Thank you for summarizing my experience! I've always felt different and struggled to fit in, often feeling inadequate and unable to connect with others. I've managed to navigate the world to some extent, but I've always felt confined to the label of mental health, which never quite fit. Watching this video has brought both relief and sadness - relief in knowing I'm not alone in my experiences, but sadness that it took nearly 40 years to understand myself better and to realize what makes me tick. My sense of identity has been questioned, and I'm grateful to no longer feel isolated in my journey.

I am going to do diagnosis as it looks like i may have Asperger's. But i can say for sure is i love people around here!❤

I would call this essential watching for anyone who is or knows an autistic woman. I relate completely to your description, yet I did not get diagnosed until the age of 72. I believe my life could have been easier, or at least made more sense, had I known sooner. Thank you so much for this video!

Definitely one of the most important videos I have seen, it’s like describing my entire life in a 90 minute video.

What a brilliant video and about 90% is relevant to me as a male. There must be many men who are more female in their autistic characteristics.

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Ok, but try being an autistic female AND being put on an SSRI before you started puberty and so you never developed a libido, had no sensation in your bits, and had the gender issues that come with autistism. Now that's what I call a winning combination. So what's the prize? What do I win? Having my sexuality screwed up for the rest of my life?

I got recommended this because I've been looking into getting a diagnosis and it was painfully me and now I don't know how to feel 😂

i always love to hear Sarah speak I enjoyed seeing her in York because as an autistic lady myself i can relate to her. Hazel

"Autism" is derived from Greek word "autos" which means self - so do many autistic withdrawal into one's inner world?

I've been told I'm selfish because I don't always like sharing my goodies, but thanks for letting me know it's just a survival skill.

6 years on, my GP is sufficiently autism aware to refer me, a 66 year old woman, for assessment to specialist unit and to MHT, but the mental health team psychiatrist and my care coordinator declare themseves under informed on autism, and, while accepting my issues, feel uncertain on how to help me. This is Avon and Wiltshire MHP.

Very good talk.

Watching this with my multitude of cats, knitting at 7am after being up all night in Wales with a mountain outside my bedroom window. Have PCOS and a boy needing a ASD diagnosis! Sons dad is an engineer undiagnosed but def on the spectrum!

sometimes we hypothesize that because we are indigenous we aren’t traumatized the same ways as everyone else because of that we don’t necessarily know how others will read into implied messages through their Egos they see a fat slob who feels entitled… we’re just trying to survive things day to day #autism #audhd #ottawa

Really profound when someone says the words that resonate so deeply. Spend a lifetime feeling so alone, thank you for the video

It’s scary how well this fits me.

again differences for those womdering.. some not into FictioN at aLL. ever.. including stupid comedies romcoms, pointless stories etd.. whats the point.. why would you waste your time with this fake stuff... etc... only nonfiction factuals manuals, biographies, true stories documentaries etc etc.. but the extreme is the same

44:10-44:40🤣🤣🤣🤣 and then we find adult versions of this when older.. mine is no kitchen /indoor work... go outside with the blokes putting something up, BBQing.. or pick flowers/plants, or look at insects [if no pets to distract with] or go to bathroom.. wash cars ... aaaaaaanything to not do the social weird stuff - .. exxxtreeeme agony of...

i have to say in case this is helpful for anyoone else.. i notice the amber lenses.. i have always been very low socioeconomic so hasnt had expensive glasses.. but through my life, sometimes ome cheap coloured lense sunglasses have adjusted my brain - amber i rember calmed it or trance like vibe from memory... maaaaaany years later, throughout the years every now and then i have heard of behavioural optometry.. i think i heard of it when my ND sons were young... the prices put that straight out of my chances.... but i recall it as a thing... is this what Sarah is wearing???..

fyi.. some of us arent linear and the common sense is exact opposite... it may be because i have adhd im not sure.. but i know some other ASDers are same as i decscribe.. others lack of common sense drives us crazy - but cant do much anything linear on demand... unless it our obsession etc ;)

The more you talk, the more I see the importance of the non-binary movement, particularly for teenage girls. I never wanted to be friends with girls so just remained a tom boy, I'm 41yrs old now. Men have always been more accepting of me, but then i do like engineering and cars and building things. I do do the psychology thing. One of my long lasting special interests is trying to figure out peoples intentions!

