5 more signs you might be autistic: Girls and women edition

2 min read

1. You've learned how to give eye contact in a way that doesn't stand out too much, but it never feels natural and when you do give it you can't focus on anything else.

2. You gesture a lot in conversation and often knock things over when you're especially animated.

3. Even though you feel animated and expressive, people frequently tell you they can't read you and aren't sure what you're thinking.

4. You're never sure how close you should be standing to others in social settings and even when you think you have it just right, you're still told you're standing too close.

5. You can't always tell when another person wants to end a conversation and you tend to only pick up on it after they've reached a point of being clearly annoyed or irritated. This has had a negative impact on your relationships.

To put these signs into context, they all relate to the social communication aspect of autism. Specifically what the DSM describes as "deficits in nonverbal communicative behaviors" (gestures, facial expressions)

In my next post I'll share more signs relating to the social communication challenges, but focused on the criteria in the DSM that discusses "deficits in developing, understanding, and maintaining relationships.

As I mentioned in Part 1, though I started by saying these are signs of autism in girls and women... they are not EXCLUSIVE to girls and women.

They ARE, however, extremely common presentations of autism, particularly in level 1, high masking girls and women.