Ashleigh's Blog

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...

My second week in Madrid has just come to an end and it feels like it's been non-stop busy. This week kicked off with a few mental breakdowns - a cheerful start. I was really stressed about organising my classes and my timetable, because it isn't at all what I expected and trying to maintain the balance between having free time, doing things I enjoy and avoiding clashes was really challenging. I also noticed that things which would not normally bother me were really making me a bit nutty. I got all the way to campus one afternoon only to find out that my French class wasn't on and usually, being the lazy sloth that I am, I would've happily skipped back to an afternoon of napping. But instead I found myself ranting and raving on the phone to my mum on campus with several confused Spaniards watching me. By about Wednesday, although my classes had actually been really enjoyable, I felt run down, demotivated and I was longing for a bit of my own culture back. Final...

I just woke up from a typical Spanish siesta, and as I'm sat on my bed watching the golden colour of the setting sunshine transform the colours of the buildings, I couldn't be more in love with this city. What a week it has been. I arrived in the city last Friday with my parents and I was immediately greeted by the heat. It got worse, as we soon discovered that we got catfished by the website which boasted a "loft apartment" but ended up being more like a cupboard without any aircon or windows. Having not yet found a place for me to actually live, it's safe to say I was immediately concerned that I'd be spending 4 months in a similar stuffy shoebox! For this reason, day 2 was probably the first time I experienced a feeling of panic. We travelled up to my university campus, which is very much in the middle of nowhere, and then walked for hours around different parts of the city (unsuccessfully) trying to find somewhere for me to live.  Eventually...

I'm back and I've been saving all my writing genius for the next insane few months of my life because I am MOVING TO SPAIN IN 12 DAYS.  I currently still have nowhere to live, I've never been to Madrid and after a summer with zero Spanish speaking practice (apart from a lovely chat with an Uber driver in Miami) I'm beginning to panic that I won't even remember how to speak Spanish. But with all that aside, I wanted to talk about how I'm feeling, what I'm expecting so far and what I hope I'll learn from the experience - kind of like a time capsule to look back on.  Firstly, it makes sense to tell you where I'm going and what I'm doing. I'll be studying at la Universidad Pontificia de Comillas which is a very prestigious university in Spain, and I'll be based in the Cantoblanco campus for Las Ciencias Humanas y Sociales (Human and Social Sciences) (see some lovely google images below). In terms of what I'm studying, it wor...