So I’m autistic, now what?

August 7, 2025August 7, 2025 ~ Helen White ~ 4 Comments

I am a freshwater fish that has been forced to swim in the saltwater sea for far too long, to the point of severe abrasion to my physical body and very nearly the point of personal extinction from being in an unknowingly unsupportive environment, at the most intrinsic level, and yet all it would take is the right kind of water for me to be able to thrive just the same as any other fish to be found swimming along through its life. Knowing what kind of fish I am, what that water looks like and where it can be found is the first crucial stage.

Exploring the link between hypermobility and neurodiversity

April 15, 2023April 15, 2023 ~ Helen White ~ Leave a comment

The very fact of constantly having to adapt, to meet alien-feeling situations on their terms, when others just slide into circumstances like a hand into a well-fitting glove, exhausts systemically when we don’t even notice how much we are having to do it, how much we are constantly having to bridge the gap between what is and how we are. This may have been damaging our health for years, as surely as long term smoking or heavy drinking, only we didn’t realise it until it was too late to avoid the consequences to our health. This is why I am passionate about helping other high adapters, women especially, to realise, embrace and advocate for their neurodiversity early on in life. It seems to me, autistic women often have a sort of hypermobility of a more subtle kind; one that enables them to become whatever people expect of them…but at what cost.

Could you be a “twice-exceptional” adult?

March 25, 2022March 31, 2023 ~ Helen White ~ 1 Comment

Twice-exceptionality is such fertile territory to explore for anyone who may have even an inkling it applies to them (assumng they can get over the sticking point of using that much stigmatised word “gifted” for long enough to even consider it). The effect of being gifted in some areas and yet held back in others can make a person seem as though they are coping when they really aren’t, and it can also deprive them of the help, understanding and accommodations they desperately need for their deficit areas, as well as the recognition they deserve for their exceptionality. The outcome can be a lifetime of lost potential, fallen through the cracks, or even total burnout...until both the giftedness and challenges can be seen side by side and looked at in a whole new way.

Who or what are you holding yourself together for?

February 24, 2021March 30, 2023 ~ Helen White ~ Leave a comment

How do you measure who you are, what makes you feel core-strong regardless of what else is going on, and how does this manifest in your physical health? Boy this feels like such a big post, too much in it to summarise so dive in if you are prepared to ask these questions with me.

Executive function…reappraised

February 19, 2021February 20, 2021 ~ Helen White ~ 4 Comments

For years, I told myself my very biggest area of weakness was, in fact, my greatest strength...how's that for getting your life in a knot, leading to complete burnout, though very easily done as a woman with undiagnosed autism. Exploring the complete change of priorities that came out of this...and how it has significanly altered my a-typical lifestyle for the better.