bookshoplaura

  I am not really qualified to write a handbook on the weird girl to autistic woman pipeline but I can speak on my own experience in the hope that it helps someone else navigate the road to discovering their true self. a lot of people struggling with self disclosing that they are autistic but I seem to have the opposite problem. I have worked through much of my autism journey by sharing my thoughts on it with others, regardless of whether they actually asked me to. If I have info dumped autism on you against your will then I would like to formally apologise. I have often found when speaking to people about my own lived experiences I will meet others who resonate with what I am saying, sometimes because they too have questioned their own identity and felt out of place in the neuro-typical world. I will usually have an idea that I have spotted another neurodivergent in the wild especially if we are vibing a little too well together. If you feel we are on the same wave length then oh ...

  Today my psychologist officially confirmed my autism diagnosis, documentation to follow. I know this should not feel like a momentous occasion given she had verbally told me last week but it was. I was pretty certain that's what I had been told last week but there was a really small part of my brain that thought maybe I had misunderstood. Perhaps she had in fact said that she would be confirming 'if' I was autistic and I heard what I wanted to hear. a lifetime of misunderstandings in communication will leave a girl doubting herself. I will be getting a letter confirming my diagnosis plus another that goes into more details plus something for my doctor, my dentist and my full report. We discussed work place accommodations but I left off that letter for now. It felt a lot of it didn't really fit for my place of work. In many ways my work place accommodates me in ways other places don't; I can bring in stim toys or chewellry and not really have to explain much, we do...

  a little over 18 months ago I went on a journey to discover if I was autistic. I did a lot of self exploration, read several books on the topic, watched a lot of content to see if I did indeed relate and even went to talk to a neuro affirming therapist to explore the possibility out loud. The therapist was not able to diagnose me in any officially capacity but she did help me to self diagnose.  In truth I have been comfortable here, I felt I had done adequate research to be certain my own experiences align with the autism criteria and have comfortably been talking to anyone who will listen about my experiences of being autistic. I feel like there is so much to unpack and to discover about myself and the more I have learned the better I have been able to articulate my own lived experiences and to accommodate myself. I have always had a deep interest in psychology and exploring autism has felt like that on a deeper level. To me it is inherently fascinating but I do need to wor...