For a long time, this is what support looked like for me.

Oestrogen.
Progesterone.

And yes — they helped. But only so much.

What I yearned for was language. Words that made me feel less alone.

Words that explained why hormonal shifts felt so intense in my nervous system. Why it felt like I was back in puberty all over again. Why sensory sensitivities that I hadn’t felt all of a sudden became deafeningly loud. Why I felt I could no longer keep juggling the intricacies of my life and needed to reduce retreat and quiet. I craved words that reflected my experience because I knew that whatever was going on, this wasn’t ’just hormones’.

So I started asking questions. And the replies rolled in. And I quickly realised that these under-heard isolated voices needed to finally be heard.

That’s why I created HormoneFULL — a collection of lived experiences from Autistic women reflecting on how hormones have shaped their lives.

Not statistics.
Not theories.
Real voices.

So today, on World Book Day, I’m quietly celebrating the fact that I get to say this:

I’m a published author.

And this book exists in the world for the Autistic women who needed these words too.

If you’ve ever felt like hormones hit you harder than everyone else seemed to say they should… this book might speak to you.

You’ll find it through the link in my bio.

The stereotype says Autistic people avoid eye contact.
Meanwhile I’m over here staring at everything.

I make eye contact when you’re talking.
I often look away when I’m thinking.
I’ll look away more with some people than others — sometimes that’s about safety.

But the thing no one talks about?

The staring.

I stare when I’m trying to understand something.
I stare when I see something beautiful.
I stare when something doesn’t make sense yet.
I stare when something is unusual and my brain is trying to figure it out.

I stare when I’m overstimulated and zoning out — my mind taking a break.

I stare when I’m daydreaming.
I stare when I get lost in thought.

And honestly… I stare a lot.

Sometimes I realise I’ve been staring and quickly look away… hoping nobody noticed.

And sometimes I hear from across the room:

“Mum… you’re doing it again.”

Apparently staring while thinking is not socially ideal.

Which is why these simple stereotypes — Autistic people don’t make eye contact — miss so many of us.

Especially women.
Especially AuDHD women.

If you’ve spent years wondering why you process people and environments so intensely…you might recognise this.

Just wondering — does anyone else relate?

A difference in relationships.. or for me the heartache of failed relationships.. is a part of the Autistic experience we don’t talk about enough.

For me it was never one dramatic fallout. It was a pattern.

Friendships that started fast and strong.
That intense “we just get each other” feeling. Depth. Honesty. Long conversations.

And then something would shift.

Replies slowed.
Tone changed.
Energy cooled.

I could feel it.

So I’d ask.
Only to be told, “No, nothing’s wrong.”
But there was.

That gap — between what I could feel and what I was being told — was destabilising.

For years I assumed I’d done something wrong.

Sometimes I missed what was expected of me. Sometimes I said the thing out loud that other people preferred to leave unsaid.

Both are true.

But this is also true:

Confusion that can’t be talked about is a red flag for me.

If I name a shift and I’m told it isn’t there — when I can clearly feel it — I don’t stay.

I’ve tried staying before.
It made me doubt myself.
So I don’t do that anymore.
I don’t have energy for half-in, half-out connection.
I’m here for deep and true, loving and real.

And if it isn’t real, I’d rather step back than slowly disappear inside it.

Some bridges cooled and I didn’t understand why.

Some I walked away from because something in me said, this isn’t right.

My diagnosis didn’t magically tidy any of that up.

It just meant I stopped assuming every ending meant there was something fundamentally wrong with me.

…
As an Autistic person a lot of people simply do not like me.

For most of my life, I took this as a personal failure.
So I adapted - softer, warmer, less intense, diluted.
And for a long time, I managed.

What I didn’t know was that I was masking.

I didn’t even know what a mask was! I thought we were all exhausted from trying to be acceptable. I thought we all studied the room before speaking. I thought we all rehearsed responses. I thought people-pleasing was just what being “nice” meant. I thought this was how everyone played at life.

I didn’t realise my experience was different.

Then perimenopause came.

And the mask I never knew I had, vanished. The dysregulation got louder. My sense of justice reared and roared. The energy it took to smooth myself down? I just didn’t have it anymore.

And overnight the friction became visible.

You see I say what I mean. I ask direct questions. I crave depth. I’m expressive. My joy is big. I need a lot of quiet.

For some people, that works. For others, it doesn’t.

Research shows Autistic people are often judged negatively within seconds.

And for years, I internalised that as proof I was failing.

Now I know differently.

Truth be told, Autistic people are often not universally liked.

Not because we’re wrong. But because we’re different.

And once I stopped trying to be universally palatable, I stopped abandoning myself to belong.

Late identification brought with it a freedom that trying to fit in promised but never could.

It’s hard. And it’s not you.

If you’ve felt this too — the friction, the misreading, the “too much” — I hope you know:

You are not broken, simply unmasked.

There is a world of difference* between saying Autistic people are different to Allistic people rather than Autistic people are different full stop.

* especially for Autistic people like me who are so careful with the words that we use so as to not be inaccurate or be misunderstood.