For those of us who feel everything deeply, this is for you. We are the kind of person who sees what's real, even when others pretend not to. We are the kind of person who keeps showing up, even when it hurts. We are the kind of person who feels the world like poetry and earthquake at once.

🤍 We love hard Autistic love isn’t casual. When we bond, we bond deeply. That makes loss, change, or misunderstanding all the more painful. It’s like we open our whole nervous system to connection — and when that connection frays, we feel it in every cell.

We notice the gaps — and that noticing hurts Being autistic means often seeing what’s missing in a conversation, a relationship, a system. We notice when something feels off. We notice injustice. We notice when a gesture isn’t reciprocal, when a tone carries something sharp underneath...

🌊 Emotions aren’t just feelings — they’re immersive experiences For many of us, emotions aren’t passing weather — they’re storms we walk into. We don’t just feel sad; we are sadness for a time. We don’t just care; we ache for people.

Hyper-empathy, can look like detachment Many autistic individuals are deeply empathetic, but we don’t always express it in ways people expect. Instead of reacting with words or social scripts, we feel it in our body. We absorb others’ distress...

🧠 Different processing doesn’t mean less emotion — it often means more Autistic brains don’t filter out stimuli the way neurotypical brains do. That applies not just to sounds or lights, but also emotions. We might not compartmentalize pain, sadness, or empathy the same way others do...

My personal essay “The Unseen Battle Within” explores love, loss, panic, and masking while undiagnosed. Selected as an Editor’s Choice in Litro USA. For those late-diagnosed autistic or AuDHD, you may recognize pieces of yourself here. www.litromagazine.com/usa/2025/09/...

Many late-diagnosed autistic individuals carry a quiet insecurity shaped by what might have been if they had known earlier: better support, different choices, less self-doubt. That insecurity runs deep, and it comes from more than just low self-esteem. Here are some of the ways it takes root…

Autistic individuals often worry about “talking too much.” But for many of us, conversation is more than small talk — it’s the sharing of stories, details, and the things that matter most. It’s our way of reaching out.

Circadian rhythm = your body’s internal clock for sleep and energy. Autistic individuals often have differences in this clock — like producing melatonin at unusual times, feeling more awake late at night, or struggling with seasonal light changes. That’s one reason SAD can feel more intense.

Many autistic individuals feel seasonal changes more strongly. There’s no official scientific link, but traits like sensory sensitivity, circadian rhythm differences, and vulnerability to depression/anxiety can make SAD hit harder.

Autism is usually discussed in childhood terms, but autistic individuals grow up — and as adults, many of us are aging into midlife and beyond. So what do we know about autism and aging? 1/8

Surviving an Unpredictable System Sometimes it just hits— You're sitting at your desk, everything quiet… and a wave of anxiety rises out of nowhere. No trigger. No warning. Just your body reacting like it’s under threat. And suddenly, everything feels uncertain again. 1/5

Frontiers in Neuroscience (2025) 🔗 www.frontiersin.org/journals/neu... This review describes how gut dysbiosis (microbiota imbalance), altered gut permeability, and immune changes in autistic individuals influence neurodevelopment and behavior via the gut‑brain axis.

🌐 These 3 resources explore the gut-brain connection in autism — drawn from NCBI, PMC, and Wikipedia (which cites medical sources). Each offers insights into how digestive and neurological patterns differ in autistic individuals.

📘 Scientific American: Think Twice — How the Gut’s ‘Second Brain’ Influences Mood and Well-Being 🔗 www.scientificamerican.com/article/gut-... This article doesn’t mention autism directly — it explains how the gut has its own nervous system (the ENS), which operates semi-independently from the brain

📘 Harvard Health: The Gut-Brain Connection 🔗 www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and... This article isn’t about autism — but it explains how the gut and brain constantly communicate through nerves, hormones, and immune signals.

🌿 Kind reminder: What I share is based on a mix of lived experience and ongoing research — offering insight into how autism can uniquely affect the gut, brain, and nervous system.

Autistic individuals are often given strategies designed for neurotypicals. But without recognizing how our systems process input, these tools don’t stick. Support has to match nervous system function, not just behavior.

Autistic shutdown is not calm. It’s a neurological state where the system goes into protective collapse — reduced speech, movement, and expression. It’s the body saying, “I can’t process anything more.” It’s a circuit breaker, not a choice.

Panic in autism is often a neurobiological response to overload, not fear. It can be triggered by: – sensory flooding – cognitive strain – interoceptive confusion – emotional input the system can’t regulate It’s a full-body shutdown, not a mental overreaction.

Autistic panic isn't "overthinking." It's a feedback loop between body and brain: – nervous system goes into threat mode – thoughts try to solve the feeling – the effort to escape intensifies the spiral This is a systems-level response, not a behavior.

