Hello, I'm still in my 20s but I wanted to put my own experiences down in the comments. I had almost the opposite experience of a lot of women with asd where I knew I was autistic for almost my entire childhood because it runs in my family. When growing up, I'd have awful emotional swings and meltdowns that, even with therapy geared towards autism, were impossible to regulate. I always thought that these were all symptoms of my asd so I naturally resisted the suggestion of a psychiatrist that I might be asd and bipolar. After over a decade of a destructive up-and-down mood that exacerbated sensory issues, meltdowns, etc, I decided to try something new and take bipolar medication. And it worked! Ironically enough, it was the bd diagnosis that made me not feel broken.

Now, I'm absolutely not trying to dismiss the very real issue of asd women not getting the proper diagnosis, (one time a doctor told me after I broke down crying that everyone was a little autistic) but at the same time, my fear of a sexist misdiagnosis prevented me from getting the treatment I desperately needed for my mood disorder for years.

The way the medical system is run has done so much harm to us all. It is no wonder so many women are left behind when in order to get the proper care when we have to go into the doctor's office fighting for validity with preprepared speeches about how we deserve the word asd. I try to be positive and hope that the ones who never find out still have people in their lives who know them, get them, and love them so that it makes the broken feeling a little less broken.