Autism and Processing Differently: Questioning, Identity and Integration

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I identify as autistic.
And when someone tells me they don’t think I am and asks me why I think I am, I often go blank.

In that moment, I can’t remember any of the reasons, and my truth is often dismissed. The assumption seems to be: if you question it, it must not be real.
What’s missed is that questioning is central to how my mind works: I question everything.

This is deeply connected to how my mind works. I experience something similar to object impermanence — meaning that if I’m not seeing something, or not actively thinking about it, it can feel as though it doesn’t exist in that moment. This includes memories, information, and even parts of my own identity. So when someone asks me to explain myself on the spot, I may not have immediate access to what I knew to be true yesterday. 

To many neurotypical people, this openness can look like uncertainty or weakness. For me, it isn’t either: it’s simply how my mind works.

I also think in a Bottom-Up way. This means I tend to meet each experience or interaction with an open mind, without fixed assumptions. Rather than starting from what I already “know,” I build understanding from what I sense, feel, and notice as the situation unfolds. My knowing is constructed in the moment, not pulled from a pre-written script. As I’m speaking, I’m actively processing whether that truth still feels the same today.

Because of this, I don’t start from the same place of certainty each time. I believe I carry far fewer assumptions than many neurotypical people, including assumptions about myself.

For a long time, I felt pressure to write down all the reasons why I am autistic, as if I needed a list to justify my knowing. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

I think this is because, even though I identify as autistic, I am not only autistic. I am also ADHD, dyslexic, and shaped by complex trauma; and at the same time, I don’t want to be bound by any of these. I feel too complex to be fully defined by a single label, or even by all of them combined. These labels name some of my struggles, but they do not name my essence. I am also love, light, and connection.

I often think about our bodies in this context. Every cell we have is replaced over time — in roughly eight years, none of our cells are the same as they were before. We are constantly dying and becoming new. What matters most to me is not fixing myself to one definition but finding ways for all the different parts of me to feel free to flow, change, coexist, communicate, and care for one another.

Books That Met Me Where I Was

A book that helped me deeply is What I Mean When I Say I’m Autistic. 

It felt sweet and kind. The author shares her own lived experience of autism, and there were many moments I recognised myself (especially around being questioned).

She describes how she kept trying to find the next thing that would finally convince people she was autistic, so they would stop doubting her. But no matter what she did (even after diagnosis) people continued to question it. Eventually, she realised she had a choice: either spend the first hours of every interaction explaining herself, or stop trying to convince people at all.

That landed deeply for me.

I don’t have a formal diagnosis, but reading this helped me see that I was following a carrot on a stick. No amount of explaining would ever guarantee acceptance. The work I needed to do wasn’t proving myself: it was learning to accept myself. That acceptance is what allows me to feel safer and more at ease in who I am: that being a flowy constantly changing self.

Accessibility Matters

Reading has always been difficult for me because my capacity and the way I take in information change day by day.

Sometimes I can read but not listen.
Sometimes I can listen but not read.
Sometimes I need both at once.
And sometimes I can do neither.

I also struggle to finish books. This has always been a hard truth for me because I hate leaving things unfinished; and yet, most of the time, I still can’t finish a book.

This is another reason reading What I Mean When I Say I’m Autistic felt so satisfying. I could read all of it. It felt genuinely doable.

Another book I enjoyed, and that I think could be especially supportive for young people, is A Different sort of Normal. 

It reminded me of The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 3/4, which I loved as a child because it was easy to stop and start. A Different sort of Normal has a similar diary-like quality: you can put it down, come back to it, and stay engaged. And it has pictures and has an interactive feel.

It feels interactive and relational. The author reflects on growing up autistic, writing about everything from swimming to friendships to sexuality. It doesn’t demand linear attention; and for me, that matters.