I Am Not Calm is a safe space set up by Amanda Nicholson, for autistic people to share their experiences.
We are now looking for submissions. Here are the details:
· No closing date.
· Flexible word count between 500 and 1000 words, but if you need to say more, say more.
· Send your personal essays and non-fiction to amanda@writer.co.site
· We can’t pay, but will give all published contributors a three-month subscription to the page.
· Please state whether you want your work to be available to free subscribers (so anyone can read it) or behind a paywall (this limits who sees it to paid subscribers and those who have already contributed.)
· If you have any questions, just ask.
while I understand you're sharing your personal experiences, I have to be honest: nothing in any of your article clearly points to autism. What you described sounds more like social anxiety, introversion, or struggles with self-esteem — things many people experience, neurodivergent or not.
Autism isn't about feeling left out or not clicking with people. It's a developmental condition with neurological differences that affect communication, sensory processing, routines, and social understanding from early life. You didn’t mention any of those core traits — no sensory sensitivities, no developmental differences, no communication challenges in the way autism typically presents.
Realising you relate to a poem or feeling different doesn't equal a diagnosis. A lot of people feel awkward socially or struggle with friendships — that doesn’t automatically mean they're autistic.
I think claiming this identity without a solid grounding in the actual traits or history risks diluting what autism really is — and that affects people who genuinely live with it..