My Brain, My Rules: A Teen Girl’s Guide to Autism, Masking, and Shutdowns

What Will You Learn?

• Identify your own early shutdown warning signs and understand what is actually happening in your nervous system when a shutdown begins
• Recognise masking and camouflaging in your own everyday behaviour and name the real cost of performing neurotypicality constantly
• Read your own interoceptive signals - hunger, overwhelm, exhaustion, needing space - before they reach a crisis point
• Explain why autism is so frequently missed, misdiagnosed, or dismissed in girls and see your own experience reflected accurately
• Build a personalised sensory toolkit you can actually use at school, in social situations, and at home
• Apply practical, non-shaming executive function strategies to schoolwork, daily routines, and getting started on hard things
• Protect your social energy in friendships without losing the connections that matter to you
• Recognise autistic burnout early and identify what genuinely helps your specific brain recover