Being Perceived, The Morning Show, and Autism Moms

On Navigating Visibility, Self-Doubt, and the Urge to Disappear

How’s that for a headline? And where do we begin? Let’s start with being perceived.

On Being Perceived

Like many Autistic humans, I struggle with being perceived. And when I am perceived, I want a high degree of control over it. (This is why, when I give presentations, I script out every single word and know exactly when I’ll click to the next imagery or the next slide — I’m working on it, trying to get more comfortable with bullet points so I can actually do more presentations.)

I’m also an Enneagram 3, which, for those unfamiliar, means I work through my issues by trying to achieve impressive things. But even that — achieving impressive things — is a way of managing how I’m perceived.

When my social platforms started growing (which I wasn’t expecting), it was exciting at first — like, Oh wow, people think what I have to say is interesting. But it quickly shifted from this is kind of fun to this is overwhelming. PR teams would reach out with, We can help you grow! and my immediate reaction was, But I don’t want to!

So, I put up digital walls. I stopped putting my face on camera. I quiet-quit social media. And it helped — I got my thinking mind back. I started writing personal essays again. My nervous system was no longer in a constant state of shatter.

I redirected my energy into building a community, though even there, I try to balance being present while decentering myself. I like thinking of myself as a writer — someone who thinks and wraps experiences into words — and a community builder. But advocate, content creator, and worst of all, influencer? That feels like too much perceivedness.

The Morning Show & Accommodations

But here’s the thing about modern publishing — especially with the “Big 5” publishers. When you sign up to put your words into the world, you also, to some degree, sign up to be perceived.

So, when my publisher landed a morning news show interview on our local news station, I figured I probably shouldn’t say no. (I’m also working on saying yes to more things that scare me — but in an accommodated way.) I asked for the interview questions in advance, explaining that, as an Autistic person, this would help. Typically, TV interviews don’t provide this, but my publisher's PR person asked anyway.

A day later, she got back to me: One of the producers has an Autistic child and totally understands. Here are the questions.

I was 80% less anxious and did 80% less prep just from having the illusion of certainty. (Accommodations are powerful things.) When the actual interview happened, the host only asked one of the four planned questions, and I had to pivot on the spot. But because I had some sense of what was coming, I was more easily able to adapt.

When I arrived at the studio, I, of course, got visually lost and walked around Portland’s rain-soaked streets twice before finally finding an entrance. The green room wasn’t the most sensory friendly — strong smells, loud voices. The producer, the one with the Autistic child, found me and asked if I wanted a quieter space to sit. She also let me check out the studio beforehand so I could visually map it. She understood my needs before I even had to ask.

Autism Moms & Shifting Perspectives

When I first entered advocacy spaces, I took pride in being an Autistic mom and not an Autism mom. If you know the history of autism advocacy, you’ll understand the divide — Autistic self-advocates have long critiqued Autism Moms (capital A, capital M) for speaking over Autistic people, while some parents feel that Autistic advocates don’t represent their high-support-needs children.

For a while, I played into that divide. I even designed a mug once that crossed out Autism Mom and replaced it with Autistic Mom. Clever. Edgy.

But over the years, my energy has shifted. I’m much more interested in what connects us than what divides us. And this morning at ABC News was a powerful reminder of why.

Because when I was anxious and sensory overloaded, about to do something scary, the person who helped me feel safe was an Autism mom. (I don’t know if she would use that term, but the world probably would.) She understood my needs as an Autistic adult because of her experience with her child.

She also mentioned that my chapter on sleep in The Autistic Burnout Workbook had helped her understand her child’s fatigue — how Autistic people often get less REM sleep. I had helped her understand her child, and her child had helped her understand me.

That’s the autism community at its best — not just the Autistic community, but the broader autism community. Sometimes, that community is fraught. There are painful conflicts, valid frustrations, and real harm. And sometimes, someone who knows and loves an Autistic person ends up being the producer who makes sure you get the accommodations you need when you’re about to do something scary.

The Push and Pull of Visibility

I’m still figuring out how to navigate this season of visibility. I know it’s necessary — for my book, for my work, for the continued sustainability of everything I’ve built. But it’s also deeply uncomfortable.

Part of me wants to vanish into the countryside of some far off country (like Ireland, which is my current escapist fantasy), write in solitude, and only reappear every few years with a new book. The other part of me knows that my livelihood depends on being seen. And as someone whose nervous system reacts to perceivedness like it’s a threat, that’s… a lot.

My OCD likes to whisper things like: You shouldn’t have done that interview. You shouldn’t have shared that story. You shouldn’t have put yourself out there. And yet, the reason I can do this work is because I see the impact. I see people finding language for their experiences, feeling less alone, less broken. I see parents better understanding their kids. I see professionals shifting how they work with Autistic and neurodivergent people.

So I’m holding both truths:

🔹 The discomfort of being seen.
🔹 The reality that my work, at its best, is about helping people see themselves more clearly.

Maybe that’s the tension many of us live in — not just as public-facing people, but as humans.

We want to be known, but we want to be in control of how we’re known. We want connection, but we want to be safe. We want autonomy, but we don’t want to feel alone. We crave authenticity, but we also want to manage how much of ourselves is visible. It’s a constant push and pull — longing for connection while guarding the tender parts of who we are. Maybe that’s why so many of us find comfort in spaces where we can curate our presence, where we can share in ways that feel intentional rather than exposed. Because being perceived is one thing… but being truly seen — that’s another kind of vulnerability altogether.

The Perceivedness Spiral

My OCD and anxiety are having a field day picking apart this interview. I don’t like how puffy my face has gotten from the recent years of illness. There are a few things I wish I’d said differently. But I’ve heard from others that it was a good interview, a powerful interview. And I’m choosing to lean into that versus my own inner critic and share this 6-minute clip with you in case it interests you. My goal for this interview was to highlight not the book, but the importance of awareness around the lost generation and how this information saves lives.

So, I’m sharing it here. 🎤