Ashleigh's Blog

This week's topic is something which is a bit controversial in the autistic community, given that not all autistic people agree on the subject. For this reason, I'd like to emphasise that this post is just my view on the situation and what I believe to be the most compassionate way of handling it.  When I was diagnosed, the psychiatrist that I saw used the term 'Asperger's syndrome' which is supposed to refer to someone who is on the autism spectrum, but considered to be 'high-functioning'. However, shortly after receiving my diagnosis I realised that a lot of autistic people don't like to use the term 'Asperger's' or high-functioning/low-functioning labels and this confused me, until I researched the origin.  Asperger's syndrome is named after Hans Asperger (see photo) who was an Austrian doctor during the Second World War and he was one of the first people to investigate autism and what it means. However, Hans Asperger worked closely wi

TW: self-harm, suicide, eating disorders This week I was listening to a podcast [1] about the link between autism, self-harm and something called 'alexithymia' which is common in autistic people and is basically the inability to identify or express your emotions [2]. In this podcast, Dr. Rachel Moseley reads out some statistics which were seriously concerning:  "Autistic people without intellectual disability are on average dying 16 years earlier than non-autistic people... One of the most common causes of death is suicide." "There's some suggestion that autistic people are 9 times more likely to die of suicide." "66% of autistic adults report suicide ideation and up to 35% report attempt. These numbers are really frightening but also unsurprising to me, given that I myself have struggled a lot with mental health issues, self-harm and suicidal thoughts and the majority of late-diagnosed autistic adults, and in particular women, that I have seen spea

I'm back again and given my absence, I knew exactly what I needed to talk about. Autistic burnout. It's a bit different to the ordinary kind of burnout and it's also often mistaken for depression, but whilst it may appear similar, it's not quite either of these things.  Burnout for neurotypical people is typically more work-related. They've worked themselves too hard and they're at a point of exhaustion. Autistic people reach burnout after they've been exposed to a lot of sensory or emotional input, too much masking or perhaps after meltdowns (which I'll explain in another post).  Our battery is completely empty and during this time we may struggle with executive function (doing basic tasks such as eating, showering etc.) and communication, as some autistic people will totally lose their ability to communicate, or in my case I feel like my brain is clouded by a thick fog that I'm having to search through in order to get my thoughts out and even if I

For today's post, I wanted to share a bit more of a personal perspective and talk about the ways in which autism presents itself for me. Obviously, autism is a spectrum and this means that it is very different for each individual, as is the case with everything in life. For example, I will not be the same as your 5 year-old nephew who has autism because I am a 22 year-old woman, so we will obviously be different in more ways than one. It seems obvious to explain but particularly autistic women and girls are often compared to how autism presents in men or boys and this is why they can fly under the radar for so long and miss out on the support that a diagnosis could bring.  This is certainly true in my case, as I've only just received my diagnosis but I still had many autistic traits throughout my childhood that weren't recognised as such and it meant that I, like many other late-diagnosed autistic women, had a pretty rough time at some points. It also meant that masking was

Firstly, I just want to say a huge thank you to everyone who read my last post and thank you for all the lovely messages you sent. I was genuinely so nervous to post it but I was immediately comforted by the support that everyone gave me.  People I haven't even really talked to were messaging me and lots of people encouraged me to write more, so here I am. It brings me a lot of comfort to write about these topics because it's helping me to understand myself better after my diagnosis and also the thought that I may be helping other autistics, diagnosed or undiagnosed or giving neurotypicals a better understanding is so encouraging.  I'm especially grateful to the neurotypicals who read my last post and may be reading this one because it means so much that even by reading this blog, you're taking the time to try and understand us better and my hope is that this will lead to more acceptance from everyone. Thank you.  Today I'm starting with the topic of masking because

I'm unbelievably nervous to make this post but I have a lot to talk about and instead of explaining to each individual person in my life, I'd rather just be lazy about it and explain it all in one go.  Just over a week ago, I was assessed and diagnosed with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder). Although this has come as a surprise to some of the people close to me and will undoubtedly be a surprise to many more people, this wasn't particularly shocking information for me. To give you a bit of background, I was a fairly happy child until I reached about the age of 6. I think from what I remember and what I've been told, I was always a bit odd but no one really noticed or cared for those first few years because it's easy to just assume that's how little kids act.  At the age of 6, we moved from London to Surrey and this meant a new school for me. As soon as I got there I think my differences were quickly noticed. The whole 5 years that I was at that school I was bullied