at
pretending stuff that bothers them doesn’t bother them, so this refers to you
even if you are ABLE to make eye contact but you just hate it. I don't make eye contact with any of my friends when I talk to them, but for the sake of social ease I deploy a number of tricks in the work environment to make it look like I'm looking at people. I find eye contact very distracting.
- Do you find it hard to gauge the intensity of
someone’s emotions? For instance, when someone is a little irked or annoyed, do
you tend to assume they’re very angry, and react accordingly?
- Did you get bullied a lot, but you didn’t quite
know why? Do you get bullied as an adult ? I have spent long periods of time being bullied by other girls in social groups, in a way that was done carefully so that I would look like the bad person for reacting. Other people tended to stay quiet about the bullying.
- Do you find learning trivia about something
(such as a sport, a film, a band, etc.) as much fun as the thing itself? Or
more fun?
- When you really like something, do you find it
quite intense? Does it seem like other people are as enthusiastic as you about
their hobbies? Do you want to talk and think about that hobby all the time? I
say “hobby” but I could mean a band, a sport, a fashion label, an academic
discipline, a place …
- When you talk to someone in your natural style
about something you’re super-interested in (see above), do you feel like you
can tell when the other person is genuinely interested, or frustrated, but you
feel unable to stop yourself either way because you feel so intensely about it?
- Does interacting with your friends, no matter
how fun it seems, become quite tiring? Do you need to relax for a while after
you’ve gone for a casual hang-out? For me, even going to see a friend at their house for the evening or going to the pub means I need to lie down for a while after to recuperate.
- Do you feel like, even though you’re smart and able to understand concepts, it takes a while to process what someone’s said to you in person? Is writing easier*?
(*note: obviously this doesn't apply to everyone, and being autistic doesn't make written communication suddenly easier. You may also be dyslexic which can affect your writing comprehension, or you simply may struggle due to motor / processing problems. Myself and many other autistic people find communicating via text easier than verbally, but that doesn't always mean it's stress-free).
- Do you fidget a lot? I clap a lot! I clap when I'm amused, I clap when I'm stressed, I slap my legs, I move my feet constantly, I pull faces.
- Do you find you cook the same meals for yourself
all the time, because it limits how stressful the act of cooking is?
- Do you get very overwhelmed by other people’s
feelings? Do you often withdraw from people because their feelings are too
painful?
- Do you find that people are disingenuous? Do
they talk patronisingly to you? Did it take you a while to realise that people’s
intentions can be bad? For me personally, I feel like I have strong gut instincts about people, it's just that I don't always know what to do with them. Not to mention other people often can't pick up on the same signals as I can. I know when I'm being made fun of, I just don't necessarily have the social gravitas or the tools to do much about it.
- Do you find lying difficult? I find telling lies
difficult because I can feel the infinite possibilities of what I could say,
and then I can’t just choose one option.
- Did you ever feel like maybe you were an alien,
or a character in a book, because you felt so different to everyone else?
- Do you feel like animals are easier to get along
with than people?
- What about your friendship groups? Do you have
fewer friends? Do you tend to have one or two “safe” friends who you prefer to
do things with ? Do you find it a bit stressful to navigate socially when there’s
a large group of friends?
- When you go out clubbing, do you often drink too
much alcohol and feel sick / embarrassed about what you may have said or done? Autistic women often want to go out, either
for their own enjoyment or due to social pressure, but find it stressful. They
may combat this with either alcohol or recreational drugs. I notice a pattern whereby, any time I go out in the evening with a group of people I'm not familiar with, I end up getting extremely drunk extremely quickly to try and cope, and then I throw up at some point. However, when I go out with my girlfriend or a close friend, I feel less of a need to do so.
- If you’re of graduate age: After university, did
you find that things suddenly became extremely hard , where they hadn’t before?
Did you feel a bit like someone threw you in the deep end of a swimming pool
and you just had to sink or swim?
- What about your clothes? Do you find makeup on
your face stressful, whether or not you choose to / enjoy wearing it? Do you
find yourself changing your dress sense to be more comfortable? Do you style your hair to be more low- or
high- maintenance? For millions of reasons, autistic women often are able to
mask their sensory discomfort, exacerbated by things like scents and makeup and
uncomfortable clothing – myself included – but when you think about it, do you
suspect you find it more uncomfortable than most people do?
- Were you a happy young child? Did you start to
only become anxious and sad when you had to enter into the real world? Do you
find that once you’re alone doing your own thing, it’s good, but other people’s
micro-reactions to you make you feel depressed or anxious?
- Have you had a lot of mental health issues, or
dealings with mental health services? I say this for two reasons: firstly, autistic people tend to have been through
a lot of trauma at the hands of their friends or family, or even just the
stress of not feeling supported or understood in a world catered to
non-autistic people; this is enough to affect your mental health. Secondly, a
lot of autistic traits – like apparent mood swings, meltdowns, obsessive
behaviour - can get misinterpreted as
purely a mental health issue, rather than as signs someone’s autistic. It is
suspected this happens more to women than men. Case in point, I spent years
being bounced around different mental health workers , being assessed for
depression and anxiety and mood disorders , and trialling a wide range of
medications, until I received a formal autism diagnosis.
Thank you for reading this, I hope it helps some of you.
A
