Quiet Power: A Podcast for Autistic Adults

Autism and Grief: Feeling Loss When the Scripts Don't Fit

Grief has a script. There are stages, timelines, expected behaviours, the right way to cry at the right moments. And for many autistic adults, none of it fits. In this episode, we talk about how autistic people experience grief differently — delayed responses, unexpected triggers, the way loss can arrive weeks later and feel completely disproportionate to people around us. We talk about grieving your pre-diagnosis life, grieving the person you performed for years, and what it means to process loss in your own time, in your own way, without apology. Read the full article: https://www.heyasd.com/blogs/autism/grief-and-autism [https://www.heyasd.com/blogs/autism/grief-and-autism]

Autistic Fatigue: Not Tiredness. Something Deeper

Autistic fatigue isn't about sleep. You can sleep eight hours and wake up already depleted. It's the cumulative cost of processing a world that wasn't designed for your nervous system — every conversation, every sensory adjustment, every moment of masking, adding up invisibly until the account is empty. In this episode, we make the distinction between burnout (which we covered in Season 1) and the ongoing, daily fatigue that many autistic adults manage as a background condition of their lives. We talk about what it costs to exist in neurotypical spaces, why the exhaustion is often invisible to everyone including ourselves, and what the difference is between rest that restores and rest that just pauses. Read the full article: https://www.heyasd.com/blogs/autism/autistic-fatigue [https://www.heyasd.com/blogs/autism/autistic-fatigue]

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

You know something is wrong. You're not okay. But if someone asks you to name it, you come up blank. Not because you're not feeling anything. Because the signal between body and language is missing, delayed, or scrambled. In this episode, we open Season 2 with one of the most common and least talked about autistic experiences: alexithymia. The difficulty identifying and describing your own emotional states. We talk about what it actually feels like from the inside, why it's so often mistaken for not caring, and what it means for relationships, self-care, and the very human expectation that you should know how you feel. Read the full article: https://www.heyasd.com/blogs/autism/alexithymia [https://www.heyasd.com/blogs/autism/alexithymia]

When the World Won't Quiet: Yoga as a Sensory Reset

Pause for a moment. Notice the background hum. Feel the fabric against your skin. Take in the light around you. In this episode, we talk about yoga and mindfulness not as exercise or self-improvement, but as practical tools for sensory regulation. I explore what happens when the brain’s filtering system becomes unreliable, and how the lesser-known senses like balance, body awareness, and internal signals quietly shape whether we feel grounded or unsteady. We walk through how gentle movement, pressure, predictable sequences, and breath can help the nervous system settle. This includes grounding poses that bring you back into your body, flowing movements that offer rhythm and predictability, and simple breathing techniques that act as a manual override when overwhelm starts to rise. This episode reframes movement-based regulation as care in motion. What often looks like restlessness or fidgeting can be the body trying to self-soothe. Instead of suppressing those signals, we talk about listening to them, working with them, and building small rituals that restore a sense of agency and safety. https://www.heyasd.com/blogs/autism/yoga-and-mindfulness-for-sensory-regulation [https://www.heyasd.com/blogs/autism/yoga-and-mindfulness-for-sensory-regulation]

When Music Becomes a Lifeline: Sound as a Tool for Autistic Regulation

Music is often treated as background or entertainment. For many autistic adults, it is something much more practical. In this episode, we talk about music and sound as tools for regulation rather than luxury. I explore how rhythm, vibration, repetition, and predictable sound can help move the nervous system from overload into something steadier and more manageable. We look at different sensory needs, including those who seek sound and movement and those who need buffering and quiet. Through simple, hands-on examples, we talk about how everyday sounds and small creative activities can become anchors for focus, emotional regulation, and communication. This includes breathing patterns, repetitive sound play, and low-effort ways to bring structure to sensory chaos. This episode reframes sound as something you can shape rather than endure. With small, intentional choices, noise can become supportive instead of overwhelming. The goal is not perfect calm, but agency. Choosing what your nervous system hears and when. https://www.heyasd.com/blogs/autism/music-and-sound-based-sensory-activities [https://www.heyasd.com/blogs/autism/music-and-sound-based-sensory-activities]