Many autistic adults are diagnosed with generalized anxiety or panic disorder — but the root cause is often nervous system dysregulation, not fear-based thinking. This leads to treatments that manage symptoms, but miss the system.

Most people think serotonin comes from the brain. But 90–95% of it is made in the gut. For autistic individuals, this changes everything. Let’s talk about the gut-brain axis and what it means for emotional regulation, overwhelm, and daily life. (1/10)

For autistic individuals, interoception can be either: Hyper-aware (feeling everything too intensely — e.g., stomach cramps, nausea, racing heart) Under-aware (barely noticing internal cues until they’re extreme — like not realizing you’re hungry until you crash)

The Autistic Body is Not Just a Neurotype — It’s a System Autism isn’t just about the brain. It’s also about the nervous system, digestive system, and how all of it feels — how it informs your sense of self, your access to energy, your overwhelm, your shutdown.

Been thinking a lot about how gut tension, internal rhythms, and emotional overwhelm are linked — especially in autistic bodies. Science is starting to catch up to what many of us have felt all along. (1/5)

💡 What does “systems-level neurobiological difference” mean in autism?

🌿 So what is autism really? It's a neurobiological difference in how the nervous system perceives, processes, and regulates the world — both outside and inside. It’s not something to fix. It’s something to understand, support, and work with.

Autism affects the nervous system, not just social behavior. Many autistic individuals live with chronic sensory overload, emotional dysregulation, and interoceptive differences that are often misunderstood or dismissed.

Autistic individuals process sensory input more intensely. Their nervous systems are often in a persistent state of hyperarousal or shutdown, especially in inaccessible or high-stress environments.

Disrupted interoception also affects emotional awareness. Autistic individuals may not recognize anxiety until it manifests physically (e.g. nausea, tension, shutdown). This delay complicates self-regulation and contributes to late-stage overwhelm.

We need to reframe how we understand autism. It's not a behavioral issue — it's a systems-level neurobiological difference. Supporting autistic individuals means supporting the entire nervous system.

Recovery from autistic burnout is not about mindset. It requires nervous system regulation, sensory safety, and addressing brain–body imbalances. The gut–brain axis, inflammation, and overstimulation all play a role.

Autistic burnout is a whole-body state of collapse. It impairs executive function, motivation, memory, sensory tolerance, and communication. It is not “just exhaustion.” It is neurological depletion.

Why Regulating My Nervous System Changed Everything A moment I didn’t expect, and what it taught me about energy, burnout, and the limits of psychiatric framing. sites.google.com/view/patrici... ⬇️ Some thoughts…

I didn’t know I was masking. I didn’t even know masking was a thing. But now that I know I’m autistic… I can’t unknow it. It’s like the lights came on. And suddenly, everything I thought was “just me” has a name. I’m still me. Just more visible — to myself.

For many autistic adults, especially those diagnosed later in life, imposter syndrome isn’t just about work or success — it’s about identity.

The core autistic truth that most people miss entirely is: it’s not about holding a grudge — it’s about never being able to un-feel something that hurt.

For so many of us, especially those diagnosed late... We didn’t look like we were suffering. So no one knew. Not even us. We were drowning, and still pretending to swim.

For many late-diagnosed autistic individuals, it wasn’t about falling apart. Our threshold shifted. The weight we’d been carrying finally became too much to carry.

For late-diagnosed autistic individuals, it’s often about the slow erosion of connection. The quiet, painful realization that life — instead of expanding into support, family, belonging — narrowed into distance, silence, disconnection.

We’re not avoiding reality. We’re protecting ourselves from being undone by it.

Panic was never “just” anxiety. Pills were never “just” medicine. Safety was never “just” about our environment — it was about what was happening inside our body, and how little anyone understood that.

Masking isn’t always conscious. It’s not a decision like, "I’m going to pretend now." It’s often: — This is what gets me accepted. — This keeps things smooth. And for a long time, it works. People respond well to the version of us that looks fine. So we keep smiling, keep showing up, keep adapting.

Post-burnout autism feels like: — 3 days of focus — followed by 2 days of fog — followed by spiraling self-doubt about why you can’t “stay consistent” It’s not inconsistency. It’s your nervous system hitting its limit.

Autistic burnout is what happens when your nervous system gets pushed past its recovery point too many times. We’re running a high-input system in a world designed for low-demand settings.

The nervous system has its own kind of logic, it doesn’t operate like your thinking mind. It’s not processing information with language or reason. It’s scanning for patterns, threat cues, & sensory input — and when it’s been conditioned by years of overwhelm, trauma, or masking, it often overreacts.

Why does your nervous system override rational thought? Because your nervous system isn’t thinking. It’s protecting. Reacting. Preempting threat.