How I Identify Autism in Undiagnosed Women

A year into my art therapy private practice, I refined my niche to highly intelligent women with overwhelming emotions and thoughts. What I didn’t realize was that this niche would attract a higher than normal amount of undiagnosed autistic women.

Why is that?

First, most undiagnosed adult women are typically highly intelligent. It is their intelligence that enabled them to go unnoticed in school. They excelled in their classes and were heavily praised. They did so well that people did not need to stop and take a closer look.

High intelligence also helped these individuals to learn masking and camouflaging skills that hide how they would actually like to behave or how they truly feel. They have the lived interior experience of autism, but it does not show externally.

In contrast, most autistic boys display far more external autistic characteristics or coping behaviors that alert people to the possibility they might be autistic, such as overt stimming and outbursts.

Autistic girls, whether by nurture or nature, care far more about blending in socially and typically learn to mask these behaviors. They may have a desire to rock side to side or hum to themselves, but they do not because they are aware it makes them socially different. This leads many autistic girls to hold more inside, often leading to the development of depression and anxiety at an early age.