Being diagnosed as autistic at age 36 was a life-changing moment. Suddenly, it felt like all of my questions about myself were answered. Many resources and interventions were crucial to my realization: therapy, journaling, the first-person perspectives of the autistic TikTok community. But it was meditation that set me up more than anything else for this discovery. On this World Meditation Day, read on for some personal perspectives on mindfulness, meditation, and autistic self-discovery.
TW: This post describes panic attacks and other mental health issues. Take care of yourself and skip sections as needed. If you need additional support, you might consider reaching out to a counselor, doctor, or other trusted person.
Meditation is not one size fits all, nor does it substitute for professional care. I also recognize that it is not accessible to everyone. Your experience with meditation may differ, and may benefit from a trauma-sensitive approach. If you’ve experienced adverse effects from meditation, you may also be interested in the resources at The Cheetah House.
Observing My Mind
My first opportunity to cultivate mindfulness came during move-in week at college. I had just turned 18 the very day I moved into my dorm. I didn’t know it, but I was about to enter one of the most difficult mental health periods of my life.
Thankfully, I noticed “Buddhist Meditation Sitting,” on the campus event calendar that came with my welcome packet. I was intrigued. I had read Hesse’s Siddhartha as part of a unit on Buddhism in high school, and I wanted to know more about the practice.
So I showed up to the student union on the first Wednesday of the semester and took my place on a cushion. A staff member, who volunteered each week in addition to his formal job duties, welcomed us. “Think of your thoughts like cars on the highway,” he said. “Watch each one pass, just don’t get in.”
This was more difficult than it sounded. I’d sit sometimes for the whole session, and only realize I had been lost in thought when the singing bowl rang out. Other times, I’d grasp at my mind so tightly the thoughts only seemed to race faster. Yet I found myself looking with new eyes at our campus each Wednesday afternoon. The leaves of the trees, the sun playing on the bricks of the library walls, and the feeling of the pavement under my feet all seemed more alive. Apparently, I was so lost in my own thoughts and feelings sometimes that I’d lose my connection to the world around me.
Panic and Calm
At the same time, I was beginning to experience the first symptoms of panic disorder. I recognized the feeling from childhood. Yet it had never escalated to the level I was now dealing with. I confided in my boyfriend at the time, who encouraged me to talk to my mom. She helped me get set with the counseling center at campus, but it would not be until junior year that I attended regularly, and was able to become more open with my counselor.
Amidst these strong emotions, the Wednesday sittings were an oasis. I had panic attacks just about everywhere on campus: my dorm, the library, my favorite coffee shop, outside on the quad. Yet I never had an attack while immersed in the quiet routine of the meditation room above the student union.* And I was learning to “watch the cars without getting in.” Rather than grasping, I found myself letting go. No need to control my thoughts. They’d come and go as they pleased, and I didn’t need to latch on to them.
New Focus
I found myself experiencing stretches of a lucidity unlike any I’d ever seen. My gaze rested lightly on the autumn trees across the quad. My breath was the anchor, and my thoughts danced gently around it. I was calm, light, and free. Interestingly, this led me sometimes to aim for this feeling on purpose. If my mind was busy, I’d imagine myself floating weightless in space to try to induce it. After a time, I realized I was attached to the feeling, and moved on from trying to recapture it. The feeling was not the point, it was the practice and the process, a difficult thing for someone very attached to achievement to accept.
*This is not a universal experience, and meditation can also increase strong feelings for many people.
An Opportunity
One afternoon I received an email regarding the meditation sitting. The religious life office had hoped to include it in the events of the day for a wider celebration of the many spiritual resources on campus. But our leader was sick, so it would likely be cancelled.
Here’s where I went out on a limb.
“It seems a shame to cancel. I’ve attended regularly for two years. Would you like me to try leading it?”
And so I set up the space just as our teacher did, made a pot of tea, and repeated his words as best I could. I emphasized that I was a participant and student, not a pro, but hoped they’d return for our usual sitting. It was one of the first times in my life where I offered something up completely freely. I had no motive beyond allowing others to have a window into the practice as we’d planned. And while I was momentarily nervous to volunteer, in the end a feeling of generosity overcame my doubts. “I will do my best and hopefully they will get something out of it,” I thought.
Stepping Up
Flash forward to my junior year. The staff member who regularly led our sessions was taking a position elsewhere. Because meditation was not officially in his job description, the sessions were in jeopardy. But my volunteer opportunity the year before yielded a solution. The religious life office asked if I’d be willing to continue it, and I agreed, with the same caveats as before: I’m a student and a practitioner, and I haven’t taken refuge as a Buddhist yet. The thought of the sessions not continuing outweighed my reservations.
Each week I showed up to the meditation space in the newly minted Religious Life Center. Often, I was the only one present, yet each week I’d go through my routine. Put out a variety of cushions. Place the singing bowl near my own seat. Brew the tea and place the cosy around the pot. Arrange a plate of ginger cookies. If someone arrives, welcome them and give a brief explanation. Then, either way, ring the bell and keep time. By the time I graduated, I’d accumulate many hours on my own with my thoughts and feelings in that space.
Accepting Thoughts and Feelings
I quickly learned to accept that I would often sit alone. And I think my practice deepened because of it. I was on my own in the space, no expectation to do anything in particular, and yet I still chose to sit. Somehow that was meaningful. And no matter how sporadic my individual practice was, I always knew that I had Wednesday afternoon.
