Autism, Women and Girls -Communication and Social Traits

Autism presents differently in females compared to males, whereas males tend to follow the stereotypical traits of autism, autistic traits in women may be more subtle. Autism often goes undiagnosed in girls, more so when they are considered to have the type of autism previously called Aspergers Syndrome or high functioning autism. Many women don’t realise they have autism until one of their children is diagnosed as autistic or they have reached autistic burnout.

When an autistic person experiences autistic burnout, they seem to lose the ability to mask or hide their autistic traits, and everyday tasks become difficult to do and exhaustion takes over.

Personally, I have always struggled with my mental health, when I reached the age of 39 I began to suspect that there was more to it than just anxiety and depression. My child had reached the age I was when I experienced trauma, which triggered my anxiety massively, I had already accessed therapy for social anxiety at the age of 40 and the therapist diagnosed PTSD. But, PTSD still didn’t explain everything and soon after, the therapist suggested that I could be autistic. Autism seemed to fit, after many hours of reading and researching, I had to agree. I had reached autistic burnout and wasn’t functioning very well. It has taken a lot of self-care and support to begin to recover from it.

With the new discovery of autism, I am starting to understand myself better and why I react to things the way I do. I realise that now that I know I am autistic, I can change my reactions and learn to manage the traits of autism better. I am less self-critical and taken some of the pressures off, because I now realise I am not broken, I am not a failure, I just have a different neurology type.

So, what are the traits of autism in women and girls?

Communication and Social Traits

Little scientists – At school, autistic children are not only learning the curriculum, but they are also learning all the social skills that don’t come naturally to them to enable them to fit in and appear normal.

A lot of autistic girls want to be social, they want to have connections with people, they want to build friendships and relationships with others. So, they people watch, they become little scientists, they analyse social situations between their peers and copy phrases, conversations, body language that they have seen that work, so that they ‘fit in’ and are viewed as the same as their peers. It is hard feeling different, and girls strive hard to mask, to be seen as normal, there is a downside to this as masking uses a huge amount of energy. It’s exhausting and can lead to autistic burnout. They can even make great therapists due to studying human behaviour from a young age.

Conversations – from a young age we start to analyse social interactions and Conversation in great depth, it enables us to learn the social skills that seem to come naturally to neurotypicals, it allows us to mask and to appear the same as our peers. But, it becomes ingrained and a difficult habit to break, overthinking and over-analysing can take a hit on our mental health and our Self-Esteem. It can become obsessive. We may beat ourselves up over what we should or shouldn’t have said, we focus on mistakes and wonder if we sounded stupid. Sometimes, it’s just easier not to have those social Interactions or conversations, and we begin to fear them due to how they make us feel. For a very long time social anxiety took over for me and I avoided most social settings, but as I got older I realised avoiding them still generated the same level of anxiety as I hated myself for not being able to do it. So, slowly I have stopped avoiding it and I am learning how to manage the effects it has on me and allow for recovery days.

Struggles with small talk – Small talk can feel awkward and difficult, personally, I find it drains my social battery quickly. If it’s with people I don’t know very well, stringing words together is hard work and at times I experience a mental block. The connection between thought and speech becomes intermittent or breaks altogether, there is a need to explain one’s self and end up getting tied into knots. I hate gossip, I have never understood the point in it and won’t engage with it.

Repeating or Copying Phrases – I didn’t think I had this trait, but recently I have realised that I have go-to phrases, topics that are factual or “safe” to use which work for social settings. The problem is it means I sometimes talk about the same topic to the same person and it gets a bit uncomfortable. With people I am comfortable with, for instance, my mum, partner, daughter, sisters, and nieces, I don’t have this problem and can talk quite freely.

Social Hangover – Girls and women often want to make connections with others, they want to engage in social events or situations, but they are unable to sustain it for long periods of time. Their social battery becomes depleted and they may pay for it afterwards with a social hangover, needing recovery time spent alone to recharge.

If you want to read more on Social Hangover, click the following link – social hangover

Social Anxiety – Some Autistic people develop social anxiety, partly due to their struggles with communication and partly due to the way people respond to their differences. Often, people on the autism spectrum experience bullying at some point in their life. It was through therapy for social anxiety and trauma that autism was noticed in me.

One to One vs groups – one to one interactions are a lot easier than groups of people, it is easier to focus on just one person and makes conversation easier. When there is a group of people, it can be difficult to follow the conversation, focusing is harder and its difficult to hear what each person is saying. Analysing a group conversation takes a lot more work, missing social cues is more problematic in a group setting. There is also the element of ’emotional noise’, being sensitive to sensory imput, some Autistic people can feel or sense the emotions of others as they would their own. In a group setting, or a crowd, where there are a lot of different emotions in one place it can quickly become overwhelming. Working out which emotion belonged to them and which belonged to others is difficult. If someone is angry, I can pick up on that and become angry myself, but not know why. Letting that anger go again is hard. It can add to and be a reason for social anxiety.

If you would like to read more on emotional noise, please click the following link – emotional noise

Eye Contact – it can feel uncomfortable and awkward, as a child I hated it, as I have gotten older I can do eye contact when required for short periods of time, but it is another thing that drains energy. If I am burnt out or experiencing higher levels of anxiety, it becomes impossible. times I can make it appear that I am keeping eye contact by looking at the bridge of the nose, mouth, or forehead of the person I am talking to. When you can’t keep eye contact, people assume you aren’t listening to them, but I find I can hear them and focus on what they are saying better when I’m not staring at their eyeballs and experiencing feelings of uncomfortableness or awkwardness.

Misunderstandings – due to misreading social cues and misunderstanding what someone means by what they say, it can cause difficulties with building friendships and relationships or cause friendships and relationships to break down. I have come to accept that I have misunderstood something; whereas before I never had the courage to ask, now that I know I am autistic and I have probably misunderstood, I will ask for clarification. I am not always sure when a conversation has naturally reached its end, and have the habit of oversharing or over talking about a subject, especially when I am anxious or feel uncomfortable talking to the person I am talking to. I don’t always know when an appointment, such as a doctors appointment, has finished. There are so many times in the day that I feel stupid and awkward, and sometimes it’s easier just not to talk, because then I can’t make a mistake.

But, misunderstandings are a two-way thing, due to the differences between the communication styles of the neurodiverse (autism, dyslexia, dyspraxia, ADHD) and neurotypicals, miscommunication seems to happen a lot. Whereas we don’t always understand them, they don’t always understand us, yet when we communicate with other neurodiverse people, the misunderstandings don’t happen as much.

Sarcasm – I can be really sarcastic when someone has really annoyed me, in fact, my partner would probably tell you I am the most sarcastic person he knows, but I can’t always tell when someone is being sarcastic or not. Although, over the years, I have learned phrases, sayings and sarcasm to a degree, there are times when I still take people literally when I probably shouldn’t.

Facial Expressions – some autistic people have a ‘flat’ expression, I on the other hand am an open book; if I feel it, it is written on my face. I can not hide how I feel at all. Much to the amusement of some of my friends.

When it comes to other peoples facial expressions, I am not very good at reading them, which can make communication difficult. Although some are easy to read, others I misread.