Aspergirl Brain Aging

There are lots of differences between autistic boys and girls, besides the basic differences between boys and girls in general. Girls are more likely to work harder at a young age to fit in socially, even tho our brains aren't wired for natural socialization, while boys don't tend to hide their autistic traits while young. This leads to more girls being late diagnosed or undiagnosed autistic while boys are diagnosed earlier on in life.

The age of when someone is diagnosed or at least understands that they are autistic, has a big impact on how they develop and how their brain functions, whether things get better or worse as they age. Because of early diagnosis, boys end up getting help earlier on, while girls end up struggling on our own with no specific help in the areas of most need. This leads to our brains getting worn out and extremely tired from all of the extra work that our brains are doing. We start reaching autistic burnout more and more often because our brains are like an old computer. We can't handle the same things that we used to be able to do easily. We end up needing more help and different help because of our late diagnosis.

Also, there are the basic differences between male and female brains. Male brains are basically one track at a time and they say that they can actually empty their minds and think about nothing whatsoever when they want to. Females can't do that. Our brains have multiple computer tabs open all the time and everything is connected to everything else, like spaghetti or a ball of wire. We don't have the ability to empty our brains and think about nothing. Our brains are constantly on, with no break for us to completely recover and reset. Studies have shown that even in sleep, the female brain is many times more active and alert than the male brain.

Because of these facts about the female brain and our overuse of the brain early on in our lives as autistic people living in a non autistic world, life in general gets harder for us as we age. Our sensitivity to sensory input gets higher. Lights and sounds that were manageable before are now harder to handle because our brains have maxed out our energy too many times already and our limit gets less and less all the time. Things that we used to be able to do become harder and harder to manage, even basic life adulting skills and tasks. It is more common than people realize for an autistic person to be financially independent with a regular job, but still need lots of help for basic tasks, like cleaning and meal prep, etc. It is hard for us to admit that we need this help for things that we have done before and what we know is expected of us by those around us, but our brains just can't handle certain things anymore.

Also, if we experience trauma, especially psychological trauma, the speed with which our brain digresses can be sped up. I personally went thru psychological trauma from a narcissist boss and those few months added many years of damage to my brain's capacity to handle things in life. I know that my sensory ​sensitivity was naturally slowing increasing before the trauma, but it skyrocketed during the trauma and never went back down to the normal rate of progression. You could say that it added at least 10 years of normal wear and tear on my brain in a matter of a few months. I am coming to realizations now that I mentally can't do everything that I used to be able to do and that is hard for me. I need more help, but that helps is hard to find, as a late diagnosed autistic who is a single, independent girl.