There’s a moment when you stop fighting it. Stop holding your breath, tightening your jaw, and pretending you’re not feeling all of it. The waves of emotion you’ve been keeping at bay for years—decades, even—finally break, and instead of drowning, you realize something unexpected.
You’re still here.
For so long, you’ve convinced yourself that you couldn’t handle the intensity of your own feelings. That if you let them out even for a second, they’d consume you.
So you stayed composed. You stayed in control. And yet, that nagging sense of disconnection—of watching life happen from behind a wall of numbness—never left.
But one day, something shifts. Maybe it’s a song, or a quiet minute alone, but you let yourself feel it. Not just the big emotions like happiness or grief, but the subtle ones too—the frustration, the boredom, the joy that comes without warning.
And it doesn’t break you.
In fact, you find a strange kind of peace in the middle of it all. The world doesn’t end because you cried, laughed, or screamed. It goes on, and so do you . . . perhaps lighter, freer than before.
Because in that moment, you learn that feeling deeply isn’t a weakness. It’s your humanity.
And letting yourself feel? That’s where the real strength lies.
— Autistic Ang
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Always thought if I felt it, I would never stop crying. Therapy has helped. Thanks so much for sharing this!!
Wow! I'm going to be sitting with this one for a while. It's one of the many posts of yours that makes me want to ask, "Are you actually right here INSIDE my head??" I feel every line of this and though I've done a LOT of processing over the last couple of years and know how important it is to feel my feelings...I still want to run away from them so often. They can feel so scary and overwhelming. Thank you for helping me see I'm not alone. :)