Living in the Same World, Differently

There are some subjects that I have intentionally avoided writing about since launching Trivena. Not because they made me uncomfortable, nor because I considered them too personal, but because I never wanted a diagnosis to become the lens through which people viewed me. I wanted my work to stand on its own. If readers found value in what I wrote, I wanted it to be because the ideas resonated, not because they knew something deeply personal about the person who wrote them. Over time, however, I have come to realize that there is a profound difference between allowing a diagnosis to define who we are and allowing it to help explain experiences that so many people continue to misunderstand. If my work has always been about helping people better understand human physiology, adaptation, and the remarkable diversity of the human body, then perhaps it is time to acknowledge that our nervous systems are no exception.

I was forty-four years old when I learned that I was autistic. Looking back, I cannot honestly say that the diagnosis surprised me. By then I had spent decades trying to understand why so many aspects of everyday life seemed to require an extraordinary amount of effort that other people appeared to navigate almost effortlessly. I had built a successful professional career, married, travelled, cultivated lifelong interests, and learned to function in environments that, from the outside, suggested that everything was perfectly fine. In many ways it was. What changed after my diagnosis was not who I was, but how I understood myself. Rather than limiting my ambitions, it encouraged me to pursue them differently. I returned to university, completed my degree with honours, and eventually chose to leave a career that no longer reflected whom I wanted to become. I have never considered autism a tragedy, a limitation, or something that needed to be fixed. What the diagnosis gave me was not an excuse but a vocabulary. It offered an explanation for experiences that had previously felt disconnected, allowing me to replace decades of self-questioning with something far more constructive: understanding.

It also allowed me to revisit experiences that had never quite made sense at the time. I began to recognize that some of the assumptions and comments I had encountered in the workplace reflected misconceptions about autism rather than an accurate understanding of my abilities. A box of paper clips was once tossed onto my desk with the suggestion that I count them, while another colleague jokingly invited me to the casino because I would surely be good at counting cards. More troubling than either remark was being told by a supervisor, after disclosing my diagnosis, that I was using autism as an excuse for not being productive, despite years of consistently producing high-quality work. Those moments did not define my career, nor do I believe they were motivated by malice. They did, however, reveal how little many people understood about autism, and how quickly intelligence, competence, and productivity could be called into question when viewed through the lens of a diagnosis rather than through years of demonstrated performance.

One of the reasons I hesitated to write this article is that autism has become one of those subjects about which everyone seems to have an opinion. Conversations often revolve around stereotypes, dramatic portrayals, or simplified social media messages that reduce an extraordinarily complex neurodevelopmental difference to a handful of recognizable traits. Somewhere along the way, many people have become convinced that autism can be identified simply by observing whether someone avoids eye contact, prefers routines, dislikes loud noises, or struggles socially. Others, often with the very best of intentions, dismiss the conversation altogether with the familiar reassurance that “everyone is a little autistic.”Although usually intended to normalize difference, the statement ultimately does the opposite. It blurs an important distinction between occasionally recognizing ourselves in certain human characteristics and living with a nervous system that processes the world differently every single day.

The reality is that human characteristics exist along continua. Most people occasionally become overwhelmed in noisy environments, prefer predictability, feel socially awkward, or need time alone after a demanding day. None of those experiences are unique to autism. Autism is not defined by isolated characteristics but by the way those characteristics interact, persist, and shape an individual’s perception of the world across an entire lifetime. It is not simply a matter of personality, preference, or temperament. It reflects a different pattern of neurological development that influences sensory processing, communication, emotional regulation, attention, learning, and adaptation in ways that are both remarkably consistent and deeply individual. The difference is not that autistic people experience something completely foreign to everyone else; rather, it is the intensity, frequency, and cumulative physiological cost of navigating a world that was largely designed around different neurological expectations.

For many women of my generation, the reason autism often remained unrecognized until adulthood can be summarized in a single word: adaptation. Long before anyone spoke about masking, many girls had already become remarkably skilled at it without realizing there was a name for what they were doing. We watched before we participated. We observed how friendships formed, how conversations flowed, when to smile, when to laugh, how long to maintain eye contact, how much emotion was acceptable to express, and what behaviours attracted unwanted attention. The goal was never to become someone else. It was simply to avoid standing out. Over time those adaptations became so automatic that they no longer felt like adaptations at all. They became what we believed everyone else was doing.

Looking at childhood photographs today, I no longer see a little girl who was simply shy, quiet, or serious. I see a child who was already trying to understand a world that often seemed to operate according to unwritten rules everyone else had somehow received in advance. I remember spending far more time observing than participating, studying people with genuine curiosity, trying to understand not only what they said but why they said it, how they knew when to interrupt, when to laugh, when to speak, and when to remain silent. I became an excellent observer because observation felt safer than guessing. No one recognized that as autism. At the time, very few people believed that girls who performed well academically, communicated fluently, or appeared socially competent could possibly be autistic. Looking back, I realize that what many adults interpreted as maturity or independence was often adaptation in its earliest form.

