Do you remember those hearing tests in elementary school? A test administrator would plunk bulky headphones over your ears and ask you to raise your hand every time you heard a sound. I always expected to fail those things but never did. Once my mother asked my doctor to do the test. She was certain…
Being a mother is learning about strengths you didn’t know you had…and dealing with fears you didn’t know existed. Linda Wooten It’s no secret that working moms have exceptionally high standards placed on them. Society judges us if we give anything less to our children than a stay-at-home in the 1950s. We must justify our…
Facial expressions are a form of non-verbal communication that accompanies a verbal message and can help convey the intent behind the message and the speaker’s emotional state. In short, it rounds out the complete picture for the receiver. And for neurotypicals, a conflict between a person’s words and facial expressions can lead to misunderstandings. For…
The natural communication style for autistics tends to take a straightforward approach. We know what we want to say, and we say it. But there’s more to communicating than words for non-autistics. Words are just one piece of the puzzle, and the non-verbal communication accompanying a verbal message can significantly influence how others interpret the…
My mom often related my childhood reading habits to devouring food. From my mother’s perspective, I was speeding through books as though my eyes were a machine with a conveyer belt tongue feeding me one after another. Convinced I wasn’t actually reading them, she required me to write book reports to prove I retained the…
Along with my autism diagnosis, I received another diagnosis: depression. I don’t remember when I started my personal battle with depression. It always seemed to be there – like those memory balls on Inside Out tinged with the color of emotion. Most of my memories are tinged with blue. It was a constant companion. Since…
My gynecologist said it first. But she was not the last. Everyone I discuss my diagnosis with has a similar response: “You don’t look autistic.” What do people expect to see when they look at an autistic person? Autism is so integral to who I am that their disbelief is hurtful. I was diagnosed with…
Humans have fluid identities. The names or labels we use influence how we see ourselves and our place in the world. We build our experiences, emotions, and communities around those labels. As new labels are added to our lives, we reevaluate our identities to incorporate our new understanding. This process happens after an autism spectrum…
Many late diagnosed Aspie women have come to believe the negative views of others and internalized it. We’ve grown up plagued by rejection. To help us pick up on the nuances of conversation and relationships, we’ve developed mental scripts: a set of “how to be normal” instructions that we’ve accumulated throughout our lives. This…
Jane texted back and declined my lunch invitation because she would be out of town again. Following other weekend options, she claimed she would be out of town every weekend for the next month. Funny, considering that she was out of town the last three times, I asked her to meet up with me. Once I…