I want to start with a number. 75%. That’s the percentage of autistic adults who meet the criteria for at least one mental health condition. Anxiety, depression, PTSD, OCD — the rates in the autistic community are not slightly elevated. They are significantly, substantially, consistently higher than in the generalRead More »Therapy Is Failing Autistic Adults. We Need to Talk About It.
I want to tell you about a specific feeling. Not the Friday-night-with-nowhere-to-be kind of lonely. Not the moved-to-a-new-city-and-don’t-know-anyone kind. Those kinds of loneliness are real and they’re hard, but they at least make sense to other people when you describe them. Someone can look at your situation and understand whyRead More »You Can Be Surrounded By People Who Love You and Still Feel Completely Alone
Someone asked me recently what my favorite movie was. Simple question. The kind people ask at parties, on first dates, in the awkward silences between more important conversations. The kind that has an easy answer if you’re a person who knows yourself. I didn’t have one. And it wasn’t thatRead More »Who Were You Before You Learned to Disappear? Autism, Masking, and the Long Work of Finding Yourself