Things I Thought Were Just Me: Autism, ADHD, and the Invisible Experience of Women and AFAB People

The understanding of Autism is changing, slowly, unevenly, and often in ways that feel both clarifying and disorienting at the same time. For many Autistic women and AFAB (assigned female at birth) individuals, this shift does not feel like stepping onto a new path, but rather like realizing you have been walking one all along, just without a map, without markers, and often without anyone naming where you are.

For years, the terrain has been shaped by frameworks built primarily around male presentations of Autism. And so many women and AFAB individuals learned, early on, to walk carefully, watching others, studying their pace, adjusting their steps to match what seemed expected. They learned where to place their feet, when to pause, when to move forward. Not because the path came naturally, but because staying connected often depended on learning how to walk it well.

The result is what is often described as a “lost generation” individuals who moved through childhood and early adulthood sensing difference, but without language to anchor it. But the path was never empty.

It was simply harder to see.  Research suggests that up to 80% of Autistic females remain undiagnosed by age 18. The path was never walked by fewer people, only fewer were recognized.

A growing body of work now suggests that many Autistic girls are, quite literally, hiding in plain sight. They may appear socially engaged, relationally motivated, even intuitive. They may make eye contact, form friendships, express empathy, and demonstrate a desire to belong. From a distance, it can look like they are moving along the same path as everyone else.

But what is often missed is how they got there.  Many Autistic girls learn to walk the path through observation rather than instinct. They study how others move, how conversations begin and end, how tone shifts, how humor is used, how belonging is signaled. They develop scripts. They rehearse. They imitate. They memorize the terrain rather than feel it beneath their feet.

They are not walking the path intuitively. They are learning it. And over time, they become very good at making it look natural. What is less visible is the cost of this kind of walking.

Because what appears smooth from the outside is often effortful from within. Autistic girls and women are more likely to internalize their experiences, carrying anxiety, depression, and self-doubt rather than expressing distress outwardly. They may hold themselves together in structured environments, only to collapse in private, once the effort of walking in this way can no longer be sustained. The path is not easier. It is simply quieter. And because it is quieter, it is often missed.

This invisibility shapes development in profound ways. When a child’s natural way of moving through the world is consistently misunderstood, she does not simply adapt, she reorganizes. She begins to question her own instincts. She learns to override her own needs. She internalizes the belief that if something feels difficult, it must be because she is doing something wrong.

Over time, this can lead to chronic self-doubt, perfectionism, and relational patterns shaped by over-accommodation, people-pleasing, hyper-attunement to others, and a gradual erosion of self-trust. It is not uncommon for Autistic women to be misdiagnosed with anxiety, depression, or even Borderline Personality Disorder, not because these experiences are absent, but because the path they have been walking has never been correctly identified.

As research evolves, new markers are beginning to appear. The concept of the Female Autism Phenotype offers a way of understanding how Autism may present differently in women and AFAB individuals, often in ways that are more internalized, more relational, and more easily overlooked.

When diagnostic bias is accounted for, the ratio of Autistic males to females may be far closer than once believed, potentially approaching parity. The path was never less populated, only less accurately mapped.

What is increasingly clear is that these differences are not simply anecdotal, they are measurable. Autistic women often demonstrate higher levels of social masking, imitation, and sensory sensitivity, alongside behaviors that more closely align with social expectations. From the outside, their movement along the path may appear more fluid, more socially attuned. But this does not mean the path is easier. In many ways, it means the terrain is more demanding.

Because what is smoothed over externally is carried internally. Sensory environments that others move through without noticing can feel overwhelming or intrusive. Social interactions are not simply experienced, they are constructed, moment by moment, through observation and adjustment. Each step requires attention. Each step requires effort. This is where the concept of camouflaging becomes essential.

Camouflaging is not simply adapting, it is learning to walk in shoes that were never shaped for your feet, and doing so so consistently that others assume the fit is natural. It involves rehearsing conversations, suppressing authentic reactions, and analyzing interactions long after they have ended. But more than that, it can become identity-based.

Over time, the question is no longer just how do I walk this path? It becomes who do I need to be to stay on it?  This creates a quiet but profound tension, between belonging and authenticity. The path is not just something being walked.  It is something being walked while becoming someone else.

Research also suggests that higher levels of camouflaging are associated with increased rates of anxiety, depression, and suicidality. What allows someone to remain unseen is often the very thing that carries the greatest cost. And the body keeps track.

Chronic camouflaging often keeps the nervous system in a state of sustained activation, a kind of social hypervigilance where the body is continuously scanning, adjusting, anticipating. Over time, this can lead to cycles of anxiety, tension, and overextension, followed by periods of collapse, exhaustion, withdrawal, and a loss of capacity.

This is often described as Autistic burnout. Not simply fatigue, but depletion. Not just tiredness, but the sense that the path itself can no longer be walked in the same way.

These patterns often become most visible at key transition points, moments when the terrain shifts. Adolescence. University. Parenthood. Times when social demands increase and structure decreases. What was once manageable through imitation or proximity becomes harder to sustain.

The path, once obscured, begins to reveal itself. There is often grief here. Grief for the years spent walking without support.  Grief for the ways the terrain was misunderstood. Grief for the younger self who learned to keep going, even when the path did not make sense.  And yet, there is also relief. A quiet recognition that the difficulty was never a personal failure. it was a mismatch between the individual and the path they were expected to follow.

This understanding is further deepened by the work of Damian Milton, who introduced the concept of the double empathy problem. Rather than viewing Autistic communication as inherently deficient, this framework suggests that misunderstanding is reciprocal. It is not that one person cannot walk the path correctly, but that different people are navigating entirely different terrains,  The issue is not the walker.  It is the design of the path.

When viewed through the lens of minority stress, this becomes even more complex. Autistic women are not only navigating neurodivergence, they are navigating systems shaped by expectations of gender, emotional expression, and relational behavior. They are expected to be intuitive, accommodating, socially fluent. These expectations intersect with masking in ways that create chronic, often invisible strain. And that strain accumulates. It shapes how the path is experienced. How the body responds. How identity is formed, and, at times, fragmented.

Alongside formal research, community-created resources have become landmarks. in their own right. Samantha Craft’s list of Autistic traits in women functions like a handwritten sign along the path, unofficial, but deeply recognizable. It captures experiences that many have lived but never seen named.

More formal research offers structured maps, useful, but still evolving.  And works like Divergent Mind by Jenara Nerenberg invite us to question the path itself, who defined it, who it was built for, and what it might mean to walk differently.  If you are reading this and beginning to recognize yourself, it may not feel like clarity at first.  It may feel like disorientation.  Like looking back and realizing that the path you thought you were failing to walk was never designed with you in mind.  This is a common part of the process.  Because for many Autistic women and AFAB individuals, recognition is not about arriving somewhere new.

It is about pausing,  looking back,  and seeing that every step, every adjustment, every moment of effort, makes sense in a way it never did before. And from here, something else becomes possible. Not just walking the path more clearly,  but choosing how to walk it.  Or perhaps, for the first time, stepping off the path entirely, and beginning to shape one of your own.