Strong Female Character

Alexithymia is a psychiatric term for emotional blindness. This condition is characterized by an individual having significant difficulty identifying and engaging with their own emotions. While it corresponds at a high rate with autism, not all individuals with autism are alexithymic and not all alexithymic individuals have autism. Brady identifies herself as alexithymic but asserts that she doesn’t know if her alexithymia is solely linked to autism, tying the condition to her traumatic experiences as a teen and young adult.

Autism Spectrum Disorder, referred to commonly as autism, is a neurodevelopmental condition that affects at least 1% of the global population (in the United States, it affects one in every thirty-six children, and numbers vary by country). While symptoms of autism vary greatly by individual, it is generally characterized by difficulty with socialization and communication, high sensitivity to sensory stimuli, and rigid behavioral patterns. While autism has historically been labeled a “disorder” by the medical field, the modern autistic acceptance movement has challenged that negative label, positing that autism is simply part of the human species’ natural neurodiversity.

Autistic masking, often referred to simply as masking, is a social survival tactic frequently employed by people with autism (either consciously or subconsciously) in which typically autistic behaviors are suppressed in order to emulate allistic people. Common examples of masking include forcing eye contact even when it feels unnatural, scripting conversations ahead of time, and repressing enthusiasm about intense interests. While masking helps many people with autism to do crucial things like getting jobs and making friends, it is a behavior that is immensely draining and can contribute to many negative mental health outcomes. Masking is associated with anxiety, depression, burnout, and suicidality. This is an association that Brady attests to, writing that as soon as she began to deconstruct the decades’ worth of masking behaviors she had learned prior to diagnosis, the frequency and intensity of her meltdowns decreased, and her mental health generally improved.

While the term “meltdown” can refer to a wide range of experiences for different kinds of people, it has a very specific meaning within the context of autism. Autistic meltdowns are extreme, frequently uncontrollable, physical responses to overwhelm. Not all people with autism experience these meltdowns, and those who do have varying triggers and manifestations. Brady writes about her meltdowns extensively in Strong Female Character, and hers tend to entail destructive aggression towards inanimate objects, like walls and furniture. She emphasizes that there is immense social stigma associated with her particular form of meltdown because they appear violent to non-autistic people who do not understand the uncontrollable nature of autistic meltdowns.

Proprioception is a scientific term used to describe a person’s sense of their own body in relation to the outside world, including understanding of position, movement, and force. People with autism often have chronically impaired proprioception and can therefore struggle with regulating their own movements. This impairment is what has led to the popular misconception of people with autism as “clumsy,” a stereotype that Brady challenges in Strong Female Character.