Autistic adults, particularly those diagnosed later in life, often grapple with understanding their experiences through this new lens. Past misunderstandings, misjudgments, and the struggle to integrate one’s true self with external expectations can leave lingering bitterness or confusion. Reflective journalling offers a powerful opportunity to process these challenges.
However, it calls on you to revisit difficult memories and patterns—a step that may feel emotionally overwhelming. You may hesitate to try reflective journalling because it involves confronting emotions and events you’d rather forget. It might seem draining, unproductive, or even painful. Many autistic adults struggle with articulating feelings, which could make the practice seem intimidating or inaccessible.
Nevertheless, in this post, I want to introduce reflective journalling as a transformative practice that can help untangle those past hurts, understand your true identity, and create a more fulfilling life. For autistic individuals, adapting the practice by experimenting with using a notebook and pen, emotion word lists, and pacing strategies will make it more accessible. In this guide, I will aim to motivate you to take the first step.
To start reflective journalling, you can just commit to a small, achievable goal like writing for five minutes a day. Begin with simple prompts like, “What went well today?” or “What am I feeling right now?” Recognise that it’s okay if the process feels awkward at first and you feel dissatisfied with what you write. Over time, consistency will help unlock greater clarity and compassion, producing some important insights into your life.
What Is Reflective Journalling?
Reflective journalling can be defined as the practice of writing about experiences, emotions, and thoughts to gain deeper understanding and insight. Unlike simply keeping a diary, reflective journalling involves actively exploring why events happened, how they impacted you, and what you can learn from them. As an autistic adult, this intentionally structured practice can help decode past interactions, process overwhelm, and reframe experiences with self-compassion.
Reflection means looking back on your experiences, not just describing interactions but also responding to them by writing down what else comes to mind as you recall them. Initially, these may be very hasty reactions judging people and criticising them for not understanding you. However, as you continue to reflect, other thoughts may come to mind, offering different interpretations of the events that reflect your true self.
Writing these interpretations in your journal frees you to express thoughts that you wouldn’t get the opportunity to say, or if you did, there’d be a danger that your initial reactions would be understood negatively. That is why it is important to keep your journal private, so that you are not judged for these unprocessed reactions. Only when you’ve processed these thoughts can you respond to the event with your true feelings.
How Reflective Journalling Helps Autistic Adults
I’ve learnt that reflective journalling offers some unique benefits for autistic individuals, especially those adjusting to a late diagnosis:
Understanding the Past
In reflective journalling, you can write about anything from recent events to early childhood memories. It can help you unpack memories where you were misjudged because of your autistic traits. Knowing your diagnosis, you can now reframe these memories with new clarity and self-compassion.
Processing Emotions
Identifying and naming emotions is challenging for autistic people, but autistic sensitivities mean those emotions may be very strong, and leaving them unprocessed can cause damage. Referring to emotion word lists can help you understand how you felt then and how you feel now about these memories
Building Self-Awareness
By regularly reflecting, you’ll gain a clearer sense of your strengths, especially those related to being autistic. You become more aware of your values. You begin to uncover the authentic identity buried under all the expectations and judgments that have been placed on you over the years.
A personal example that brings these together is that I found journalling about my past meltdowns helped me identify patterns and triggers. I realised that my behaviour wasn’t a character failure, as I had thought, but a natural response to overwhelming situations that I’m learning to prepare for better, if not avoid altogether.
Adapting Reflective Journalling for Autistic Adults
Here are five tips that I would recommend to adapt reflective journalling so that it is more accessible and effective for autistic adults:
1. Start Small
Begin with journalling for just a few minutes every day. Keep it short— you only need to write a few sentences. You can slowly increase this later once you’ve established the routine.
2. Use Prompts
Structured prompts like “What did I learn today?” or “What overwhelmed me, and why?” can provide you with focus. You can write these yourself, search the internet, or even find books of journal prompts.
3. Emotion Word Lists
These are essential for helping pinpoint your feelings when words don’t come easily. They also help you make subtle distinctions between emotions: for example, was I angry, frustrated, or outraged?
4. Handwriting vs. Typing
Many prefer typing on their device. While this might be more accessible for those with motor challenges, if you can handwrite, you’ll find that, because it slows down your writing, it deepens your reflection.
5. Sensory Considerations
Think about where and when you will journal. Choose a calm, comfortable space, free from distractions. Agreeing on a time with family members when you won’t be disturbed can also help.
By tailoring the practice, you create a process that works with your needs rather than against them.
Navigating Emotional Overload While Journalling
Reflective journalling can stir up painful memories and emotions, especially if you’re processing misunderstandings or hurts. As an autistic individual coming to terms with your past, there are some practical steps I’ve discovered that you can take to help you cope with the emotional overwhelm.
Prepare for Emotional Responses
Before beginning, as a safety precaution, you might want to let someone know you’re engaging in this practice and that you’ll find it emotionally challenging. Also, don’t move straight onto taking care of other responsibilities without some decompression time afterward.
Grounding Techniques
There are sensory tools that can be helpful during or when you are decompressing after your journalling, like deep breathing exercises, weighted blankets, or “stim toys” to manage your emotional overwhelm. You might also want to combine it with mindfulness or mantra meditation.
Start with Positives
Begin each session by reflecting on something positive or neutral to ease into difficult topics, gradually creating a more productive mindset. For example, you might find it helpful to jot down a few gratitudes before trying to process a difficult encounter.
One personal example of navigating overload occurred when I was journalling about being overlooked for a position. Initially, I was overwhelmed by a sense of bitterness and negativity. But eventually, using these techniques, I began to see how my strength of perseverance had actually helped me navigate that situation well.
From Self-Reflection to Transformation
The ultimate power of reflective journalling, I’ve realised, lies in the fact that it doesn’t just increase your self-understanding; it also has the ability to guide you towards personal transformation.
Reorganising Thought Patterns
As you write each day with this intention to understand and show compassion, you will find it produces a gradual mind shift. You find your attitudes changing from negativity to positivity, from emotional reactions to carefully measured responses, from bitterness to forgiveness of yourself and others.
Uncovering Your True Self
Over time, the practice will begin to reveal your true self. People may have made judgments about you as being anti-social and uncaring, but your journalling will challenge any internalised shame, revealing the truth—that deep down, you are more compassionate and loving than you realised.
Impacting Relationships
Journalling can lead to seeing your actions more clearly. This self-understanding challenges the judgments you may have internalised, perhaps unconsciously. This, in turn, means that you begin to relate to others with compassion, empathy, and generosity. Small changes in how you respond to situations can ripple outward.
In journalling about misunderstandings with my wife that strained our relationship, I observed that I became more aware of both my own needs and hers. Discussing the triggers that my journalling uncovered led to us both being able to respond with greater kindness.
Reflective journalling is a practice of steady progress and not perfection. Start with small, achievable steps—for example, five minutes a day, using structured prompts—and allow yourself to slowly grow into it. You might want to combine journalling with meditation or grounding techniques to support your emotional regulation. Over time, the process will help you gain greater clarity, self-understanding, and a renewed sense of direction for your life.
Through reflective journalling, you can find your authentic self, who is a compassionate and resilient person, capable of growth and transformation. You begin to view past experiences and challenges not as failures but as opportunities for insight. This practice doesn’t just change you; it transforms your relationships and the way you engage with the world. By reflecting with clarity and compassion, you can find yourself taking steps toward a life of greater meaning, purpose, and connection with others.