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6 Devastating Life Challenges I’ve Faced As An Autistic Woman

Shamiha Said
ArtfullyAutistic
Published in
7 min readJan 13, 2025
Image created on Canva by Author (Shamiha Said).

Living life as an autistic woman often feels like the other women around you have been given a manual on how to navigate life and function in society while you lack access to the same instructions. You observe those around you and attempt to mimic their behaviours; sometimes you succeed, and other times you fail miserably, feeling overwhelmed as life becomes a constant guessing game.

To complicate matters, many of us don’t even realise why we struggle so much compared to our peers. This lack of understanding can lead to overstimulation, depression, anxiety, and burnout among autistic women. This is why early realisation or diagnosis is so crucial for us. Recent research indicates that one in four autistic adults and one in three autistic women reported at least one psychiatric diagnosis before being diagnosed with autism, which they later perceived as a misdiagnosis. Among autistic women, personality disorders were the most frequently reported misdiagnoses, followed by anxiety disorders, mood disorders, and chronic fatigue syndrome/burnout-related disorders.

Growing up without the knowledge that I was autistic made me unaware of my…

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ArtfullyAutistic
ArtfullyAutistic

Published in ArtfullyAutistic

This Publication is for all who are Autistic and for those of our kind. It is for the Neurodivergent, for those on the Spectrum of all Gender Identities, the LGBTQ*, and all others who are justifiably non-conformant to Society’s harmful marginalization and Ableist views of us.

Shamiha Said
Shamiha Said

Written by Shamiha Said

10x Top Writer🏆& Number One Writer for Autism on Medium. Spreading Neurodiversity awareness one article at a time.

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