Re: Beyond The Talk: What Else Autistic Girls Need to Know About Puberty

February 24, 2014

Re: Beyond The Talk: What Else Autistic Girls Need to Know About Puberty

Re: Beyond The Talk: What Else Autistic Girls Need to Know About Puberty.

Beginning to end, this was me throughout childhood and even into my late twenties. Still a struggle, but am more conscious of the issue now.

I never learned how to speak girl-talk, and my hygiene issues couldn’t have helped.

My mood would switch from flat to furious in no time.

Being youngest kid on the totem pole, I always lost the battle for morning showers unless I got up 3+ hours before the school bus. I might have showered once a week, and didn’t change clothes much, let alone underwear. I owned deodorant but don’t remember replacing it. Ever.

I was astonished as an adult to find out people routinely washed their bed/bath linens–I’d go years, til one set actually wore out, before changing sheets.

I rarely brushed my teeth, since my assertion that the toothpaste felt oily was dismissed as ridiculous. My mother later said she had taken my saying I had brushed my teeth to mean I didn’t feel like it, and she left it at that. I had actually designated particular fingers for tooth-fur scraping, nose picking, and toe-jam removal.

My parents divorced when I was 6, and from what I gathered as an adult, each thought I was the other’s responsibility in these departments.

 

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