My Autism “Aha” Moment (or why I started this blog)

Originally Published: July 2nd, 2021

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A few weeks ago, I posted to my Instagram that I had been officially diagnosed with Autism. As a woman. At 22 years old. To say it’s been a rollercoaster of emotions is an understatement. When my family and I first began having this conversation I was pretty chill about it. For some reason it wasn’t surprising. That, however, didn’t stop the whirlwind of other anxieties and confusion to rise to the surface.

Me, being me, I started down the rabbit hole of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) research. My first appointment with a psychologist was months away, but I had to at least gain some understanding of what ASD really was. I started looking into how Autism presents in girls and looked back at my own childhood and realized I resonated with most of it, but not all. I learned that there’s not a whole lot of research on women and girls with autism, but boy are there a lot of female voices willing to speak up about their experiences anyway. I jumped into TedTalks, blogs, an ASD website created by autistic psychologists for other adults with autism (resources listed at the end of the post). These were some of the few articles I sent to my family to help them better understand my diagnosis.