Once I tapped the singing bowl, I was free of the obligation I felt to ruminate and worry. In retrospect, I believed these habits kept me safe. And meditation was permission to take time off from active worrying and just notice whatever thoughts popped up. If they still seemed important after the bowl rang out again, I could act on them later.
Simultaneously, I was working with my counselor on cognitive behavioral therapy techniques. I learned that feeling fear didn’t necessarily mean I was in imminent danger. I came to understand that my thoughts weren’t me. They were thoughts, and I could have agency as they arose. This paralleled my progress on the cushion. I noticed a thought, then returned. I noticed another thought, then returned. Whether I was actively meditating or sitting at my desk studying, I could now sometimes accept strong feelings and worried thoughts without adding fuel to the fire. Notice, go back. Notice, go back.
This was crucial progress to my ultimate realization. There was no way I could see myself clearly through the fog of panic and reactivity. And no way that I could be open to others’ perspectives when I was so wrapped up in my own thoughts.
Adding a Pause
With the ability to notice my thoughts and return to an anchor came a new possibility: a pause between impulse and action. Previously, when I felt the first tingles of strong emotion, my mind was immediately gripped. Now, I was occasionally able to see the thought, acknowledge it, and decide for myself how to act. If I had a worried thought about a paper not due for three weeks, for example, I might choose to schedule pre-writing time and move on from the thought. Or perhaps decide that I could deal with it later. It was a very different experience from the past tendency to spiral into vivid scenes of myself failing out of college.
I also learned that I could ask for help during that pause. For the first time, I sought out a friend during an unusually intense attack. Another time, I called the counseling help line. I was a little bit less alone. Although I wasn’t thinking of it this way at the time, I was experiencing a new self-awareness and agency in my life. I still sometimes felt swept away by the rapids. Yet I was also learning to keep my head above water. With this bigger picture view now available to me, and the help of counseling, I was starting to recognize patterns in the thoughts that fueled my panic.
Recognizing the Patterns
In therapy, I was coming to a realization. Most of my panic-inducing thoughts revolved around a fear of making mistakes, forgetting something, failing, or “being discovered.” There was still some mystery around their origin, but naming the patterns was starting to lessen their hold on me.
My therapist also helped me come up with a way to ride out panic attacks. Seated meditation was not a solution for me, as it tended to amplify my feelings if I was already spiralling. Instead, my counselor recommended that I choose some simple tasks and narrate them to myself. “Now I am picking up the dirty tea cup on my desk. Now I am walking to the door. One, two, three, for five steps. Now I am going down to the kitchen. I am turning on the water and feeling it heat up.”
Another Way to Meditate
It took me years to realize that this was itself a form of meditation! Instead of my breath, an internal sensation that felt stressful during panic, I was focused on my external actions in the present moment. This was effective because my panic tended to live in the future. I would fail, I would be rejected–and yet in the present moment, none of that was true. It was just a story, a thought that would arise and fall away again. Resting my attention on what was actually happening around me helped emphasize that.
A crucial turning point came on Halloween of senior year. As I entered my dorm room, a flash of panic struck. I noticed it, determined there was no threat around me, and I returned to my previous sense of calm. I felt a surge of relief and contentment. It would be the last panic attack of my college years, though not of my life.
New Questions and Answers
After college, I went to graduate school, and then taught at a university. Throughout this time, I developed a personal practice that sustained what I’d learned earlier. And it was there to catch me when I hit my next hurdle, alongside other interventions like therapy.
Teaching full time challenged me physically and mentally. The old anxiety and doubt began to creep in. I remember vividly the day that I had another flash of panic, the first in many years. It was on the treadmill, and my pounding heart led my body to scream DANGER. I noticed, I slowed down, and I returned to my breath as it slowed. Yet I was disturbed. Why was I headed down this path again?
This time, I would not hide it or deny that I was struggling. With my spouse by my side, and a new therapist, I began to investigate more honestly than ever before. And after years of practice at noticing my thoughts and feelings on the cushion, I was able to see clearly what I had not always acknowledged in the new pause between impulse and action.
Insights
I was extremely introverted, though not shy. I found it difficult to function in crowds and noise, but easy to present a paper in front of an audience. I thought more extensively about social interactions than others seemed to. I craved structure and hated breaking rules. I had sensory sensitivities to things others didn’t notice. I thought in a methodical, detail-oriented way and sometimes took things “too literally,” or missed the joke. My unique combination of strengths and challenges started to become clear.
I found the concept of the Highly Sensitive Person and began implementing what I now see as sensory support for myself. I also changed my career, and began reshaping my life in other ways to better accommodate myself without fully knowing why it worked. And then I started finding the voices of other autistic adults. There it was: my whole experience described in language that I recognized. There was variety and diversity there, as well, but the parallels were clear.
I would not have been open to this new knowledge, nor had the personal insight to recognize it, without my time on the cushion. The overwhelm of living undiagnosed had for a time kept my own nature and needs obscure from me. Yet the act of noticing and returning, time and again, helped me gain the insight needed to pierce through the fog, and supported me through the process of getting a diagnosis.
Do you have experiences with mindfulness, meditation, and autistic self-discovery? Let me know in the comments!
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