Common Autistic Traits in Women (Intellect, Education & Vocation)

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Let’s continue exploring common autistic traits / tendencies in women! In this second post of a four part series, I will delve into my personal traits and experiences revolving around Rudy Simone’s “List of Common Autistic Traits in Women.” There are four columns in her chart, and we’ll be discussing the second column today: intellect, education, and vocation. If you would like to read the first post of this series, here is the link: Common Autistic Traits in Women (Appearance & Personal Habits).

Please know that these traits are not only found in women. While they are most commonly found in autistic women, they can also be found in autistic men. If you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person.

Disclaimer: These are not “official” autistic traits. In Rudy Simone’s book “Aspergirls: Empowering Females with Asperger Syndrome”, she illustrates common traits/tendencies found in autistic women. If you relate to these traits, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re autistic; if you don’t relate to these traits, that doesn’t mean you are not autistic. Autism is a spectrum. These traits are intended to give you a better idea of whether or not you might be autistic, but they cannot be used to diagnose you with autism.

Below is a graph I found extremely helpful when understanding what autism often looks like in women. Created by Rudy Simone and adapted by Taylor Heaton, this chart illustrates many of the unique preferences and traits on the more feminine side of the spectrum.

Originally created by Rudy Simone and adapted by Taylor Heaton

Bear in mind, this book was published back in 2010, before Asperger’s Syndrome and Autism were combined into Autism Spectrum Disorder in 2013. Despite its age, I find the traits to still remain quite accurate, so let’s dive in!

Common Autistic Traits in Women: Intellect, Education & Vocation

Considered “gifted,” shy, or sensitive when young

Is all of the above an option? I have lived my whole life under the “shy” and “sensitive” labels. That’s valid, given I was very shy outside the house (inside was a different story, ask any of my family members), and I have always been incredibly sensitive. I still am rather shy outside the house and I’m debatably more sensitive now than when I was young. Let me explain what this looks like in my life...

Shy

My shyness outside the house stems from 2 main things:

1. When I am outside of my safe space and comfort zone, I am prone to physical and emotional overwhelm. Growing up, my family’s household was very peaceful. My family are introverts who would prefer to read and discuss a good book than attend a party with friends, so the house was usually very quiet (with me being the loudest thing within the four walls). Compared to this peaceful, calm environment, the world was loud and bright and chaotic. For an autistic person, who takes longer than neurotypical people to process sensory stimuli, I internalized any overwhelm I felt and remained quiet.

2. People are sporadic and hard to read. Staying quiet became a coping mechanism to not appear like I didn’t know what was going on. I usually have thoughts to contribute to a conversation, but because it takes my brain a little while to figure out what to say and how to say it, by the time I’m looking for a space to interject, the conversation has already moved on or I couldn’t find an appropriate time to say something without appearing rude. When in doubt, I stay quiet, because if I say nothing, I can’t mess up an interaction with someone.

Sensitive

There are many different types of sensitivities. Here are the ways I am sensitive:

1. I have sensory sensitivities, of course, but I’ll get into that more in another post.

2. I am extremely sensitive to visual and auditorial intensity. What I mean by this for the most part is I’m very sensitive to films. I steer clear of most violence and anything graphic, and I have always been traumatized by torture—to the point where it will keep me up at night if I even read about a new way someone thought of to hurt another person. It’s disgusting to me that people could even think of hurting another human being or creature like that. I really just hate seeing or hearing anyone in pain. This has caused a disconnect between my peers and I because I can’t tolerate a lot of the films most other people can, and I got made fun of for being sensitive by most of my peers at some point. In fact, I can count on one hand the number of people who have not made me feel bad for being so sensitive.

