So I'm autistic, Level 1. I just turned 41, and I want to take a few minutes to talk about how autism shows up for me.

This is the first time ever I'm doing an unscripted video, and the reason is because my autism makes it very, very difficult for me to sift through the million, bajillion thoughts that I have in my head and consolidate them into concise thoughts that are easy to communicate.

And I happen to be very good at it when I have time, and not very good at it when I’m on the spot.

So most of the thoughts that I share on here are carefully curated thoughts that I’ve spent if not, 30 minutes or an hour working through.

And I wanted to see how it would work if I just came on here and started to talk.

So it might totally go the wrong way and I might not post this, but I'm going to give it a shot.

So here's how autism shows up for me.

My entire life revolves around my autistic needs.

That might sound silly, that might sound obvious, or it might not. Maybe it sounds ridiculous. But it really does.

From the moment I wake up in the morning and my morning routine… to what I eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner… to the activities that I do throughout the day, a lot of it revolves around my sensory needs. A lot of it revolves around comfort. What I wear. 

Every single day, I wear some version of a hoodie, some version of a tank top, some version of leggings.

And every morning I get the same breakfast that I’ve had for the past like… I don't know, like 6 months, if not longer.

And I will have the same breakfast until my brain decides that, nope, no longer good. And then I’m gonna switch to something else. But in the interim between when my brain loves that food item and when my brain hates that food item, and finds something new, I really struggle to enjoy the food that I'm eating, which sucks.

Anyway, so it's my whole life. It's everything that I do.

It's what I say to the people that I'm with. It's the thoughts that enter my brain. It's the activities that I do and how I do those activities.

It's the way that I work. I am very fortunate to have found a job, or career path rather, that allows me to work from home.

And so I get to construct a physical environment that meets and satisfies all of my needs related to my autism and my sensory processing disorder.

And so that's autism, Level 1, for me.

I do require support, but not substantial support. So I'm Level 1.

The way that autism is diagnosed, there are three levels currently, in 2024.

Level 1 requires support. Level 2 requires substantial support. Level 3 requires very substantial support.

And for me, I just require support.

That includes, but is not limited to, support from my family, support from my husband, support from my kids. Asking for things from them if they do things that help me or that meet my needs.

A lot of my autism manifests as anxiety when my needs are not met.

If someone is playing something too loudly, whether it's music or a device that they’re on, I will get anxiety.

And so part of the support that I require is people accommodating for me and my needs.

Work. I created a work environment for myself that is manageable. When I was working in an office, it wasn’t. Thankfully I haven’t been in an office environment in over 10 years.

But yeah, it's been a lot.

And the way that I'm able to maintain my relationships with people requires that I actively work through what I'm thinking in relation to the conversation that I'm having.

And am filtering the conversation so as not to overwhelm the people around me. That's not a them issue in my mind. 

Because just like I don't want other people to be talking at me about the things that are on their mind when my brain doesn't have room for, I need to realize that the people around me don't have necessarily room for the things that are on my mind and it's just a matter of having this give and take relationship with the people around me and realizing that we all have our needs.

So this is not me feeling like, oh, I shouldn't have to. No. It's really about me going, okay, we're two people involved in this conversation.

This other person might not have the bandwidth to talk about the things that are on my mind.

And so it comes up every single day. Every single minute that I'm talking to someone else. Whether that's my husband, my kids, if my mom gives me a call.

What's going on in their lives is equally as important as what's going on in mine.

My brain doesn’t always work that way because my brain is also focused on what it’s focused on.

And so yeah, there's a lot of that.

And I think it's really important when you're thinking about autism just to realize that even though it doesn't look obvious a lot of the time, like, people passing me on the street wouldn't know.

But it's my brain all the time.

And every single minute of every day, my autism is impacting me and my behaviors and how I show up in the world.

So yeah… it's all the time. It's all the time. And until this point, I had a lot of special interests, but they came and went as my life changed.

When I was in college I had different special interests and when I was out of college I had different special interests. When I started work, I had different special interests just after having kids. 

But I think that where I am today, I landed on the special interest that encompasses my entire existence.

And I just… I don't know. I don't see it passing anytime soon. 

Examples of special interests that came and went as I evolved as a human and as my life changed…

Animal liberation… exclusively pumping… anything related to philosophy… I have a degree in philosophy. 

When I was into animal liberation, I became a vegan for a period of time. Then I became a vegetarian for a period of time. And then ultimately a pescatarian.

So I talked a lot about that during that stage of my life.

When I was getting my English master's degree, I became really, really interested, and when I say interested, I mean REALLY interested in the author Iris Murdoch.

And so that's all I talked about for a period of time.

I came out at 17 as bisexual. And for a period of time, biphobia was a huge part of my existence. And I wrote my master's thesis on biphobia in English literature, which was very interesting.

And right after I came out at 17, I got very heavily involved in the LGBTQ movement. And I was living in New York City at the time. So I became very involved in the ongoings of the community center over there in New York City.

And so as my life progressed, I would go in and out of these different areas of interest… these special interests.

And if you were in my life at those times, you would have been like, wow, she's really obsessed. With x topic or y topic or z topic.

To the point where I think sometimes it was hard for me to find people to connect with. Because, you know, I had to find people who were also really interested in those same topics. And so as I moved from topic to topic, I didn't have those same people continuing to move with me.

And so what I had to do over time is learn when to talk about my special interests. Where. How. With who.

And so that's how I ended up ultimately finding this space to talk about my current special interest. Where hopefully there are people that are resonating with the content that I'm sharing and are interested in hearing me talk about it.

So back to the beginning point that I was making… which is… my entire existence revolves around my autistic brain wiring.

And whether or not it's overtly apparent… whether or not someone who passes me on the street could see it, which they can’t, or someone who's in a conversation with me for 10 minutes, whether or not they’ll see it, which most of the time, they don't…

It's there. It's in my brain all the time.

And that is how autism manifests for me.

But there's so much more. There's so much more. And if you follow me, you'll see me talking about a lot more of it.

It's not just special interests. It's not just sensory needs. There's so much more.

Anyway… so, this was my first attempt at speaking off the cuff.

I feel, I'm not sure… I'll see if I post it or not.

If I do post it, and you found any of this interesting or helpful, in any way, please let me know in the comments.

And thanks for being here.

Hope you all have a great day, and I’ll talk to you soon.

Bye.