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Women's experience of autism

Deleted user
8 months ago

This is quite a broad subject and there is a lot of information available on this nowadays in the form of books and video.

However, I'm unable to access these due to an inability to read factual matter nowadays (I've tried 2 books on autism and gave up on both) and I simply can't process the spoken word properly.

So part of the reason for this thread is to learn from others.

It's not exclusively for women to post here.

It was sparked by comments on another thread about beauty and people's perception of how a 'beautiful' woman should behave.

I've had a disagreement with another member here before who felt that an autistic woman who was attractive could just dress a certain way and the men would follow.

However, my personal experiences of this is very different.

I don't want to make this introduction too wordy but I'm hoping that others here will want to contribute.

Women present differently to men and I read on this forum quite a lot of comments (based on incorrect assumptions) that appertain to men, not women.

'The different way in which girls and women present under the following headings have been identified below; social understanding, social communication, social imagination which is highly associated with routines, rituals and special interests. Some examples are:

  • Girls are more able to follow social actions by delayed imitation because they observe other children and copy them, perhaps masking the symptoms of Asperger syndrome (Attwood, 2007).
  • Girls are often more aware of and feel a need to interact socially. They are involved in social play, but are often led by their peers rather than initiating social contact. Girls are more socially inclined and many have one special friend.
  • In our society, girls are expected to be social in their communication. Girls on the spectrum do not ‘do social chit chat’ or make ‘meaningless’ comments in order to facilitate social communication. The idea of a social hierarchy and how one communicates with people of different status can be problematic and get girls into trouble with teachers.
  • Evidence suggests that girls have better imagination and more pretend play (Knickmeyer et al, 2008). Many have a very rich and elaborate fantasy world with imaginary friends. Girls escape into fiction, and some live in another world with, for example, fairies and witches.
  • The interests of girls in the spectrum are very often similar to those of other girls – animals, horses, classical literature – and therefore are not seen as unusual. It is not the special interests that differentiate them from their peers but it is the quality and intensity of these interests. Many obsessively watch soap operas and have an intense interest in celebrities.

The presence of repetitive behaviour and special interests is part of the diagnostic criteria for an autism spectrum disorder. This is a crucial area in which the male stereotype of autism has clouded the issue in diagnosing girls and women.'

https://autismhampshire.org.uk/about-autism/women-and-girls-on-the-autism-spectrum

Parents
  • 20 days ago

    Anyone with thoughts on having children.

    I reckon that it's probably less likely (possibly a lot less) that autistic women do.

    I didn't and now, retrospectively, and especially with my awareness of my autism, I could give a fairly good anaylsis of why.

  • 20 days ago in reply to Debbie

    I would love children but honestly at times I can hardly look after myself and that's physically, mentally and emotionally. I feel like I would be an amazing mum. I'm good with children, I'm very childlike and children like me and we have a lot of fun together - when I'm with my sisters children I play with them and have as much fun as they do... but pressures of real life hit me for six and I'm unable to cope a lot of the time.

    There's also not a lot of support for autistic people and this includes autistic parents. I read a very sad news story recently (TRIGGER WARNING SUICIDE) about a young autistic mother who had a child and wasn't coping and their strategy, rather than helping was to remove the child from her and she ended up committing suicide because the proper support and help wasn't there.

    I really felt for her.

    So I would love to be a mum and I think I would be a good parent. In the past I briefly worked with young children and I coped better than I thought I would. But autism has many struggles and challenges and balancing all that whilst trying to look after a child as well is something I'm pretty sure I couldn't do.

    Sadly I don't ever see me being able to do this and that's such a shame because I've always wanted children. I couldn't adopt either as I've been detained to hospital in the past, during my late teens and the rules are very strict about it.

Reply
  • 20 days ago in reply to Debbie

    I would love children but honestly at times I can hardly look after myself and that's physically, mentally and emotionally. I feel like I would be an amazing mum. I'm good with children, I'm very childlike and children like me and we have a lot of fun together - when I'm with my sisters children I play with them and have as much fun as they do... but pressures of real life hit me for six and I'm unable to cope a lot of the time.

    There's also not a lot of support for autistic people and this includes autistic parents. I read a very sad news story recently (TRIGGER WARNING SUICIDE) about a young autistic mother who had a child and wasn't coping and their strategy, rather than helping was to remove the child from her and she ended up committing suicide because the proper support and help wasn't there.

    I really felt for her.

    So I would love to be a mum and I think I would be a good parent. In the past I briefly worked with young children and I coped better than I thought I would. But autism has many struggles and challenges and balancing all that whilst trying to look after a child as well is something I'm pretty sure I couldn't do.

    Sadly I don't ever see me being able to do this and that's such a shame because I've always wanted children. I couldn't adopt either as I've been detained to hospital in the past, during my late teens and the rules are very strict about it.

Children
  • 20 days ago in reply to Katy

    That’s what I’m also afraid of. That they would happily remove my daughter from us. Well, I’m not alone, there is also daddy but still it’s a lot of stress and trauma. I have some coping strategies but I do my best to hide and mask as much as I only can and I avoid being officially diagnosed for this reason. The social services they are often cruel and have no empathy. They don’t really care about the family. The children are often their business. I do t want to say that all of them act this way. But there is enough horror stories. I feel terribly sad for that mother.