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Becoming an Autistic Mother: Navigating Pregnancy, Parenthood, and Support
Becoming a parent is an experience that reshapes people’s lives. For autistic mothers, it can bring joy but also create a unique set of challenges. Understanding of autistic women's experiences is increasing, but autistic women remain under-diagnosed and under-researched. Parenting information...
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From Dissertation to Destination: Navigating the Post-PhD Transition to Employment
Have you had a dream where you wake up and realize you’ve overslept and are missing your exam? Where you scramble to leave home, sprint to school, and futilely run down an empty corridor to an exam that’s done? That’s how I feel right now, but I’m not dreaming and, though the situation...
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The Trauma of Relocation: Understanding the Autistic Experience
My military family moved house seven to eight times by the time I turned 8, and 11 times before I was 18. I didn’t yet have a diagnosis of Autism or ADHD, but I was diagnosed with Dyslexia and related learning disabilities at age 7 and had started special education. Then we moved. I don’t...
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We Can Get Through This – How Autistic Individuals Can Cope with Massive Burnout
It is not surprising that burnout is one of the toughest things that autistics face in their lives. Granted, each autistic suffers from burnout differently, but it is a difficult situation nonetheless. Burnout can affect the ability to cope with sensory sensitivities, manage executive...
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The Day I Learned That Stepping Away Isn’t Giving Up – It’s How Autistic Brains Navigate Change
Whenever I have had a big change coming, I tell myself "I can handle this." I have always been good at problem-solving, at figuring things out methodically. Moving away from home for the first time to live at a program for young adults with autism? No problem – I was prepared to learn everything...
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Stories of Autism in the Indian American Community: Rebuilding Life After Grief
Being an immigrant in the United States is a unique experience of navigating two worlds/cultures. I personally take great pride in being a second-generation Indian American. I’ve always loved the food, media, warmth, and hospitality. However, it hasn’t always been easy. My experience of being...
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Autistic Lived Experience: My Government Is Waging War on Me and on My Community
Not that there has ever been a good time to be autistic, considering how society has pathologized us for decades now because of our differences, though to be autistic and living today in the USA has been particularly punishing in light of the current administration's toxic rhetoric about us and...
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Challenge of Being an Autistic Higher Education Teacher in Brazil
This article discusses the challenge of including autistic teachers in higher education in Brazil, highlighting the scarcity of people diagnosed with autism working as university professors. In addition to these scarce university professors with autism, the first author of the article has the same...
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Autism Rights, Wrongs, and Acceptance: A Two-Way Street
Though I was diagnosed autistic as an infant, I was unaware I was different until second grade, when I was shuffled between special and regular education classes, when I decided, mostly on my own, that I would transition to mainstream school. While I was a great student throughout my scholastic...
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Living at Home as an Autistic Adult: When Society Confuses Support with Failure
While many neurotypical adults move away from home at some point in their 20s, many autistic adults like me may live at home well into their later adult years (Marsack-Topolewski et al., 2021). This isn’t because we’re failing but rather because we need more time to reach our various milestones...