The word masking has become increasingly common in discussions about autism, yet I sometimes wonder whether it unintentionally oversimplifies what many autistic people experience. A mask suggests something artificial, something consciously worn to deceive others. My experience has never felt deceptive. I was never pretending to be someone else. I was trying to understand the rules of a game that everyone else seemed to know instinctively while I was still searching for the instruction manual. Every adjustment, every observation, every carefully considered response was an attempt to participate more comfortably in a world that rarely paused to explain itself. If there was a performance taking place, it was not intended to fool anyone. It was an ongoing effort to reduce misunderstandings, avoid criticism, and find a place where I could belong without drawing attention to the differences I could feel but could not yet explain.

From the perspective of physiology, adaptation is never free. Every adjustment the nervous system makes requires energy. Every sensory stimulus that must be filtered, every conversation that requires conscious interpretation, every unexpected change that demands rapid recalibration, every effort to suppress an instinctive response or produce one that appears more socially acceptable represents additional work for the brain. Individually, these demands may appear insignificant. Collectively, repeated hundreds of times throughout a day, they become enormous. This is one of the reasons so many autistic adults describe a feeling of exhaustion that can be difficult to explain to people who have never experienced it. It is not simply the fatigue that follows a busy day. It is the accumulated cost of continuous adaptation, often taking place so automatically that even we may not fully appreciate how much energy our nervous systems have been expending until they have nothing left to give.

One of the misconceptions that continues to frustrate me is the tendency to equate autism with mental illness. Although the two may coexist, they are not the same thing, nor should they be used interchangeably. Autism is a neurodevelopmental condition, meaning that the brain develops differently from the earliest stages of life. It is part of the architecture of the nervous system rather than an illness that appears unexpectedly or something that can be treated away. Anxiety, depression, trauma, burnout, or other mental health conditions may certainly occur in autistic individuals, just as they occur throughout the general population, and in some cases they develop precisely because of the cumulative demands of navigating environments that require constant adaptation. Those conditions deserve recognition and appropriate treatment when they arise, but they are not autism itself. Confusing neurological differences with mental illness not only perpetuates misunderstanding, it also prevents us from asking a much more useful question. Instead of wondering what is wrong with a person, perhaps we should begin by asking how that person’s nervous system experiences the world.

This distinction matters because it changes the way we interpret behaviour. When someone becomes overwhelmed by sensory input, needs more time to process information, struggles with abrupt changes in routine, or withdraws after prolonged social interaction, the assumption is often that something has gone wrong emotionally. In reality, the nervous system may simply have reached the limits of what it can comfortably process. The difference may appear subtle, but it fundamentally changes the conversation. We tend to view emotional regulation as a matter of willpower, resilience, or personality, when in many cases it is also a matter of neurological capacity. Just as no amount of determination allows someone to hear frequencies their ears cannot detect, determination alone cannot change the way an autistic brain filters information, processes sensory input, or responds to an environment that continuously demands adaptation.

This misunderstanding perhaps explains why autistic adults are so often described as being overly sensitive, dramatic, inflexible, anxious, or antisocial. Those descriptions focus on what others observe without considering the invisible physiological processes occurring beneath the surface. Sensitivity is not weakness. Needing recovery is not laziness. Wanting predictability is not stubbornness. These are often the natural consequences of a nervous system that has been working continuously to filter, interpret, organize, and respond to far more information than most people ever realize. When we judge only the visible behaviour without understanding the invisible effort that preceded it, we inevitably reach conclusions that are incomplete.

For many autistic people, this becomes particularly apparent during periods of prolonged overload. The word meltdown is one that has unfortunately acquired unfortunate connotations, often conjuring images of anger, emotional immaturity, or an inability to cope with ordinary life. My experience has been very different. A meltdown is not a choice, a strategy, or an attempt to manipulate other people. It is what happens when a nervous system that has been adapting continuously finally exhausts its ability to continue adapting. It is the physiological equivalent of a circuit breaker that shuts down to prevent further overload. By the time that threshold is reached, the effort required to maintain composure has often been taking place for hours, days, or even weeks, unnoticed by everyone except the person living inside that nervous system.

What many people never see is what follows. Recovery is not measured in minutes. It can require hours of quiet, reduced sensory input, uninterrupted sleep, solitude, familiar routines, or simply the absence of additional demands. The exhaustion is not only emotional; it is profoundly physical. My muscles become tense, my thinking slows, words become more difficult to retrieve, my tolerance for noise disappears, and even simple decisions begin to feel disproportionately demanding. For years I interpreted those experiences as personal failures, believing that I simply lacked the resilience that everyone else seemed to possess. Understanding autism allowed me to see them differently. My nervous system was not failing. It was recovering.