Totally relating to this. Personally I cant be bothered to try and keep friendships with neurotypicals anymore. I'm starting to unmask and it's such a massive relief. Luckily I do have neurodivergent friends and access to more if I need. I'm tired of pretending and tired of trying and tired of being rejected by neurotypical folk. It's time to start being myself and showing up as myself ❤

I really like listening to professionals talking about autism because they are teaching me about myself. And i didn't know myself as well as i thought till now that i learned more

I helped my son reduce aggression and improve in speech and social skill with the help of Dr Oyalo herbal supplement I got from KZbin here. His herbs work perfectly

I always felt like I was just bad at life also! Ever since I got my diagnosis a year or 2 ago in my mid 30s though I've been far more forgiving of myself

Something that utterly blows my mind almost daily is that we have all this socially collected data on what an autistic person wants out of life, and we're at the cutting edge of actually talking to people on their own terms and making videos and talks exactly like this that are extremely illuminating and help people like me understand themselves at a level previously entirely impossible... Then we STILL HAVE all the other teachings of 4000+ years of human society to STILL factor in to the complexity of life. It's not enough to think about how we can accommodate an autistic person, we have to think about the seemingly huge populations already out there, how they interact together, how they cooperate and contribute, what kind of society they can make... THEN integrate that into the conventional Allistic society that we read about in the history books of life and all the extreme amounts of diatribe and complexity that comes with trying to get THEM to respond to the 'right' (by cultural standards) stimulus in the 'right' (Productive) way, THEN THEN THEN!!!!!! you have to add THOSE two entirely separate algebraic problems together and fuse that into some other kind of functional world where no one feels under served and AHJHHHHAHAHAHHAHAHDHDHSHDHABFSLJKGLSKJGLK!! It makes my brain explode! I thought when I started with history, philosophy, PoliSci, Anthropology, theology and psychology that I would eventually arrive at an understanding. A "right plan" to proceed. Then 15 years later now I'm 34 and realizing how impossibly huge of a task this is and I wake up literally every single day without exaggeration and just feel the weight of solving it all myself (and perhaps writing some kind of manual or even Fantasy-fiction presentation of this 'solved' society to show my worth as a human being) and it just crushes me. I'm trying so hard to throw this burden off of myself but I feel so utterly worthless everytime I make 'progress'. Anyway, 2nd time I've watched this entire lecture and it makes me feel a little better that there's people like Sarah Hendrickx and other researchers and personalities out there working away at their little part of the problem, though it takes much of the pressure off of me I still seek to find out how I can integrate myself into this huge group project, the first thing I've ever encountered in my entire lifetime that actually seems like it makes my own existence finally worthwhile and understandable.

Lots of good advice here! I slightly disagree with the point on gender: while it's true that autistic people tend to see through the arbitrary nature of gender *roles*, in addition to that, and completely separate from that, a disproportionate number of autistic people are also transgender in the sense of only being comfortable in their body after making their hormonal sex match their neurological sex, which is a quite different phenomenon. (e.g. I don't care one bit about gender roles, but I do need my body to be female because my brain is and I need my body to match my brain in order to be comfortable in it). Most likely, the same proportion of allistic people feel the same, but they're more susceptible to peer pressure to suppress who they are for longer. The rest though, that all seems spot on!

I need to find a place that can diagnose me - I'm 56 now an I live in Germany. Wo kann ich mich als Frau in Deutschland diagnostizieren lassen? Nach schlechten Erfahrungen mit dem therapeutischen System hier, bin ich sehr ängstlich und vorsichtig.

I would love to live in the middle of nowhere. It's too overwhelming in the suburbs for me.

I find with all mental and severe physical disabilities, people are so much better when they have a supportive environment... especially growing up. I didn't have that at all, and I believe if I had, I would have done ao much better in life.

