Using Art to Help Your Autistic Mind
As an autistic individual, my mind has a lot of thoughts and I experience a lot of emotions. Sometimes it can be overwhelming.
For most of my life I didn’t know I was autistic. I didn’t understand why I seemed to have more ups and downs than others or why seemingly simple things were much harder for me… and yet some extremely challenging things were much easier for me. There was a lot that didn’t make sense.
Since I didn’t have the tools (i.e. accurate information about autism) to figure it out, I did my best to cope and understand in my own ways. I hear this from late-identified autistics over and over again — that they developed their own strategies for working with their minds even though they didn’t know they were autistic.
For me, my primary strategy has been art. I use art for different purposes at different times.
- To distract me when there are too many thoughts on my mind.
- To express my emotions when I’m feeling something especially extreme.
- To develop understanding when I’m upset by something but can’t quite figure out why.
- To tease out complexity and bring order when I’m feeling and thinking multiple things at once.
So how do I do that? Across my life I’ve done it in many different ways. I’ve…