3. I’m sensitive to word usage because I’m a literal thinker. I think a lot of people misunderstand what being a “literal thinker” actually means. It’s much more subtle than believing cats and dogs are actually falling from the sky. Autistic people are not stupid. We can pick up on metaphors; it’s just not often our strong suit. For me personally, literal thinking comes more into play with the fact that I take words at their exact definition as I know it. So if I’m having a conversation with someone, and they say, “Today was horrible,” I’m going to be really concerned and immediately ask what happened, if they’re okay, and if they need anything. Because to me, “horrible” means “causing or likely to cause horror; shocking.” And this is usually the point where people will get annoyed by my intensity because they didn’t actually mean their day was horrible; they just meant they had a bad day, and they’re irritated that I didn’t pick up on what they actually meant. But to me, I wonder why they didn’t just say that they had a bad day for this, this, and this reason. The English language is massive, so why don’t people use a variety of vocabulary words to properly fit the context of the conversation? This disconnect happens to me pretty much everyday.

4. I’m sensitive to dark concepts in general. Growing up, I feel like I was constantly processing some new dark part of the world, and it took me longer than the average person to be able to mentally digest these dark and painful concepts. An example of this is when I learned of the Holocaust in middle school. Sometimes, this makes me feel really weak, but my sensitivities remind me that I’m not designed for this fallen world—I was made for something more.

Overt or covert learning deficits

I was skilled in certain areas of school. English was my strong suit. I wouldn’t call myself “gifted,” I would say I was just trained at a young age how to write good papers. To this day, writing is a big part of my life, whether I’m journaling, blogging, or creative writing.

Ironically, my covert learning deficit was reading comprehension. You can ask my mom; I really struggled to comprehend my textbooks in school. She would often help me when I was younger by reading them with me and essentially translating them for me. I struggled with them so much that I often didn’t even read them if I could get by without it. The only reason I “got away” with this is because the internet exists. I was able to watch videos or read summaries online to help me understand topics rather than reading 40 pages of the most boring textbooks on the planet.

One of the main reasons reading comprehension was so difficult for me is because I wasn’t interested in the topic or the language used was unnecessarily complicated. I was all over books that I was interested in, but as soon as it became boring, there was literally no way to get the information to stick in my brain. And it’s not for lack of trying; I remember times I’d re-read pages over and over trying to remember or understand what I just read. While this may be commonplace, I think it was definitely heightened in me because of the way my brain is geared to intensely fixate on things of interest.

Often musical and/or artistic

Yes and yes. I love music. When I was younger, I took piano lessons because I loved the way it sounded. In 9th grade, I built a huge playlist of my favorite piano pieces. I later learned to appreciate a lot of the other musical instruments, like classical guitar, the violin, ukulele, bass, and flute. I also love to sing, and I’m constantly humming something.

I am also very creative, and I’ve delved into various art forms all throughout my life. As previously mentioned, I love writing creatively and journaling. I also have been into macrame and making lovely bouquets and wall hangings with dried flowers. Additionally, I have a couple sketchbooks and a watercolor notebook.

One of the interesting things I’d like to note about drawing in particular is that I cannot draw from my imagination, but I’m really good at recreating a drawing that already exists. Recently, I learned that this is actually a more common phenomenon in autistic people than neurotypical people due to differing cognitive styles or ways of thinking/processing the world (and no, for me, it’s not aphantasia). It is theorized that autistic people have a cognitive bias towards details over the big picture. This means they may be very skilled at recreating specific lines and shapes, but struggle with the conceptual, abstract thinking required to create a new image from memory or imagination.

May have savant skill or strong talent

This may be the only trait I don’t really relate with. I wouldn’t say I have a strong talent in the traditional sense. I have been told I have an amazing voice, but I think that compliment came from the shock of seeing the shy girl get up on stage and belt. I’m not saying I have a bad singing voice, but I don’t think it’s a particularly strong talent. A lot of people can sing well.

My “talent” so-to-speak is my inhuman will power and self-control. I have a will of steel; if I set my mind to something, there is nothing that could deter me. For example, someone could put the most delicious pastry in the world in front of me, full of sugar that makes my mouth water and my brain scream at me to eat it, and I won’t because it has red-40 in it, and I know that it’s toxic. Simple as that.

