Alexithymia: When You Don't Know What You're Feeling

Autistic Friendships: Why They Look Different, Not Less

Weeks of silence. Then picking up exactly where you left off. Parallel presence instead of constant conversation. Intensity when it matters, distance when it doesn't. Autistic friendship doesn't always look like the template — but that doesn't mean it's less real. In this episode, we talk about how autistic adults form and maintain friendships differently, and what gets lost when that difference is read as coldness or disinterest. We talk about the cost of social maintenance, parallel play as genuine connection, and what it means to be a deeply loyal friend who also needs a lot of quiet. Read the full article: https://www.heyasd.com/blogs/autism/autism-friendships-in-adults [https://www.heyasd.com/blogs/autism/autism-friendships-in-adults]

Autistic Limerence: When Attachment Feels Like a Special Interest

Some of us don't fall a little. We fall completely, intrusively, consuming — and then we can't find the way out. In this episode, we talk about limerence in autistic adults: the experience of intense, involuntary romantic fixation that can feel more like an intrusive thought pattern than a choice. We explore why autistic attachment styles can make limerence more common, more intense, and more confusing — and why the shame that surrounds it is the least useful response to something that's rooted in how we attach, not who we are. Read the full article: https://www.heyasd.com/blogs/autism/autistic-limerence [https://www.heyasd.com/blogs/autism/autistic-limerence]

Affirmations for Autistic Adults: Why They Feel Like Lies (And What to Say Instead)

"I am enough." Your brain heard that and immediately started building a case against it. In this episode, we talk about why traditional positive affirmations so often fail autistic adults — and why that failure has nothing to do with negativity or low self-esteem. Literal thinking, pattern recognition, and a brain calibrated for accuracy mean that vague, aspirational self-talk often triggers the exact skepticism it's supposed to bypass. We talk about what actually works: specific, honest, evidence-based language your brain can accept without immediately auditing. Read the full article: https://www.heyasd.com/blogs/autism/autism-affirmations [https://www.heyasd.com/blogs/autism/autism-affirmations]

Monotropic Spiral: When Your Focus Becomes the Whole World

You start on one thing. Two hours later, the world has narrowed to a single point and everything else has gone quiet. That might be flow. Or it might be a spiral. Often it's both. In this episode, we talk about monotropism — the attentional theory that autistic minds tend to funnel focus deeply into fewer channels rather than distributing attention across many. We explore what that looks like in practice: the intensity of special interests, the difficulty switching tasks, the way transitions feel like interruptions at a cellular level. And we talk about why this is a cognitive style, not a deficit, even when it costs us. Read the full article: https://www.heyasd.com/blogs/autism/monotropic-spiral [https://www.heyasd.com/blogs/autism/monotropic-spiral]

Autistic Rumination: When Your Brain Won't Let the Conversation End

You said something three days ago. You're still in the debrief. Not because you want to be — because your brain won't file it away. In this episode, we talk about autistic rumination: the way certain experiences, especially social ones, get replayed on loop long after they've ended. We explore why this happens — not as a character flaw but as a feature of how autistic brains process and store experience — and what it's like to live with a mind that keeps returning to the same unresolved moments. This isn't about how to stop ruminating. It's about understanding why, and what that tells you about how you work. Read the full article: https://www.heyasd.com/blogs/autism/autism-rumination [https://www.heyasd.com/blogs/autism/autism-rumination]