What does autism feel like?

It sounds like a simple question. It isn’t.

In this episode of Autistic Identity with NeuroHub, David sits with a puzzle that has followed him for years: whether autism has a distinct “feel” at all, and what it means to try to describe an inner world using a language that was never designed for Autistic experience.

Drawing on ideas around the double empathy problem, linguistic relativity, and the politics of who gets to name reality, this episode explores Autistic identity as something lived, embodied, fluid, and continually authored — rather than a static diagnostic category.

This is a reflective, philosophical invitation into the complexity of Autistic being: the limits of translation, the power of story, and the quiet radicalism of developing language that belongs to us.

A gentle episode for anyone curious about Autistic identity, self-understanding, and what becomes possible when we start telling our own stories.

Who gets to tell the story of autism?

For many of us, our earliest understandings of autism came from professionals, reports, and systems that framed Autistic lives through deficit, risk, and correction. Long before we encountered Autistic voices, we were often handed stories about what autism is; and what it supposedly means for a person’s future.

In this episode of Autistic Identity with NeuroHub, David explores autism as story rather than symptom.

We look at how narratives shape identity, how internalised deficit stories quietly turn into self-surveillance and self-contempt, and how re-storying autism can become a gentle, ongoing practice of reclaiming meaning, dignity, and self-trust.

This conversation is for:

• Autistic people exploring their own identity• Families and carers wanting to move beyond “fixing” narratives• Professionals seeking relational, neurodivergence-competent ways of understanding Autistic lives

It’s an invitation to notice the stories we’re living inside — and to ask whether they are helping us breathe.

🔗 Explore Re-Storying Autism (workbook, PDF, Kindle, and on-demand video course):

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We usually meet autism through other people’s stories.

Through diagnostic language.

Through books, posts, memes, and threads.

Through words that try to explain us before we’ve had a chance to explain ourselves.

In this episode, David explores autistic identity as something we don’t simply discover, but slowly write.

An identity shaped by lived experience.

* By sensation.

* By memory.

* By relationship.

* By growth.

This is a reflective, philosophical conversation about moving from borrowed narratives to self-authored meaning; and about giving ourselves permission to change the story as we change.

If you’re early in your autistic journey, this episode offers gentle orientation.

If you’re further along, it offers permission to revise, expand, and soften old conclusions.

Autistic identity isn’t a finished product.

It’s a living text.

And you are already writing.

You don’t have to write your story alone.

You don’t have to get it “right.”

You just have to keep listening inward.

NeuroHub Community is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.