This Isn’t Just About Traits—It’s About Time
By Michelle Labine May 10, 2025
When people talk about autism, especially from a diagnostic lens, the conversation often centers around traits: social communication, sensory sensitivity, restricted interests, emotional regulation. And while those markers matter, they’re only part of the story—especially for women diagnosed later in life.
Because for us, it’s not just about traits. It’s about time.
It’s about all the years we lived without knowing. The years we carried invisible weight. The years we learned to shape ourselves around what was expected, instead of what was true.
What Wasn’t Named Was Still There
For girls and women of our generation, autism wasn’t something we were encouraged to consider. It wasn’t something that was visible to us—in the media, in schools, in diagnostic tools, or in the people around us. If anything, we were explicitly excluded from the narrative.
So instead of being seen as Autistic, we were called:
- Anxious
- Sensitive
- Moody
- Difficult
- Dramatic
- Controlling
- “Too much”
We internalized those labels. We carried them like a private shame.
Many of us were praised for being smart, kind, responsible, successful—while silently unraveling inside. We became masters at showing up. At reading the room. At performing calm. At carrying the emotional load. At blending in.
We weren’t supported. We were shaped.
When the Framework Finally Arrives
By the time we reach midlife, we’ve lived an entire lifetime without a coherent way to understand our inner experience.
So when we finally come across a framework—through diagnosis, self-identification, or a slow inner unfolding—it doesn’t just explain a set of traits. It reframes everything.
It doesn’t land gently. It lands with relief—because things make sense now. But it also lands with rupture—because we can’t unsee what we’ve lost.
We look back on decades of coping without context.
We revisit memories of meltdowns dismissed as overreactions.
We remember how often we pushed through overwhelm, because “that’s just what people do.”
We ache for the younger versions of ourselves who were doing their best without the language or permission to ask for what they needed.
This isn’t just about realizing we’re Autistic. It’s about realizing we went decades without knowing—and what that did to us.
We Don’t Just Carry Traits—We Carry Time
We carry:
- The time we spent pretending we were okay.
- The time we spent pushing ourselves past our limits.
- The time we spent feeling broken, confused, or ashamed.
- The time we spent trying to be someone other than who we were.
And so this late-in-life recognition? It’s not just a new piece of information. It’s a turning point. A reckoning. A quiet revolution.
Because now, we finally get to stop blaming ourselves.
Now, we get to offer ourselves context.
Now, we get to say: That wasn’t my failure. That was my nervous system asking for help.
Now, we get to ask: What do I need—today? What would it mean to live with more gentleness and less pretending?
This Is the Work of Our Generation
We are part of a generation of women unmasking not only in the social sense—but at the level of story.
We’re peeling back decades of adaptation to uncover what’s real.
We’re grieving time lost and reclaiming what remains.
We’re rewriting what Autistic womanhood looks like—at midlife, in relationships, in careers, in parenting, in solitude.
And we’re learning, finally, how to stop explaining ourselves to ourselves.
This isn’t just about traits. It never was.
It’s about time.
It’s about truth.
And it’s about finding our way back to the person we were always meant to be—before the world taught us to disappear.
- What messages did I internalize growing up about being “too much” or “not enough”?
- When did I first start performing or editing myself to fit in?
- What does it feel like to look at my past with this new lens?
- What would it look like to show up as myself—without apology?
