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This First Person article is the\u00a0experience of Lise Fiola, a Winnipeg writer whose work reveals the realities of life as a woman with late-diagnosed autism. For more information about CBC’s First Person stories, please see\u00a0this FAQ.<\/a>You can read more First Person articles\u00a0here.<\/a> <\/p>\n I spent my lunch breaks alone in my car with a pair of tiny scissors. <\/p>\n I’d pull strands of hair over my shoulder and methodically trim the split ends, one by one. Sometimes I’d spend the entire break doing it. By the time I went back inside, I felt calmer, more settled, as though my nervous system had finally exhaled.<\/p>\n I never told anyone. <\/p>\n I thought it was a bizarre habit that would be impossible to explain. Mostly, I wondered what was wrong with me that I couldn’t get through a workday without hiding in a parking lot to do it.<\/p>\n It wasn’t until I was diagnosed with autism in mid-life that I realized what those lunch breaks really were.<\/p>\n They were regulation.<\/p>\n If you had met me then, you probably wouldn’t have guessed I was autistic. I had a career, raised two children and seemed capable. I smiled at the right moments, made enough eye contact to appear engaged and worked incredibly hard.<\/p>\n What people couldn’t see was how much energy it took to keep that performance going.<\/p>\n Every conversation was mentally rehearsed. Every social interaction required conscious effort. After work, I had little left for my family or myself. I believed everyone found life this exhausting and that I simply wasn’t as good at coping.<\/p>\n We’re women who spent decades appearing capable while quietly paying the price.- Lise Fiola<\/p>\n Like many women my age, autism was never considered when I was growing up. Autism meant little boys with obvious communication differences or repetitive behaviours \u2014 not girls who loved learning, followed the rules and quietly studied other people so they could fit in.<\/p>\n So I became exceptionally good at masking.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, masking works until it doesn’t.<\/p>\n For decades, I pushed through mounting fatigue, sensory overwhelm, chronic pain and brain fog. Doctors investigated individual symptoms, but no one connected them to a nervous system that had been under relentless strain for most of my life.<\/p>\n When I finally received my diagnosis, it explained who I had always been.<\/p>\n The relief was immense.<\/p>\n So was the grief.<\/p>\n I couldn’t stop wondering how different my life might have been if someone had recognized autism in girls who looked like me.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1785092297_838_default.jpg\")
Like other women with undiagnosed autism, Fiola says she would hide her internal struggles from others. ‘From the outside, we looked fine,’ she writes. (Submitted by Lise Fiola)<\/p>\n