All thoughts

Do you feel exhausted to do anything after the office hours are over but you still pick up that vacuum cleaner or run that last piece of code until you are completely numb? Lii Brooke, autistic therapist and data analyst, explains the perils of autistic masking and how to safely return to your genuine self.

A number of my autistic clients come to therapy because they have spent most of their lives desperately trying to fit in...and succeeded! At a cost.

Does the pressure to participate in social occasions really get to you? Organising for Christmas seems to take a long time, months of awkwardness and anxiety. You might feel like the celebration is "happening to you" with no choice but to tough it out, which can end in spectacular meltdowns. Here are my tips: be aware of what drains your resources, plan in advance and negotiate compromises, communicate why you wish to participate on your terms, create a space to escape to.

Guest spotlight: This article comes to you from Becky Stone, a qualified eating disorder specialist, supporting autistic clients with...

Discover insights on being an autistic mum from a UK counsellor. Explore personal experiences and support for being an autistic mum.

Discover effective strategies for finding counselling for autistic adults that aligns with your values. Carefully-selected tips from your autsitic therapist.

It might be that, like me, you are autistic and the presence of structure and clarity in your environment is really important.

Seeing yourself as inferior can come through in many ways. Unsurprisingly, few of them are beneficial to your wellbeing. What can be done?

When you first realise you are autistic, whether through self-identification or formal assessment, it can be an unsettling time.

Here I look at some popular Google search terms on the subject of autism. If you have recently come to identify as autistic, then you may find the answers to the questions below useful. Caveat: all statements are my own views and I respect that your own perspective may differ. What is autism? To my knowledge, there are broadly-speaking two main views on this at present. There is the historically dominant pathology-informed view, which presents autism as a disorder to be mana

It is not unusual to find that your relationships with partner, family or friends change after you realise you are autistic.

It seems we, autistic people, often feel a strong need to fit in with the neurotypical way of communicating. Is there a middle ground?

People ask, "How can you help me?". An autistic therapist's honest view on how counselling helps clients in distress.

This post is about identity , a concept in my opinion necessarily co-validated by the individual and the group, within or near which the individual exists. I had set out to write a balanced, rational short piece on national and ethnic identity but what came out was my truth. A bit misshapen, a bit raw and ultimately inconclusive. On a positive note, it’s congruent. The dialogue I think, throughout life we continuously renegotiate our individual rights in the context of social

It may have been done for you in a sense, diagnosed in childhood following suggestions from educational settings, where certain autistic traits of yours had been noticed. Or you may have made it all the way to your fourth decade without any idea that you are neurodivergent...and then something happened. What was that something? What made you explore the likelihood of being autistic thoroughly enough to seek a diagnosis? Here’s my story. In childhood and all the way up until

Hard to find the right words? Any words. Especially when talking about feelings ? Want to be around people but it is just not comfortable somehow? Best to be on your own ? If you are a fellow autistic person, you will likely identify strongly with what the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) terms “frequent and sustained problems in social communication and interaction”. It is indeed one of the two core criteria on which the diagnosis of autism spec

Once you're in it, you just know. It takes over. There is the anger and the tiredness. A heavy tiredness. The climb-into-bed-for-days sort. If only you could…There may be responsibilities you have to fulfil whether or not you are utterly depleted.