Autistic women and autistic men don’t express autism the same way.

As a woman I had to navigate this mainly alone because most of the research is made about males.

Also.

I was born before “ #AutismAwarenessMonth“ and “ #autismdanceday” and such ridiculous things emerged so my childhood was confusion and frustration at relating socially, especially with other kids, a pleasant but sometimes too-persistent isolation, and a rich inner world

that I was unable to express verbally to anyone.

When you comment or DM me that you want me to prove my autism, expect me to ignore you.

I owe you nothing, least of all proof of my personal story. This is not said to be rude. It is a fact. Truthfully, you are being rude asking me to prove my story.

I’m not a journalist or a TED speaker on a platform making professional suggestions about #autism. I am just a woman.

I use autism hash tags in jest, because while autism explains much of my behavior I don’t see it as a disability. Rather, I have extra powers.

Because autism wasn’t a thing when I was growing up. I don’t think it had even been discovered yet.

I knew I was different and so did other kids. I noticed that the other kids who were visibly weird got made fun of. So I made myself invisible.

I learned to relate to other kids by observing their body language and facial expressions when they interacted with each other, and taught myself how to mimic them.

My attention span has exhausted this topic now in this thread and I will go happily obsess about something else.

It’s interesting what a few DMs make me think about late in the evening