May gravitate towards computers and technology, or writing, languages, and psychology

I have already discussed my love of writing, but I also love psychology—it’s actually what I got a bachelor’s degree in. Personality is really where my interest lies, and this is very common among autistic women. We are often drawn to psychology because we don’t understand people, but due to a desire to fit in, we want to understand. Growing up, I didn’t realize this is where my interest in psychology stemmed from, but now, it makes complete sense to me—I even loved studying non-verbal communication in particular so I could learn to read people better, which is a great segue into the next trait…

Many self-taught skills

This is mostly talking about masking. Social cues and nuances that neurotypicals easily pick up on don't come so easily to autistic people. Autistic women, in particular, are usually better at masking than autistic men (and that’s not necessarily a good thing). I’ve taught myself how to smile “correctly,” make the right amount of eye contact, make small talk, and read people’s body language—all so I don’t stick out like a sore thumb.

And you might think everyone has to teach themselves those things. Perhaps initially, but for neurotypicals, these things quickly become subconscious—unlike the autistic person who has to retread that information mentally before socializing. The tiny nuances in facial expression and eye contact that most people don’t even think about are distinctly difficult for most autistic people to decipher.

May be highly educated but struggle with social aspects

I was a straight A student with few to no friends. And no, I wasn’t that stereotypical nerdy girl with glasses who always had her nose stuck in a textbook and had all the answers. I was the nerdy girl who had her nose stuck in a fiction book and could ramble about the characters for hours. I always carried a book in my backpack, because I needed something to do when I felt awkward, but didn’t want to melt my brain by scrolling social media.

My first day of school

In school, I transferred a lot. When I started going to hybrid schools in elementary / middle school, I had three friends. In late middle school / early high school, I had two friends. Then in late high school and college, I had no one I considered a true friend. Personally, I think that word is thrown around too casually. To me, a friend is actually someone you purpose to and enjoy hanging out with—someone who knows and accepts you as you are. Everyone else is either an acquaintance or a stranger (there’s my literal brain being literal again).

I experienced a similar situation friend-wise growing up in the youth group at my church. I once had a decent handful of people I enjoyed hanging out with—some even became best friends. Over time, that group slowly dwindled down to zero. From realizing some people were two-faced and only pretending to like me, to both of the people I considered best friends abandoning me, I stopped doing the whole friend thing. For several years afterwards, I only hung out with my sisters (who are awesome)—until my husband came along and reminded me that there are still good, kind people outside my family who will love and accept me as I am.

May have partial degree(s)

I almost didn’t finish my bachelor’s degree in psychology—partially because I had to be pulled out of college due to autistic burnout and debilitating anxiety, and partially because I didn’t want to, which is, once again, a great transition to the next trait…

May be passionate about one course of study then change course quickly

I was very interested in psychology, specifically personality and nonverbal communication, but as the college classes got more intricate in the areas of psychology that I wasn’t interested in, I lost my fire for it. Autistic people’s special interests are known to burn quite intensely for a long time, but they can also burn out very quickly. This definitely happened to me when I was forced to focus on psychology for four years. I did finish my degree though (with a strong nudge from my parents). The sheer intensity to which autistic people focus on our special interests can cause fatigue and burnout with that topic. However, it’s also common for an autistic person to pick back up an old special interest and get right back into it.

May have trouble staying employed or finding work

Despite the fact that I graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology, it took me six months to land a decent job worth my degree. I learned the hard way that Bachelor’s Degrees don’t hold as much weight as they used to. I applied to well over 20 jobs and was interviewed several times. After one interview, I was even given a tour of where I would be working—nothing came out of it. At the time, I was preparing to get married and move into an apartment with my husband, so I needed to make a certain amount of money to afford living on our own. But no matter how many applications I filled out or interviews I completed, no one was interested in hiring me.

Now, in the current job market of the US, this is not an unusual story. It’s really hard for everyone to find a decent job these days. The reason I think it’s hard for autistic people, specifically, to get hired and stay employed is due to the following:

• The interview is often the most difficult part of the job search, requiring social skills and impression management that can be challenging for autistic individuals.

• Standard application questions may be misunderstood, leading to potential applicants being screened out before they have a chance to demonstrate their skills.

• Difficulties with social cues, non-verbal communication, and navigating the social dynamics of the workplace can lead to misunderstandings with colleagues and supervisors.

• Many autistic individuals are hypersensitive to sensory input, making many different office environments uncomfortable, distracting, or even overwhelming.