A teenage boys social life changes dramatically as well. guys become more competitive and aggressive with one another about practically everything and anything they can think of. It becomes one big competition nobody told you was going to happen. Theres a reason why you will typically only see wholesome heartfelt connections between groups of boys getting along BEFORE they hit puberty in media(i.e stand by me, stranger things) . It gets nasty, violent, and incredibly awkward.

Thank you, struggling with undiagnosed autism only creates more anxiety. Harder at 63, but I will survive 🔥🎇🧡

S-l-o-w D-o-w-n I'm out of breath listening to you. Good content though

I love cats, I can name all breeds, and I started to read all kinds of boring books about cats since 10. I love making crafts and I’m addicted since I was 2 - I even turned it into a career. I love criminal psychology my entire life (since like 12 ish ?) Why is everything hitting your point precisely 😭 I’m so surprised 😭😭

I really did like you Billy! But your library was unignorable. I'd read everything at home, school/church, and downtown. If only you could have let me finish 📚

I liek you. you're nice. :]

Love you, from one autistic mature woman to another

Around 36 minutes, a child is not responsible to help themselves have their feelings. Rather, it seems to me, the grown ups in a child's life should treat a stubborn, angry child the exact same way they would treat a sweet, sad child: with tenderness and understanding ... and the caregivers should never, ever treat a stubborn child by how the child "behaves". The child is way too young to make them responsible for their feelings/behavior. The reason a child might say, "That's just the way I am!" is that the child most likely overheard a caretaker or other adult saying those words, and I would guess those words frightened the "emotionally abandoned" child so deeply that the response is always given exactly the same with an angry tone. Anger is a secondary emotion. It covers up hurt 🤕😔. I WAs that stubborn, unlikeable child. Because no one patiently and sweetly OVERLOOked my childish inability to deal with my feelings, except for my sweet second grade teacher Pamela P. That was the only year in school I didn't feel like a flawed, even monstrous, mistake. Middle school, three high schools, mostly bad memories. Just like 1:09:00, I did not know until Sarah H. just explained it, that the reason I felt so disliked at the third high school was because the kids I hung out with did not even want me to hang out with them. (I wish 1000 times that they had just Told me that!!!) As Sarah says, it is not intuitive (for me)... And very often, it is years later, or decades later, that I finally figure it out. Hindsight is 20 20. I'm just exhausted and feeling hollow and frightened. Too many painful memories all just in the past hours. I'm sooooooooooooo glad that many of you are figuring this all out earlier in your lives. May this world 🌍 🌎 🌏become a more loving place every day🕊️

How do diminishing hormones during the perimenopausal years affect women w/ASD vs men with ASD?

How does attractiveness impact the teen years & early adulthood in females vs males?

I wish you would include the third tactics that is used when the social issue of making friends (21:00) comes up. Yes, sometimes mirroring is used, sometimes hiding, but sometimes attacking the potential friend is the tactic used. By trying to make them feel inferior and thus repelling them and leaving them feeling like the blame is on them for not being our friend, escape is possible. (Sorry for the passive voice used for anonymity).

nobody cares about autism

paradoxically, making myself vulnerable with someone makes me feel safe. it makes me feel safe up until the point where they hurt me.

Wait... those slides. Are you using Beamer?

Some of my best memories: from childhood - drawing with my cousin (no talk), from relationships - cycling with an ex partner

I saw an amazing doco on an Australian woman who designed the sewing machine software & sewed these phenomenal detailed 3D native flowers She has put the software out for free...If anyone is so inclined😊...

Wow only here as my 12yr old asd BUT here i am in your synopsis....lol yes Feminine garb makes me feel like Im cross-dressing & made sure I eas witty mouthpeice & best friend of "gang" leader primarily to protect myself from her sargeants & minions... Drats! He IS walking the yard... Great insights thankyou

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i felt like that looks like an Episcopal church. but then i thought, well, you /are/ in england, after all, huh? my girlfriend wears jeans and hoodies and never puts on makeupl and never makes eye contact with me and never calls on the phone and just texts and i /love/ it. i love her ^_^