First-Person Essays
Essays written from autistic perspectives. Not about autistic people. By them. On masking, burnout, late diagnosis, sensory experience, community, and identity.
What Masking Actually Feels Like From the Inside
It is not performance. It is survival. And it costs more than most people realize.
I Was Diagnosed Autistic at 35. Here Is What Nobody Told Me.
The diagnosis answered decades of questions. What came next was harder than I expected.
Why Stimming Is Not a Problem — And Why We Need to Stop Treating It Like One
My stims regulate my nervous system. They are not a behavior to be fixed. They are part of how I function.
The Double Empathy Problem, From the Inside
Non-autistic people have always struggled to understand me too. We just never talked about it that way.
Autistic Burnout Is Not Laziness. I Need You to Understand That.
It took me losing the ability to read, cook, and speak in sentences to understand what burnout actually was.
What It Actually Takes to Survive a Neurotypical Workplace
The open office. The unwritten rules. The performance reviews about 'culture fit.' A firsthand account.
Finding Your People After an Autism Diagnosis
I had never belonged anywhere. Then I found autistic community, and I understood for the first time what belonging felt like.
On the Other Side of Sensory Sensitivity: The Things That Are Beautiful
Everyone knows about sensory pain. Fewer people talk about sensory joy — and it is real.
The Gifts of Monotropism: What Deep Focus Actually Gives You
My brain does not spread attention widely. It goes deep. That is not only a challenge — it is also a capability.