Receiving a diagnosis later in life often brings an overwhelming sense of relief, but relief is only part of the story. There is also grief, although perhaps not the kind most people imagine. It is not grief for the diagnosis itself, nor a wish to become someone else. Rather, it is the quiet realization that so much energy was spent trying to correct what never actually needed correcting. I sometimes wonder how different my childhood might have been had someone recognized that I was not being difficult, overly emotional, overly analytical, or somehow failing to fit in. I wonder how many hours were spent criticizing myself for characteristics that were simply expressions of a nervous system developing differently from those around me. Those questions have no answers, and I have no interest in dwelling on regrets. Even so, acknowledging that sense of loss is an important part of understanding what a late diagnosis often means.

Ironically, receiving that diagnosis also gave me permission to stop apologizing for needing things that my nervous system had always needed. Quiet is not an indulgence. Time alone is not rejection. Routine is not rigidity. Recovery is not weakness. These are not character flaws that require correction but strategies that allow me to function at my best. The better I understand my own physiology, the better I am able to care for it, just as understanding nutrition, movement, or sleep allows us to make choices that support the rest of the body. Our nervous systems deserve the same curiosity and respect.

There is another misconception that deserves to be challenged. Intelligence and autism are often presented as though they somehow contradict one another, as though being articulate, professionally accomplished, academically successful, or deeply curious should somehow exclude the possibility of being autistic. My own experience has taught me otherwise. The same nervous system that notices patterns others overlook, becomes intensely curious about subjects that capture its interest, and spends hours connecting seemingly unrelated ideas is often the very same nervous system that becomes exhausted by excessive sensory input, prolonged social demands, or environments filled with unpredictability. These are not contradictions. They are different expressions of the same neurological architecture. Strengths and challenges are not separate stories. They are often chapters within the same one.

One of the unexpected gifts of studying human physiology over the past several years has been realizing that the body rarely behaves randomly. Whether we are discussing nutrition, sleep, movement, chronic stress, or the nervous system itself, our bodies are constantly adapting to the conditions in which they live. Sometimes those adaptations help us flourish. Sometimes they help us survive. Almost always, they tell a story. Understanding that principle has changed the way I think about health, but it has also changed the way I think about myself. Rather than asking why I wasn’t more like everyone else, I began asking a much more productive question: what was my nervous system trying to accomplish? That single shift transformed years of frustration into curiosity, and curiosity has always been a far better teacher than criticism.

I also came to appreciate that adaptation, remarkable as it is, should never become the sole responsibility of the individual. Throughout my life, I became exceptionally good at adapting to environments that rarely adapted to me. Like many autistic women, I learned to camouflage differences that were often invisible to everyone else, quietly accepting that if I was exhausted, overwhelmed, or struggling, the solution must be to try harder. I no longer believe that. A society that genuinely values diversity cannot limit that diversity to the characteristics that are easy to celebrate while expecting every neurological difference to remain hidden. Accommodation is not about lowering expectations or creating special treatment. It is about recognizing that people do not all arrive in the world with identical nervous systems, and that understanding those differences benefits everyone, not only those of us who happen to be neurodivergent.

If there is one message I hope readers take away from this article, it is not that autism should be admired, feared, pitied, or romanticized. It is simply that it should be understood. Every person carries experiences that remain invisible to those around them, and neurodivergence is one example of how appearances can be remarkably poor indicators of the effort taking place beneath the surface. The colleague who seems quiet may be processing more information than anyone realizes. The friend who leaves a gathering early may not be antisocial but recovering from hours of sensory and social demands. The child who prefers observation before participation may not lack confidence but may simply be learning in a way that differs from the majority. When we replace assumptions with curiosity, we create space for understanding rather than judgment.

As for me, I no longer measure success by how convincingly I can appear “normal.” After more than five decades of trying to understand why life often felt more demanding than it seemed to everyone around me, I have come to realize that normal was never the objective. Understanding was. Understanding how my nervous system experiences the world has allowed me to care for it with greater compassion, to build a life that reflects my values rather than my camouflage, and to embrace strengths that I once overlooked because I was too busy trying to minimize the differences that accompanied them. That journey is still unfolding, and perhaps it always will, but for the first time I no longer feel as though I am trying to become someone else. I am simply learning, with increasing confidence and curiosity, how to become more completely myself.

Perhaps that is the greatest lesson neurodivergence has taught me. Health is not achieved by forcing every body or every brain to conform to a single definition of normal. It begins with understanding the extraordinary diversity with which human beings are created and recognizing that our differences are not obstacles standing in the way of wellbeing, but part of the very landscape through which we each find our own path. In the end, there may be no such thing as a normal nervous system. There are only human nervous systems, each adapting in its own way, each deserving the opportunity to be understood before it is judged.