• A desire for a consistent schedule and a predictable routine can be difficult to find in many jobs, and unexpected changes in tasks or processes can be particularly challenging.

• Challenges with task planning, working memory, and executive functioning can make it harder to manage responsibilities and maintain focus in a work setting.

• Connections are everything when getting hired for a good job—something autistic people have trouble forming and maintaining, which can leave them floundering for references.

• The combination of these challenges can lead to autistic burnout, making it difficult to maintain employment long-term.

I experienced similar challenges while I worked part-time at a bakery chain while finishing my degree and job hunting. It was a chaotic environment where I was always tired from coming in at 6am and my manager was always pushing me to go faster and faster. The faster I went, the more I messed up, and she wasn’t happy with that either. Near the end of my time there, I worked at the front, decorating pastries before boxing them up for customers. I used to like that position, but as the lines got longer and the customers started giving me trouble for following the rules (because they’re the exception, I guess), the job became incredibly stressful. That, combined with the exhaustion of keeping my mask on and socializing with co-workers and customers, I wanted to leave within a few months.

Eventually, I got hired by the same company that my father works for, and I’m really grateful for his recommendation. I’m now an executive assistant for a digital marketing company. I work from home, and I didn’t even realize just how much of a blessing that was when I was hired. I can work from the comfort of my own home, which keeps me from being socially overwhelmed. It’s also been an incredible blessing because it allowed me to work while dealing with a chronic health issue. Because of these benefits, my job is not likely to burn me out.

Slow to comprehend some things due to sensory and cognitive issues

Both of these things absolutely affect how quickly an autistic person processes something. Let’s break them down.

How Sensory Issues Impact Comprehension

For me, sensory overwhelm doesn’t cause meltdowns in the traditional sense. Rather, it contributes to brain fog and autistic rage, depending on the severity of the overwhelm. A mild amount of overwhelm often causes brain fog, which makes me slower to respond to other people and not able to focus on anything very well. A build-up of sensory overwhelm contributes to autistic rage, which is the intense emotional outbursts an autistic person experiences when they are overwhelmed or triggered.

How Cognitive Issues Impact Comprehension

As an autistic woman, I struggle to decipher nonverbal communication—specifically, tone-of-voice. This difficulty understanding others and being understood by others can cause me to be a little slow on the uptake. A lot of the time, I need things re-explained to me, which is a great segue into the next trait…

Prefers written rather than verbal instructions

I don’t know if other autistic people relate to this, but I have the worst memory when it comes to words. I tend to remember things by how they made me feel. Written instructions are always better than verbal, because I can re-read it to make sure I didn’t misunderstand or miss any details. Verbal instructions tend to go right over my head the more complicated they are because I need time to process what it is I need to do. I ask a lot of questions to make sure I do something correctly. I need time to process instructions and formulate my questions to get the exact picture of what that person is looking for.

May have obsessions that are less obvious than ASD males

Did someone say “obsessions”? Yup, that is me at a constant. I am always “obsessed” with something (usually multiple things), though I prefer the word passionate or even hyperfixated. I find them less offensive.

Autistic women often have more covert special interests than autistic men, because we are generally better at masking, or hiding them. My passions take up a lot of space in my brain, but they’re not always that obvious to others because I’ve learned that most people do not accept my intensity. Since I never learned just how much intensity to show when talking about my passions, I just started staying quiet about them.

To this day, I really struggle to share my interests in a group setting among peers because I feel mute—unable to discuss anything I’m interested in for fear of being seen as weird or “immature.” Is this relatable to anyone?

Final Thoughts

And that wraps up the second column of common autistic traits in women: intellect, education, and vocation. How many of the traits did you relate with?

I need to reiterate that these are not “official” autistic traits, but rather common tendencies or preferences found in autistic women. This means that not every autistic woman will relate with them. And, of course, autistic men and neurotypicals alike can relate with them too.

If you are still reading this, thank you! Your support means the world to me. If you would like to become a mushroom among wildflowers, please consider subscribing to my blog below, or my YouTube channel. Both are appreciated, and I’ll see you in the next one.