Hi! Welcome to The Autistic Notebook. Here you’ll find personal essays that branch into wider questions about autism, and why it is so confusing — and fascinating.
I’m a philosopher by training, which has shaped how I think. I had to leave academia for health reasons, and then returned to drawing and creative writing, things I’ve loved ever since I was a young undiagnosed autistic girl. I was happy to find that this broadened my horizons, and it’s become central to how I make sense of the world.
It was only a few years ago that I started wondering whether I might be autistic, and I was officially diagnosed at the age of 43. It came with a mixed bag of emotions, but the major one was relief. Finally I could understand the story of my life so much better. It was like I’d been walking around with a huge question mark that was finally answered.
But that wasn’t the end of the road. Since then I have been trying to understand what exactly autism is. And it wasn’t just a vague wondering, I really dived headfirst into it. As you’ll probably be able to tell from this website, autism is my special interest.
I listened to autistic women talk about their lives on podcasts. I read memoirs and novels written by autistic people. I watched TV series with autistic makers and protagonists. I read diagnostic guides and theory about autism, as well as research papers. This creates an interconnected web in my mind through which I hope to bring autism more and more into focus. And I’m never satisfied. There’s so much more I have to learn to be able to start understanding this properly.
On this website I share publicly what I do in my head privately anyway: trying to make sense of all I’ve learned. I hope this will be helpful to other people out there. Recognition of how autism shows up in women is still so recent, and public awareness lags far behind. Part of why I write is to help bring more clarity and nuance to how autistic lives are seen.
A disclaimer: of course, I am not just autistic. I have a whole range of characteristics and experiences that shape who I am. No other autistic person is exactly like me, and some are vastly different from me. My writing starts from my own experience, so this is my autistic notebook. But I hope that other autistic people will recognize themselves in at least some of what I say and show here.
I don’t have the answers. I have questions. And I want to show my thinking process as I work through those questions. Content on the internet is “supposed” to be short and snappy, but that’s not how I think and write. I always want to dig deeper. If this is you too, I hope you’ll feel like you’ve come to the right place.
I won’t be able to update this site very regularly. I have a young daughter (who is also autistic) to care for, together with my partner. I also have chronic health problems. I need to work on this website at the pace that works for me. If you subscribe to my newsletter, I’ll let you know when I post something new.
Letting others have a peek inside my notebook is also a kind of unmasking for me, and I know many autistic readers will recognise what that means.
If you feel seen by something I wrote or drew, or if my writings have have sparked some thoughts in you, I’d love to hear from you 🙂
If you’d like to know more of my story, have a listen to my interview on the SquarePeg podcast! [link follows soon]